WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:07.560 Well, hi everybody, welcome to daily source code episode number 522, still coming to you 00:07.560 --> 00:14.200 from the box laden curry cottage, soon to be the formerly the former kind, I got to come 00:14.200 --> 00:18.200 up with that sentence, soon to be our ex-coated, let's put it that way, it's Sunday 00:18.200 --> 00:19.200 afternoon. 00:19.200 --> 00:25.480 And oh, by the way, I'm calling this episode 522, I realized I made kind of a rookie mistake. 00:25.480 --> 00:29.920 And you changed the nomenclature of your podcast. 00:29.920 --> 00:34.000 So I, instead of doing the episode number and DSE in the date sequence, I was putting 00:34.000 --> 00:39.760 a BOC in the BOC number in there, that really messes up a lot of different players, who 00:39.760 --> 00:43.080 do list shows and alphabetical order. 00:43.080 --> 00:48.400 And so I'm just going to turn it back to the episode numbering that I've been using. 00:48.400 --> 00:52.800 Also, since I am putting original content, even in the best of Charlie's, I guess they 00:52.800 --> 00:57.160 kind of qualify as a regular daily source code. 00:57.160 --> 01:01.440 So part of the advantage of moving house, and as you know, we're in the middle of that, 01:01.440 --> 01:04.440 we have the new house, we're slowly building stuff up. 01:04.440 --> 01:09.280 You, of course, you start with the curtains, I've learned that over the years, after painting 01:09.280 --> 01:15.480 the kitchen, you know, then you kind of start to move over the glassware and you want 01:15.480 --> 01:17.000 to do most of that stuff yourself. 01:17.000 --> 01:20.200 And then by Wednesday, the movers are coming and all the heavy lifting is going to be 01:20.200 --> 01:23.800 done, but they're still going to keep the podcast console here until Thursday. 01:23.800 --> 01:27.000 And when they bring that over, then of course, will officially have been moved into the 01:27.000 --> 01:30.480 new dwelling, the new cottage. 01:30.480 --> 01:36.400 So as I go through draws and draws of stuff, which, of course, is stuff, if it's your 01:36.400 --> 01:38.120 stuff, it's shit. 01:38.120 --> 01:40.280 My shit is my stuff. 01:40.280 --> 01:45.160 Now, looking at gadgets and basically making evaluations, whether I should throw something 01:45.160 --> 01:51.200 out, put together big box of stuff to sell on eBay, or, of course, save it. 01:51.200 --> 01:55.480 And a lot of the stuff, as you can imagine, still winds up in the to be saved pile. 01:55.480 --> 02:05.440 So to my power book, G4, which you know, I, excuse me, I switched over to Windows platform 02:05.440 --> 02:10.400 after my third power book in as many years, bit the dust, and it had to be sent off 02:10.400 --> 02:11.400 to Apple. 02:11.400 --> 02:16.160 Several months for it to be returned, probably almost three months, and it came back 02:16.160 --> 02:20.880 and the battery was to hose, so I had never really got back to using it, but I, I cracked 02:20.880 --> 02:27.000 it open today in my evaluation process and realized that in garage band was the, about 02:27.000 --> 02:34.000 8% complete edit of a podcast I did in interview with Ray Lane and John Doer and Bill 02:34.000 --> 02:40.200 Joy from cleaner Perkins, the world renowned investment firm, Bill Joy, of course, known 02:40.200 --> 02:47.200 for founding, a co-founding son Microsystems, Ray Lane known for a number of backgrounds, 02:47.200 --> 02:52.840 including, of course, the, being president of Oracle Corporation and John Doer, one of the 02:52.840 --> 02:56.000 most famous venture capitalists in the business. 02:56.000 --> 03:00.640 And at the time, and I'm not quite sure of the date, because the date stamps are all over 03:00.640 --> 03:01.640 the place in Garage Band. 03:01.640 --> 03:04.200 I can't really figure out when it was recorded. 03:04.200 --> 03:09.640 It was done via Skype and, and a phone bridge, it was in the summer, because I do 03:09.640 --> 03:13.320 remember recording it and being very hot and actually during the interview, I was taking 03:13.320 --> 03:17.640 off my shirts down there in my wife, Peter, while the conversation was going on, but it 03:17.640 --> 03:26.920 was timed with the release of an announcement by Cliner Perkins that they had made a fund, 03:26.920 --> 03:29.120 which was available for $100 million. 03:29.120 --> 03:34.560 By now, I believe that has been doubled to $200 million, called the green tech fund. 03:34.560 --> 03:40.080 And that means that this money is going to be invested in, quote, green technologies. 03:40.080 --> 03:45.600 Now, of course, I was, at the time, I was very into Trinity, biodiesel, and I wanted to 03:45.600 --> 03:49.600 know a lot more about what these guys who, without a doubt, are gentlemen who can make 03:49.600 --> 03:54.640 the earth move and have done so in the past, their big players, in big money and make 03:54.640 --> 03:57.520 a lot of things happen. 