Founders Opower was founded in 2007 in
Arlington, Virginia by two
Harvard University graduates, Dan Yates and Alex Laskey. The two partners met as first-year students at
Lowell House at Harvard and later reconnected while living in San Francisco. In the book there was conclusive evidence that "
social proof" (part of
nudge theory) worked, a concept grounded in the principle of
normative social behavior you could behaviorally influence others. Yates and Laskey realized that at the time, the energy market was focused on new technologies, and by applying information services, the market could be disrupted.
President Obama's visit (2010) President Barack Obama visited Opower headquarters in
Arlington on March 5, 2010. He touted the company as an economic "success story" amid a troubled economy and as a "great emblem" for
clean energy jobs. During the visit, Obama said the company's growth is "a model of what we want to be seeing all across the country." He made the visit two months after announcing a "$2.3 billion program" of tax credits for "
green jobs." "The work you do here...is making homes more energy efficient, it's saving people money, it's generating jobs, and it's putting America on the path to a clean energy future", Obama said at Opower. The White House released a video of Obama's appearance.
Later work In July 2010, Opower opened a second office in
San Francisco and had Fred Butler, a former president of the
National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and commissioner of the
New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, join its advisory board. On September 1, 2010, the
World Economic Forum announced the company as a
Technology Pioneer for 2011. In November 2010, the company announced its third round of
venture capital funding, a $50 million investment led by
Accel Partners and
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, to accelerate its expansion. In 2012, Opower launched a popular data blog—called the
Outlier—which presented statistical analysis of the company's energy data storehouse, spanning more than 50 million households worldwide. Several analyses attracted mainstream news coverage, including the impact of the
Super Bowl on America's energy use, the electricity usage patterns of electric car owners, and variation in the compass orientation of
rooftop solar panels. In 2013, Opower added former utility CEOs John Rowe and Dick Kelly, and former White House Director,
Carol Browner, to its advisory board. Tom Brady, former chairman of
BGE, was named chairman of the advisory board. Opower held its
initial public offering on April 4, 2014. On May 2, 2016, Opower announced that it was being acquired by
Oracle for $532 million. == Science and technology ==