Spring 2010
More with Vinod Khosla
- POST: Is it a failure of products or a failure of public perception
or public will that renewable technologies have received so little
attention until now?
- Vinod Khosla (VK): I’d say it’s a little of both. On the one hand, climate change
didn’t really enter the public perception as an issue until the last
few years and with it the desire to do something. Solar power has
been around in some form for 100 years. But today, renewable
technology has the advantage of being in the public forefront and
attracting topnotch talent, people who ten years ago would have
joined an internet startup. So we just need to be patient
and work on the technologies that will change all our assumptions.
- POST: You’ve been successful raising an astounding amount of money
for new venture capital funds. What advice might you give about how to raise money when the return is to the environment rather than cash to the investor?
- VK: I’ve always maintained that for cleantech (or maintech) to succeed, it has to be about
economics, not good wishes. We would not make an investment if we did not think it could be market competitive, without subsidies. Environmentalists should understand that pushing any technology that does not meet the laws of economic gravity will not ultimately win or scale.
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