03:57.520 --> 04:02.600 How they were going to approach, filling out this, spending this money essentially, 04:02.680 --> 04:08.440 what they were going to spend it on and what they see as the trends and clearly global warming 04:08.440 --> 04:15.240 and the price of oil and or even the availability of oil are making these initiatives 04:15.240 --> 04:16.840 very, very important. 04:16.840 --> 04:24.040 Now, what you'll learn, as you listen to this interview, which, by the way, I was not paid to 04:24.040 --> 04:29.480 do, it was at my request, it will sound a bit like a commercial for Cliner Perkins, 04:29.560 --> 04:33.800 but not in the way you might expect, if you listen all the way to the end, it's just shy 04:33.800 --> 04:40.360 of 29 minutes, but it really gives an interesting insight into how Cliner Perkins, at least, 04:40.360 --> 04:46.440 is venture capital firm operates and what they're looking in and even how you can approach them. 04:48.440 --> 04:54.440 Of course, I have to disclose that Cliner Perkins is an investor in Pod Show, but as you 04:54.440 --> 05:00.200 listen to it, I think it'll become clear that there's no real benefit to me doing this other than 05:00.200 --> 05:06.680 keeping the relationship going with these guys, which I value immensely, but listen to how they 05:06.680 --> 05:12.840 approach problems, how they approach companies ideas, and how they approach the world, I think 05:12.840 --> 05:18.840 you, I think you'll get a kick out of it. So, oh yeah, I even did the whole corporate intro thing 05:18.840 --> 05:23.000 just to make it sound really cool, like big brewing voice here, ladies and gentlemen, 05:23.800 --> 05:29.720 Ray Lane, John Dore, Bill Joy of Cliner Perkins about the Green Tech Fund on the Charney. 05:35.320 --> 05:40.200 Maybe, I don't know who wants to, you know, who wants to kind of get it going, but 05:41.400 --> 05:47.640 the most logical place to start, I feel, is with the announcement of the the most recent fund, 05:47.640 --> 05:52.920 which is fund number 12, I believe, and then we can, I don't know, John, or Ray, if you want to 05:52.920 --> 05:58.120 pick that up and just explain exactly, you know, what this 100 million Green Tech initiative is, 05:58.120 --> 05:59.720 and then we can kind of take it from there. 06:00.920 --> 06:07.080 Glad you asked, Cliner Perkins, Prof. Bill Dan Buyers, is in the relationship and venture 06:07.080 --> 06:12.360 capital business, which means we're helping entrepreneurs, innovators, scientists, doctors, 06:13.320 --> 06:17.640 those who want to do more than anyone, things possible with less than anything, 06:17.640 --> 06:22.040 less than anyone, things possible, literally to go out and change the world to 06:22.840 --> 06:33.240 realize of dreams and their ambitions. And we've been doing this now since 1972, and so the latest 06:33.240 --> 06:38.600 of our funds, our venture capital funds, Cliner Perkins, Coffield and Buyers number 12, 06:39.080 --> 06:46.600 really the first in which we have earmarked money for a very important and exciting area, namely 06:46.600 --> 06:55.400 that of what we call green technologies, ways to address some of the largest needs and economic 06:55.400 --> 07:03.080 opportunity on the planet. It seems like the venture capital business is, if anything really a business 07:03.080 --> 07:09.160 of timing and understanding of timing. So when I read an announcement like this and certainly a 07:09.160 --> 07:13.560 dollar figure of $100 million, which 100 million of anything is quite impressive, 07:14.360 --> 07:21.560 is it now time has the, have alternative fuels and biotechnology's finally reached the tipping 07:21.560 --> 07:26.360 point where this is really a forge ahead, a leapfrog, if you will? 07:27.080 --> 07:34.920 Well, it's quite clear there's a market need in $60 a barrel oil, it speaks of large and expensive 07:34.920 --> 07:42.920 volumes, but there's also important technological advances and I think Ray Lane, my partners on 07:42.920 --> 07:48.200 this conversation with us, as is Bill Joy, and I think Bill would be particularly good at speaking 07:48.200 --> 07:53.800 to those. Before Bill does that, sorry, Bill, let me just kind of add to what John said about 07:54.360 --> 08:01.240 it before we go into the technology. You know, the venture business is one where its success is 08:01.240 --> 08:10.600 driven by seeing trends, seeing paths before other see them because of technological developments. 