About Me
About Me
Hi, I’m Nicholas Johnson. I’m an electrical engineer and computer scientist by training and a founder by accident, someone who’s spent the last decade learning by building, shipping, breaking things, fixing them, and doing it all again.
I didn’t start out trying to collect titles. I started by wanting to solve problems that felt real and consequential. That path took me through energy, mobility, AI, and infrastructure, where I’ve worked as a founding engineer, CTO, and eventually CEO. Along the way, I’ve built whole systems end-to-end—hardware and firmware, cloud platforms, mobile apps, and the messy connective tissue that turns prototypes into products people actually rely on.
Most of my credibility comes from doing the work. I’m at my best when things are hard, ambiguous, or moving too slowly—when progress requires rolling up sleeves, making decisions with incomplete information, and pushing through real constraints. I’m comfortable living in the details, taking responsibility, and staying with problems long enough to actually finish them.
I’ve also experienced the less glamorous parts of building companies: slow decisions, unclear priorities, team tension, board pressure, and the cost of getting things wrong. Those experiences shaped how I think today. They taught me that momentum isn’t created by clever ideas alone—it comes from sustained execution, ownership, and the willingness to engage directly with uncomfortable problems.
This blog is a place for me to write honestly about what I’ve learned—what worked, what didn’t, and how building technology is as much about people and incentives as it is about code and systems. If you’re building something ambitious, or just trying to understand how complex products and teams actually come together in the real world, I hope something here is useful.
I’m currently building and experimenting through Zesty Labs, where I work on new ideas at the intersection of software, systems, and energy:
https://zestylabs.org
If any of this resonates, I’m always glad to connect.
Experience
Baukunst Collective
Part Of A Collection Of Creative Technologists
Part Of A Collection Of Creative Technologists Advancing The Art Of Building At The Forefront Of Technology And Design. Working With Select Practitioners To Advise Founders, Support Company Building, And Promote Collaborative Learning.
Orange
Founder & CEO — Now Board Member
Founded and led Orange, a full-stack EV charging company focused on making charging viable at multi-family properties. Built the company from early concept through national deployments, owning product, hardware, software, manufacturing, and go-to-market. Raised capital, built and led the team, navigated regulatory and utility complexity, and scaled the platform into real-world operation. Now serve as a board member.
LYT
Founder & CEO — Past Board Member
Built an AI-powered cloud-based travel signal priority system using real-time data to minimize bus delays. Created the foundation for traffic management systems that optimize regional traffic signals. Current products are AI-based transit signal priority and emergency preemption without hardware in the field.
Tesla
Electrical Engineer
Worked on the control and thermal systems team, designing and supporting vehicle programs from development through testing. Owned control and thermal hardware for test setups, collaborated closely with cross-functional teams, and designed thermal systems that were validated and produced at mass production scale.
