🌎 Going big on climate tech, with Vinod Khosla
“If you solve this, the climate problem is done.”
To tackle climate change we’ll have to put our faith in technologies that don’t yet exist. That is the thesis of my Exponentially conversation with the legendary entrepreneur and investor, Vinod Khosla.
When I first met Vinod a quarter of a century ago, he was well known as a technology founder and investor in traditional IT. He co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982, a Silicon Valley legend, company ahead of its time. While at Kleiner Perkins, Vinod incubated and invested in Juniper Networks, which earned the firm $7 billion and made it Vinod’s largest ROI to date.
More recently, Vinod has gained a reputation in a new area: funding entrepreneurs who are developing hard technologies to tackle climate change. Vinod is particularly focused on a dozen high-emitting areas, including agriculture, industrial and domestic heat, steel and cement, and aviation fuel.
If you solve this, the climate problem is done.
The experience of building for the early Internet is informing every aspect of Vinod’s approach to climate tech, including how he thinks about what is possible and what is risky…
When we started Juniper in 1996, every major telco player told me they would never use TCP/IP on the public internet. So, these internet technologies were taboo in the telecom world. […] Uncertainty is a critical part of what we’re dealing with [regarding climate change]. Only the unprobables are important — because it’s the only way to do technology multiplication that can benefit 7 billion people.
The conversation is worth watching even if you’re outside of climate tech — and, as always, if you found this insightful, please consider…
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🚀 Letter from Silicon Valley
I’ve just come back from Silicon Valley, where I’ve been in the last week. I have been going to the Bay Area for more than 25 years. I reckon I’ve clocked between 65 and 70 trips there, with thousands of conversations, around $20m of investments, and some good friends made.
Great to see the significance of liquid aviation fuel highlighted here. Of course LanzaTech, but to the point on more than one approach great to see Zero Petroleum, C3 Biotech and OXCCU working and raising in the U.K.
This is probably my favorite of the series. I'll add more comments on YT, but for here I'll mention that there is a big difference between scaling Liberty Ships and scaling fusion. Ship building was a class of technology that was widely understood and its supply chain was well understood. We had 5 examples of Liberty ships. Even when it is working, fusion will be 'something new under the sun.'
All the more reason to invest heavily now.
Thanks for the fine show.