08:11.160 --> 08:19.640 And so this focus on green tech is similar to other trends we've seen in the past, 08:19.720 --> 08:24.520 such as the internet or the semiconductor industry or the enterprise software industry and 08:24.520 --> 08:30.040 the development of various trends within it. And this is a major initiative as most of our funds have 08:30.040 --> 08:35.960 been have been focused on major initiatives that we develop a perspective around 08:35.960 --> 08:42.840 developed deep expertise on so that we can make smart investments in. And we think the timing is such 08:42.840 --> 08:49.560 that the technology is at a point, you know, most technological developments over the last several 08:49.560 --> 08:56.760 hundred years have gone through a predictable shape or curve where early adopters, you know, 08:56.760 --> 09:03.480 we can actually see where the cost per unit of output, no matter what it is, whether it is 09:04.040 --> 09:13.160 more law in the computer business or its metcast law or other laws in the networking business, 09:13.160 --> 09:20.440 but various or go back a hundred years and and look at the amount of output and factories 09:20.440 --> 09:26.760 and different core methodologies. But when we can see the shape of that curve before it has been 09:26.760 --> 09:33.560 adopted and we can see the productivity will be an order of magnitude better than its predecessor 09:33.560 --> 09:39.800 technology. And we think that is the right time to focus on it. And we can certainly see that 09:40.200 --> 09:43.720 in the green tech initiative now. Bill, do you want to add to that? 09:44.440 --> 09:52.600 Basically green tech involves consumption and production of resources and whether electricity or 09:53.080 --> 10:01.240 or water or food and this largely involves chemistry, I mean electric chemistry and batteries, 10:01.240 --> 10:08.520 this chemical reaction or making making clean water from dirty water is to separate molecules. 10:08.520 --> 10:15.160 And what's happened is that advanced technology has reached the point now where we can begin to 10:15.160 --> 10:20.200 change and design things at the scales to do better than we could with the kind of crude chemistry 10:20.200 --> 10:26.760 we did in the past. So we can genetically engineer organisms to clean things up or we can 10:26.760 --> 10:33.000 engineer new materials to make resource-oriented processes more efficient. So we suddenly have the 10:33.000 --> 10:38.440 opportunity to make the kind of large factor improvements that will make a real change in the world. 10:38.520 --> 10:44.440 And these industries that have been frozen out of very slow rate of advance are to no rate of 10:44.440 --> 10:52.520 advance for a very long time. The announcement of the investments you want to make came 10:53.320 --> 11:00.760 very close to the to the state of the union with President Bush. I presume it started to hit 11:00.760 --> 11:09.640 hard on his own legacy but really laid in about the U.S.'s addiction to oils, particularly foreign oil. 11:09.640 --> 11:14.040 Is that something that you knew was coming? Is that purely coincidence? Is it all just things 11:14.040 --> 11:22.680 coming together at the right time? Is it for real? Is the government on the same pages as you are? 11:22.680 --> 11:26.360 Well, I think the amount of money that the government is investing in the series 11:26.360 --> 11:33.880 is not up to the challenge and hope that it increases. We certainly come at this from 11:33.880 --> 11:40.040 separate paths but whether you're looking at this glasses half empty or half full, I think you 11:40.040 --> 11:47.240 have to say that until this point in time we've been as a country and as a state as a world in 11:47.240 --> 11:55.640 trouble with respect to energy innovation. And as we look around whether it's with the initiatives 11:55.640 --> 12:02.520 that Governor Schwarzenegger has launched in California or President Bush for the United States, 12:02.520 --> 12:11.240 being green, embracing green, sustainable technologies is without a doubt the most tough-minded 12:11.240 --> 12:18.680 and geostrategic and pro-growth and Tom Friedman would say even patriotic thing that can be done. 12:18.760 --> 12:24.120 It used to be that being green were the things Sissis would do the sort of hugging 12:25.160 --> 12:29.800 liberals, but the government, the frog would disagree with that. And Tom Friedman would disagree, 12:29.800 --> 12:39.240 but all of a sudden to find a way to win the world from $60 a barrel oil that's going to 12:40.760 --> 12:48.600 fuel radical Islamic regimes in the Middle East and is more than a matter of smart economic 12:49.480 --> 12:59.880 it's a matter of worldwide stability and sustainability. All the experts now agree that 13:00.680 --> 13:07.720 there is a serious climate crisis underway in the form of global warming. And so we need real 13:07.720 --> 13:14.840 innovation and incentives for innovations in renewable energy, wind, solar, biofuels, 13:15.720 --> 13:24.280 clean water, clean transportation, increased conservation. And we've seen European nations because 13:24.280 --> 13:29.640 of their higher energy prices take the lead in this regard, but the largest consumer both in 13:29.640 --> 13:35.880 an absolute sense in per capita is the United States of America here in North America. And historically 13:35.880 --> 13:41.480 America has been one of the world's great innovators. So I think the way to look at this green 13:41.480 --> 13:46.760 glass half full is that it's a great area for entrepreneurs and innovators to go make a difference. 