America Has A Steel Start-Up. Yes, Really - EP 47 Laureen Meroueh

**Laureen Meroueh** (0:00)
We are the first in the world to make steel in a single step. What does that mean? It means you're not only making your iron from ore in that step, but you're also tuning the carbon content of the steel, because steel is typically iron plus carbon. And we do that by harnessing electric arcs for heating. And that's actually where our company name is from, and I can explain that in a moment. And we harness instead of solids like coal or coke, we harness gasses as the reducing agent. By harnessing a gas, it means you can use natural gas. And natural gas in the US is so much cheaper than metallurgical coal, it's a no-brainer. Now, that wasn't always true, so it's not like, why wasn't this invented 100 years ago? It's really only in the last 15 to 20 years that the natural gas boom took off, right?

**Ashlee Vance** (0:50)
From fracking.

**Laureen Meroueh** (0:51)
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**Ashlee Vance** (1:39)
Laureen Meroueh, thank you for joining us.

**Laureen Meroueh** (1:42)
Thank you for having me, Ashlee.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:44)
You're the, are you the founder or are you a co-founder?

**Laureen Meroueh** (1:48)
I'm the founder.

**Ashlee Vance** (1:48)
The founder of Hertha Metals. And just so people know where we're going to head, you're making steel. And I think you're the first female steel magnates company founder ever.

**Laureen Meroueh** (2:03)
I'm the first female inventor and founder in the steel industry.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:07)
Right. That is, that is, that is, I guess, like, I guess surprising and not, I don't know, sad and not. Yeah. I mean, the same.

**Laureen Meroueh** (2:14)
I don't know how to feel about it. It's, it's, it's an honor, but surprising and, and, you know, there have been amazing women before me in the steel industry. So I'm proud to be building off of what they've done and lead the way to show that, you know, anyone can invent a steel making technology and scale that up.

**Ashlee Vance** (2:34)
Well, we'll get into whether anyone could do. Your background is quite impressive. But you know, so, so most of the time on this podcast, a lot of it is people I know through the years and I just want to have on the show. And you know, we have not met before. I have to confess, I know very little about the steel industry, but that seemed like a great excuse.
Because I have to give credit to your PR team, because I usually, like I'm saying, I mostly go off my network or just people I want to talk to. But yes, this pitch came in and they sent me some videos of what you guys, I assumed they were renders when I first saw them, because I saw this molten metal. But I saw a startup and I've covered hard tech for a long time. It's my favorite thing to cover, but I always know it takes forever. It's very hard to do. I was skeptical that this company I hadn't heard of was at this stage. Anyway, it intrigued me. Then your backstory was fascinating. Yeah, they did their job. Here we are. I hope that the listeners and I can understand a bit more about steel where the US fits and this technology. I'm going to stop rambling in a second, but I do want to give people just a little background on you.
I think you did all the way from your undergrad through PhD at MIT.

**Laureen Meroueh** (4:01)
Graduate school.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:02)
Graduate school. Where did you do your undergrad? I messed that up.

**Laureen Meroueh** (4:06)
Primarily, University of Florida.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:07)
Okay.

**Laureen Meroueh** (4:08)
Best engineering school in Florida. One of the top in the nation as well.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:13)
But you ended up with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from MIT. Then you have this track record of not just research, but turning research into actionable ideas and obviously startups. I mean, this is your second startup.

**Laureen Meroueh** (4:33)
Third.

**Ashlee Vance** (4:34)
Third. Okay. Have I gotten all this right so far? Tell us just a little bit about your background. Are you from Florida?