About this episode
On this week’s episode of Silicon Valley Impact, we speak with Daniel Idzkowski, a Founder, Funder, Inventor; and inventor of SKUNKLOCK, a $1B+ deterrent lock industry for carbon neutrality. He is also working toward precision portfolio hedging for the 99% to help reduce economic inequality. Daniel also invented in-bottle aging to stop deforestation. Also on the show are Michael Hoy and Clay Minor, Co-Founders at Atlas. Atlas makes it easy to own your monetization—no more patching together tools or hiring pricey consultants. Atlas combines product analytics and billing data so you can launch pricing models fast, track what’s working, and turn revenue into a real growth engine. Pricing shouldn’t be an afterthought—it should lead the way.
Daniel Idzkowski, an entrepreneur, investor, and inventor, measures success by millions of people positively impacted, focusing primarily on supporting deep tech companies tackling existential challenges. Sidepocket Financial, one of his largest portfolio companies, developed new foundational models for asset allocation, replacing 70-year-old antiquated models available to retail investors. His invention, SKUNKLOCK—the first bike lock that fights back—sparked a billion-dollar industry and prevented over 1 million tons of carbon emissions. As a family office investor via the IDIT Family Office, he supports dozens of innovative entrepreneurs. He lives by simple but powerful principles: lead with value, take on hard problems, and when in doubt, get more data.
Michael Hoy is a repeat founder and former early Pendo executive who helped scale the company from under $1M in revenue to a $2B+ valuation. During his decade at Pendo, he built core functions including ops, enablement, EMEA GTM, and Pendo for Startups. Before that, he launched several startups—one of which, BoomboxFM, grew to 200,000 active users. Today, he’s building Atlas, a monetization copilot for AI founders. Atlas helps product builders launch pricing models, paywalls, and strategy—fast—so they don’t lose momentum figuring out how to make money.
Clay Minor is the Co-Founder of Atlas, a platform reimagining software monetization for the AI era. With over a decade of experience leading sales engineering and go-to-market teams at high-growth SaaS companies—including a key leadership role at Pendo—Clay has helped scale product-led growth from startup to global enterprise. Before co-founding Atlas, he built and led GTM strategy, sales enablement, and value engineering at Pendo as it grew into a multi-billion-dollar company. A former engineer turned revenue leader, Clay blends deep technical insight with a sharp focus on customer value. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and is based in Santa Barbara, CA.
This and much more on Silicon Valley Impact!
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