13:46.760 --> 13:52.760 And I think the big difference now versus 20 years ago because we're certainly a lot of venture 13:52.760 --> 13:57.960 capital sloshing around 20 years ago and 10 years ago. The difference now is that we can see 13:58.760 --> 14:07.800 a cheaper cleaner, better ways to provide energy. And so we know as I said the beginning of this 14:07.960 --> 14:15.400 podcast, we know the shape of these curves and economic curves. And once we know the shape 14:15.400 --> 14:19.880 and we know that there's going to be an order of magnitude improvement, then that's the time to 14:19.880 --> 14:24.520 push the go button. That's the time to start investing in these entrepreneurs. We're not afraid 14:24.520 --> 14:28.280 of the things that are technically difficult. People come out all the time with business funds. We have 14:28.280 --> 14:33.160 trouble understanding. We look in the encyclopedia. We look in the textbook. They've got some new 14:33.160 --> 14:36.600 science. They've got some new technology. They're doing something in a different way than it's been 14:36.600 --> 14:41.960 done before. It challenges existing order. Sometimes it challenges the limits of our understanding. 14:41.960 --> 14:45.720 We're not afraid of that. It doesn't mean we're not going to vet it. We're going to get experts to 14:45.720 --> 14:51.000 come in. We need to have credibility in the new idea. But the fact that it's hard and the fact that 14:51.000 --> 14:54.840 it hasn't been done before is often the thing that feels the big opportunity to solve these big 14:54.840 --> 14:59.240 problems. And so we thrive on that. Those are the kind of business plans we want to see the big 14:59.240 --> 15:03.400 change the world kind of plans. But I think we're sitting on standstill road for many years and you're 15:03.400 --> 15:07.800 seeing this dot com and that dot com and this semiconductor company. That's the semiconductor company. 15:07.800 --> 15:11.800 And all of a sudden you started to see, I have a new way of cleaning water. I have a new way of 15:11.800 --> 15:18.520 remediating this waste. I have a new way of taking a fuel cell and making energy much more efficiently 15:18.520 --> 15:24.200 and cleanly. And we suddenly start to see, not just one, but a drum beat of these kinds of 15:24.200 --> 15:29.000 innovations coming along. You realize the game's a foot. It's not just because there's a need. 15:29.080 --> 15:34.440 It's because technology is providing an opportunity to do transformative businesses like 15:34.440 --> 15:39.400 Netscape and Amazon and Google and to Nentech and Lotus and Compact. We're in their time 15:40.760 --> 15:45.720 for their problem. This is a new time in a new problem. And these businesses are going to happen 15:45.720 --> 15:50.680 now because the technology end the need are coming together at the same time. We're very fortunate that 15:50.680 --> 15:56.120 that's true. How do you even contemplate doing diligence on all these opportunities? 15:56.120 --> 16:00.760 You know, what kind of resources do you need to bring in to find out what has potential? 16:00.760 --> 16:07.800 Well, we'd like to be involved in a industry at its very beginning. It's always better to back the 16:07.800 --> 16:14.760 number one or number two player than the 10th or 11th. And so the partnership since the beginning 16:14.760 --> 16:21.960 of the biotechnology industry, the distributed affordable, the personal computing industry, 16:21.960 --> 16:31.640 the internet industries, networking industries has drawn on our ability to help entrepreneurs 16:31.640 --> 16:39.960 with really terrific relevant operating and technical experience. As well as a strong and powerful 16:39.960 --> 16:48.280 network of forward thinkers, scientists, consultants, and we're bringing that same network. That's 16:48.440 --> 16:54.600 the same resources to bear in helping today's energy entrepreneurs. You know, innovation and 16:54.600 --> 17:00.600 the energy industry we were marked earlier has been an option more on. There just has not been any 17:00.600 --> 17:10.440 and all of a sudden because of advances in materials, in chemistry, in process. We can borrow from 17:10.600 --> 17:17.880 many different fields, be they, high volume manufacturing, buttering, and depositions to make 17:17.880 --> 17:26.040 possible innovations in energy innovations and transportation in the storage of really electrons 17:26.040 --> 