This is very good news, a lot of star power for a good cause, green technology.
Gore joins Silicon Valley's Kleiner Perkins to push green business
Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
(11-13) 04:00 PST Washington -- The crowd of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs making big bets on a global revolution in green technology added one more big name Monday: Al Gore.
The former Democratic vice president and recent Nobel Peace Prize winner announced he is joining the prestigious Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner in the firm's effort to finance global warming solutions.
Gore, who lives part time in a high-rise condo he and his wife, Tipper, bought in downtown San Francisco, said there's a reason the green tech movement is sprouting in the Bay Area.
"I think the expertise that became concentrated here with the development of computing, chip technology, Internet technology and biotech ventures ... those skills turn out to be very applicable to the analysis and the development of early stage ventures in green tech and clean tech," Gore said Monday in an interview with The Chronicle.
California's passage of the nation's first economy-wide limits on greenhouse gases also will make the state a testing ground to see which technologies - biofuels, hybrids, solar power plants, green building techniques - will prove most viable and cost effective, Gore said.
"We are calling out to all the innovators and technologists and inventors to send us the best ideas they have," he said.
Gore isn't the only one making the bet. Kleiner Perkins, best known for early investments that spawned Internet and biotech giants such as Google and Genentech, plans next year to spend one-third of its $600 million investment fund on green technology startups. Gore's role will be to advise the firm on which companies and technologies look most promising.
John Denniston, a Kleiner Perkins partner who has helped lead the firm's green tech effort, said Silicon Valley's push for clean technology is fueled by a mix of engineering talent, financial capital and a strong environmental ethic among Bay Area investors and entrepreneurs.
"The vice president's message on the climate change crisis and the need to develop solutions to that crisis quickly has resonated particularly well in Silicon Valley," Denniston said.
