Green Tech Will Spawn the Next Google Says Sun's Co-Founder
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 07.26.06
Bill Joy is co-founder Sun Microsystems (and is now a partner at the VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers). In an interview with Business Week, he said that the potential of the green technology field is enormous, and it will be where the next Google will be found.
Here is Bill Joy quoted in the interview:
[Kleiner partner] John Doerr said to me: "Are we going to have any more Googles?" And I said: "You're damn right we are, because we are at the point of new wealth creation when it comes to green technology." John used to say Google is the greatest legal creation of wealth, and I think the greatest legal creation of wealth today is in the green area -- not just in the U.S. but in the developed world. We have been looking at a lot of things related to new fuels, such as ethanol, fuel cells, advanced battery technology, and new ways of using biotech to make fuels.... There will be an enormous amount of new [green] technology, new wealth, and we are trying to create the Googles, the Microsofts of the new era. [Even] the garbage stream has a high value.
:: Via Business Week (via EcoGeek)
The article is a few months old (5/29/06). Regardless, these are exciting developments to watch. I'm particularly curious to see how the green technology revolution will impact rural economies, many of which are currently languishing. They have an abundance of biofuel resources and untapped wind power, and as such, rural areas are in a position to reap big benefits from the green tech revolution.
Not exactly a surprise, as Vinod Khosla (another Sun co-founder) preceded Joy to Kleiner Perkins and has been making big bets on ethanol and other green technologies.
Khosla, however, is doubly smart - he's also heavily bankrolling California's Clean Alternative Energy Initiative, which will tax oil companies and give that revenue to... ethanol producers!
It's genius! He doesn't even really have to believe in green tech - he's going to get the voters of California to guarantee him a profit by voluntarily taxing themselves and giving him the money.
You've got to love the evils of capitalism...
Brian's right. Khosla is way ahead of "gray goo" Joy who's only recently gone green.
Khosla argues very convincingly in a Google video here that current technology can be used to wean us off oil by converting cellulose to ethanol, growing soil saving crops to do it to boot.
However, for Khosla the venture capitalist, switching from oil to green techniques will be greatly enhanced by what he calls "synthetic biology". (Google the term and take the Berkeley link to learn all about synthetic biology.)
Perhaps we'll be hearing the term "Frankenfuel" sometime soon?
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Ethanol production has some significant problems, and Khosla and Joy seem to be little more than a couple of con men intent on fleecing a gullible public.
Here is a link to “Vinod Khosla Debunked: Ethanol is NOT the Answer” if your interested : http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/7/24/202222/351
PS: theoildrum is a web site dedicated to the problem of diminishing oil supplies.