17:32.200 and the transformation of atoms. And we're moving, as I like to say, from a world that merely bits 17:32.200 --> 17:39.160 and bytes to one of atoms and molecules controlled by the bits and bytes and the market for energy 17:39.160 --> 17:46.120 is the largest of all those. We come back to a question you asked about how we actually do this 17:46.840 --> 17:51.640 and what's important. John started out by answering, I think your first question about 17:51.640 --> 18:00.040 those being in the relationship and venture capital business, maintaining a network of experts 18:00.040 --> 18:06.360 to deliver service to these entrepreneurs is our business. And you know, I would say that we 18:07.240 --> 18:13.320 our partnership maintains a balance of technical depth and business skills, business and 18:13.320 --> 18:18.360 economic skills so that we can balance the two of those. What are the right technological 18:18.360 --> 18:26.920 bets, where the right economic bets that will both produce the best outcome in terms of technology 18:26.920 --> 18:35.560 for society and also for a return on our investment. And then below that, you know, throughout 18:35.560 --> 18:42.120 this network that we maintain, we have deep deep technical expertise and entrepreneurs that we 18:42.120 --> 18:49.560 hope are passionate in their falling in love with the technologies that they produce. 18:50.200 --> 18:54.360 We can't afford to totally fall in love with these, we've got to balance them in some way. 18:54.360 --> 19:00.280 But we want to make sure this network delivers deep deep technical expertise and knowledge 19:00.360 --> 19:05.640 about what we're about to invest in. You know, Ray, you mentioned something about 20 years ago 19:05.640 --> 19:11.960 when there was a lot of the money floating around for alternative energy technologies. 19:11.960 --> 19:17.080 In fact, I believe California, particular was probably the leader in solar energy in the 19:17.080 --> 19:25.560 70s, also fueled coincidentally by a fuel crunch. And now the United States probably accounts for 19:25.640 --> 19:31.400 less than 20% of those leading technologies. Where do you see the real pockets of innovation 19:31.400 --> 19:38.360 taking place and maybe more specifically, is it solar, is it wind, is it biofuels, all of the above? 19:38.360 --> 19:44.360 I think it's a lot going on in all of those. Bill may want to take a couple of them and just, 19:44.360 --> 19:48.760 you know, paint a picture of what's going on, what we see is different today than in the past. 19:48.760 --> 19:55.240 But we are seeing innovation in all of those fields. So we have to assess all of them 19:55.240 --> 19:59.400 in parallel and try to make some assessment as to which one, you know, paint a picture of what's 19:59.400 --> 20:06.520 going on, what we see is different today than in the past. But we're invested in battery technology 20:06.520 --> 20:14.760 and more than one type of battery technology. We're invested in solar technology and more than 20:14.760 --> 20:19.320 one type of solar technology. And so, and we try to make choices within each of those fields. 20:19.320 --> 20:25.080 We're announcing this $100 million initiative, but we've come public with it only because 20:25.640 --> 20:32.520 we believe over the last five years, gradually, but in an accelerating pace, we've been both 20:32.520 --> 20:38.520 exposed to ideas from the best entrepreneurs and had the chance to back them in this field. 20:38.520 --> 20:45.800 And as smart entrepreneurs will, they want to keep their ideas quiet or stealth as we put it 20:45.800 --> 20:51.960 and fail they have products ready to offer to the market. And so we've made six significant 20:51.960 --> 20:59.480 investments today. And several of those are now public show the kind of opportunity that there 20:59.480 --> 21:04.600 is for innovation. Public in terms of the public in a sense that they're likely talking about 21:04.600 --> 21:10.280 their efforts, recruiting people, offering products for sale. And then others are on the verge of 21:10.280 --> 21:15.720 offering their services or products for sale. But they show they answer your question, which is 21:15.720 --> 21:21.160 what are the markets like, what is the size of them and what kind of difference are they going 21:21.160 --> 21:27.880 to make in our lives? You asked about solar. We're backing a venture called Mia Sole, which is 21:27.880 --> 21:37.560 making flexible solar panels. They deposit solar material elements on flexible substrate, for 21:37.560 --> 21:44.520 example stainless steel. Instead of putting it on expensive brittle silicon, a crystalline 21:45.000 --> 21:52.360 surface that raises the cost of it. And the solar market sales for these modules, photovoltaic 21:52.360 --> 21:59.320 modules grew 67% last year measured in megawatts. And over the last five years has been growing 21:59.320 --> 22:07.960 over 40%. There's almost an insurmountable market demand right now for innovation in solar energy. 