Bio

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltlin/

Mike Lin is an investor, engineer, and serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in design thinking, startups, and venture capital. Mike is a Lecturer at Stanford's Doerr School of Sustainability, where he teaches SUST 234: Integrative Design and Entrepreneurship for Sustainability.

Mike is also co-founder and General Partner at Dangerous Ventures. Dangerous invests in early-stage startups building a more sustainable and resilient future. Dangerous focuses on scalable systems-transforming solutions that empower people, the planet, and society to be more resilient and thrive in a rapidly changing environment.

Prior to working in venture capital, he was Founder and CEO of Fenix International, a renewable energy and fintech startup that currently powers over 15.5 million people across nine countries. He raised over $45M in venture capital and venture debt, developed patented energy technologies, and forged strategic partnerships with Google and the world’s largest mobile telecoms, including Vodafone, Orange, and MTN, to deliver life-changing energy to frontier markets. Fenix grew to over 350 employees and was successfully acquired in April 2018 by Engie, one of the world’s largest utilities.

Mike believes that business can be a vehicle for positive change, combining his passion for social and environmental prosperity with design thinking, business strategy, and new product development. He is a serial entrepreneur and worked at Makani Power (acquired by Google) and Squid Labs, a startup studio (Instructables, acquired by Autodesk). He has worked with Apple on climate change and environmental technologies, Al Gore on the “Inconvenient Truth” presentation, and lectured on green design and entrepreneurship at Stanford and Yale.

Mike has six patents, has received over $1.7M in grants from the US Environmental Protection Agency and UK Government, awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, Aspen Institute, BusinessWeek, and Popular Science, and has been featured in The New York Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, Wired, The Guardian, and others. Mike earned an MS and BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

He is an Eagle Scout, a champion Junior Olympic Archer, and co-founder of the Stanford University Archery team. He enjoys spending time with his family outdoors, mountain biking, growing food, and cooking over an open fire.

Academic Appointments

  • Lecturer, Change Leadership for Sustainability

Contact

  • Academic
    michael.lin@stanford.edu
    University - Other Teaching/Research Department: Change Leadership for Sustainability Position: Lecturer

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 2210
  • Other Names:
    Michael Lin

Current Research and Scholarly Interests

Signaling pathways regulating protein synthesis in synaptic plasticity

2025-26 Courses