Fast Company discusses Bill Gates-backed founder Bill Gross has a plan to save the world from fossil fuels. For inventing Heliogen, a sustainable alternative to using fossil fuels for industrial heating, Bill Gross is one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People of 2020. Bill Gross, the founder of tech incubator Idealab and a lifelong solar energy pioneer, Gross had a major breakthrough last fall when he demonstrated that solar power generated through his Heliogen system could substitute for the fossil fuels used in industrial processes, which currently contribute about 20% of the world’s greenhouse gases annually. His Bill Gates-backed company uses precisely controlled mirrors to turn sunlight into a superhot beam (like a giant magnifying glass) that can reach temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius—hot enough to manufacture cement, steel, and other industrial materials.