22:07.960 --> 22:13.080 And having said that, so we get a sense of the size of these markets overall. Today solar electricity 22:13.080 --> 22:20.520 generation accounts for less than 1% electricity generation worldwide. Another investment that we've 22:20.520 --> 22:27.800 made is in a brilliant team out of MIT, who this venture is called Lillipcution. And they're making 22:28.520 --> 22:36.440 tiny, but you do know all power, butteen power, the solid oxide fuel cells. And these are basically 22:36.760 --> 22:44.760 rechargeable electrons generators, the size of a battery that you'd put in a laptop or a cell phone. 22:44.760 --> 22:49.400 But instead of running for a few hours on a charge, the run for days on a charge. And when they're 22:49.400 --> 22:56.040 through with that fuel from your cigarette lighter, butteen, you have a squirt more into the cell 22:56.040 --> 23:05.240 and it just keeps on generating electricity. Three others are involved in energy storage to really 23:06.200 --> 23:12.520 disruptive technologies with respect to today's batteries, which are well positioned for improvement. 23:12.520 --> 23:21.080 And another large scale, solid oxide fuel cell project, together with an energy exploration 23:21.080 --> 23:29.400 venture that can more effectively discover and harness bridges from the hydrocarbon economy 23:29.400 --> 23:37.800 we're in today into a renewable economy. All told, renewable energy supplies less than 6% 23:37.800 --> 23:45.080 of the world's consumption of energy. And of that renewables, the vast majority is hydroelectric 23:45.080 --> 23:51.880 power. So there's a very, very large market opportunity that's right for innovation. 23:51.880 --> 23:58.600 Before Bill, before you jump in on this, John may be a question since, as a team you oversee 23:59.240 --> 24:05.960 lots of innovation, many things taking place. How about consumer adoption? Are you also investing 24:05.960 --> 24:13.000 in the evangelism, the prophesizing, and really driving consumer adoption towards alternative 24:13.000 --> 24:18.520 forms of, I will just say, let's call it energy in this case, or do you depend on the individual 24:18.520 --> 24:22.920 companies and points of light take care of themselves in their own business plan? 24:22.920 --> 24:29.080 If you look at the United States, energy and research uses is relatively efficient in the 24:29.080 --> 24:35.320 industrial side. We've done a fairly good job of getting more efficient there, but it's really, 24:35.320 --> 24:42.920 really been poor on the home consumer side. And we would love to find transformative tipping 24:42.920 --> 24:49.160 business plans, technologies that could improve the efficiency and in-residence as throughout the 24:49.160 --> 24:56.920 country. And that's a challenge, because people often look more to purchase costs than 24:56.920 --> 25:02.360 like cycle cost of ownership. And so we have to find new business models in new ways of making 25:03.000 --> 25:10.440 of that more intelligent decision happen. There are three ways to accelerate the adoption 25:10.440 --> 25:15.880 of these technologies into markets. In many cases, they're invisible to consumers. And getting 25:15.880 --> 25:22.840 an advanced battery adopted, for example, by Dell or a compact computers for their laptops, 25:22.840 --> 25:29.560 that's the way the partnership can help by opening doors. The second is to recognize that 25:30.440 --> 25:37.320 most of the markets for energy are regulated. And so there are government and policy 25:37.320 --> 25:44.200 incentives that are today in place and that can be extended or made even stronger, whether they're 25:44.200 --> 25:52.040 in the form of subsidies or clearing out regulatory underbrush that would either slow or hasten the 25:52.040 --> 25:59.160 adoption of these. And we're very active on that front in helping companies get their innovations 25:59.160 --> 26:05.080 and further research funded early markets of subsidized. The third and perhaps most important 26:05.080 --> 26:13.000 is to select the kinds of innovations that are going to naturally appeal to consumers. And those 26:13.000 --> 26:19.480 like the personal computer or like the revolution in podcasting are those that empower individuals. 26:19.480 --> 26:24.840 And so the energy innovations we're involved with are those that are distributed. It's a kind of 26:24.840 --> 26:32.360 personal energy. The same would be true of energy, storage, or of our efforts to find innovations 26:32.360 --> 26:36.840 for clean water. They're not even ideal of enterprise software is going the same direction. 26:36.840 --> 26:47.560 People that are individuals in an enterprise. So these are not mega wide innovations for cities 26:47.560 --> 26:53.800 of 10 million people, except as they can be distributed spread around to villages to your home, 26:53.800 --> 27:00.440 in your garage, into your personal electric vehicle. And I think that's one of the important 27:00.520 --> 27:07.000 breakpoints between what used to be known is clean technology. And about over the last 10 years, 27:07.000 --> 27:12.200 every year year and in year out about 6% of venture capital was invested in so-called clean 27:12.200 --> 27:18.600 tech. That's not the field that excites us. We're excited about green tech, which conveys more of 27:18.600 --> 27:28.920 the sustainability, distributed, personalized, and economically important, and green, think profit. 27:28.920 --> 27:36.600 Excessed, sustainable elements of this new initiative. We think the time has come for this field to 27:37.320 --> 27:45.880 get more than 6% of the worldwide R&D venture capital dollars. And we certainly intend to devote 27:45.880 --> 27:49.400 more than 6% of client-ers funds to these kinds of innovation. 27:49.400 --> 27:56.760 Well, one of the short answer to your question is, whatever it takes, we will invest in getting the word out 27:57.560 --> 28:06.280 on the demand side as well, trying to help manage demand and bridge over to the new energy economies. 28:07.400 --> 28:15.960 And I've heard my partners say many times that success is not enough. It has to be significant 28:15.960 --> 28:23.960 that we have to leave behind something significant for the world. If you look at many of the 28:23.960 --> 28:30.760 cleaner investments over the last 35 years that have been really good economic outcomes, 28:30.760 --> 28:35.960 they've been more importantly significant for the world at large. And we are attempting to 28:35.960 --> 28:40.280 announce new initiatives that will do the same thing over the next 20 years. 28:40.280 --> 28:45.320 Where are the gaps? What are you missing? What are you looking for any types of companies or initiatives 28:45.320 --> 28:52.280 or particular areas of invention? We're specifically looking very, very intensely right now for 28:52.600 --> 29:00.440 areas in the biofuels, initiatives in the biofuels area, whether they're biologically based or 29:00.440 --> 29:07.560 chemically based, free processing, material that would be recyclable. I mean, where the carbon gets 29:07.560 --> 29:15.400 recycled and doing that in a way that's very clean and has good economic and maintainability 29:15.400 --> 29:21.240 parameters. And so it's the whole system design of how such initiatives would get put together. 29:21.240 --> 29:28.840 And we've seen a lot of plants and we're still looking for one that's incredibly transformative 29:28.840 --> 29:35.320 and are very excited to keep looking in this area. And we think there will be a number of great 29:35.320 --> 29:40.360 ventures and hope to invest in several of them. Here's another example, Adam. We spoke about 29:40.360 --> 29:47.240 build it about most of the least efficient uses of energy being in homes. 25% of the electricity 29:47.240 --> 29:53.320 in homes is being used for lighting today. And so we anticipate. We've seen several proposals for real 29:53.320 --> 30:00.680 revolutions that provide more economic lighting, longer-lived lighting, better control lighting, 30:00.680 --> 30:08.840 and significantly lower energy consumption. The field is wide open. We want to see entrepreneurs 30:08.920 --> 30:15.960 or better said teams, great teams that can think through and take technology and apply its 30:15.960 --> 30:22.440 leverage. We know now that in the next 10 years there are great possibilities to apply technology 30:22.440 --> 30:27.720 leverage to deliver an order of magnitude improvement on any of these cost models that we 30:28.280 --> 30:34.120 are driven by today. And the John also has, I think, made the point several times, 30:34.120 --> 30:40.440 imping upon our national security at times. The last thing I would say is, go to our website. 30:40.440 --> 30:45.160 There's instructions there for how to send us, send us, send us your great ideas, come visit. 30:45.800 --> 30:51.000 We want to see the plants. We look at new things every day and we want to see lots of great ideas 30:51.000 --> 30:55.000 in these areas. We know that they're out there. We know they're more than they were seeing. 30:55.000 --> 30:59.560 We want to see more. Bring them bring us your great ideas. I think one thing we didn't touch upon 30:59.560 --> 31:06.600 as well is a lot of the really great ideas come from the great universities around the world. 31:06.600 --> 31:12.120 This country, we have a lot of great universities doing a lot of research. I mean, really great 31:12.120 --> 31:19.400 research and connecting. It is our job, our mission to connect with those research teams and 31:19.400 --> 31:24.200 eventual entrepreneurs for that research that comes out of those universities. And so we want to 31:24.200 --> 31:30.520 continue to network with those great research universities because that's where a lot of the 31:30.520 --> 31:37.560 baseline work is going on that we'll see the results of in the next 10 years in the new 31:37.560 --> 31:44.040 energy economy. Please know that you can come and you can come to us with an idea. 31:44.680 --> 31:50.120 You don't need a business plan. You don't need the management team. You don't need the laser 31:50.120 --> 31:56.600 like focus on an unserved market opportunity. At the beginning of the biotechnology industry, 31:56.600 --> 32:02.360 there were two scientists, Boyer and Cohen in one of our partners Bob Swanson was reading one of 32:02.360 --> 32:07.000 their research papers and took them out for a beer these two of them. And we backed them to the 32:07.000 --> 32:13.880 tune of $10,000 a month to conduct an experiment in their labs and to write a business plan for 32:13.880 --> 32:20.440 what became Genentech, a leader, 120 billion dollar market value. In the worldwide biotechnology 32:20.440 --> 32:30.520 industry, there will be, in our opinion, several, if not many, Genentech's and Google's and 32:30.520 --> 32:37.000 some micro systems and Oracle's really great, big, durable, global companies who can serve 32:37.880 --> 32:44.680 the needs for innovation. In this, perhaps the largest of all our markets, the needs for 32:44.680 --> 32:51.480 clean water, clean power, clean transportation. The largest single trend on this planet over the 32:51.480 --> 32:56.680 next 50 years, everyone agrees is urbanization. We're going to triple the number of people living 32:56.680 --> 33:02.840 in large cities from $2 billion to $6 billion people. Think of that. That's going to be the 33:02.840 --> 33:09.240 equivalent of creating eight cities every year larger than Manhattan. And so the innovation isn't 33:09.240 --> 33:15.400 just happening in the United States, it's happening all over the world. Great innovation in bio 33:15.400 --> 33:23.320 fuels, bio diesel, for example, in Europe, tremendous demands for efficiency and conservation throughout 33:23.320 --> 33:29.720 all of Asia and the markets are also good. So we're open for business and are called to the 33:29.720 --> 33:34.920 world to innovators and entrepreneurs to visit the Cleaner Perkins, a co-field buyers website. 33:34.920 --> 33:46.120 It's www.atpcb.com. Yeah, I'd say go to kpcb.com. Look at the descriptions of our initiatives, 33:46.120 --> 33:50.840 look at the biographies of the partners, pick one of us who matches up with your ideas, send us an 33:50.840 --> 33:56.520 email, describe your idea, tell us your new technology, your new way of doing business, your way of 33:56.680 --> 34:01.160 getting things adopted, and we'll get back to you and let's start a dialogue and see if we can 34:01.160 --> 34:06.600 change the world together. So that's what I'd call quite an invitation. Now if you 34:06.600 --> 34:11.160 made it all the way to the end of this interview, then you'll know what I meant by kind of a 34:11.160 --> 34:16.840 very interesting type of advertisement. There's Bill Joy, a legend in Silicon Valley, inviting 34:16.840 --> 34:23.960 you to change the world together with him. Fantastic. Well, anyway, I hope you enjoyed that. 34:23.960 --> 34:29.640 I plan, that's one of my private promises to myself. I plan on doing a lot more interviews in 2007, 34:29.640 --> 34:34.520 and I will not probably put them on a different feed. I'm just going to make it all part of the daily 34:34.520 --> 34:38.120 source code because it's not what it's all about. Aren't you supposed to build a do whatever you 34:38.120 --> 34:43.000 want to do? So I shall do just that. And a reminder that portions of today's show are brought to you 34:43.000 --> 34:52.040 by Splenda, what's your flavor? Check out Splenda, mix the flavors together, and enjoy. GoDaddy.com, 34:52.040 --> 34:57.400 use checkout code dsc3 for a great deal of domain name, and if you're going to go to the movies, 34:57.400 --> 35:03.720 January 12th, stomped the yard opens up, go to stompedthepodcast.com, stompedthepodcast.com, 35:03.720 --> 35:08.280 and Tony Costas will tell you all about this fantastic new movie, which is going to be a big big hit. 35:09.240 --> 35:14.840 I hope. We want more business from down people. All right, I will be back tomorrow with 35:14.840 --> 35:20.200 probably another best of Charlie, which of course I'll give you an update on the big movie 2007, 35:20.280 --> 35:26.360 and have yourselves a great rest of Sunday afternoon. Or if you're on Australia, tomorrow. Bye. 35:35.640 --> 35:40.120 Get this piece of the show and more great ones like it on the BT Pod Show Media Network, 35:40.120 --> 35:43.560 powered by Pod Show and Limelight Network. Control your part in the show.