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The future of green technology is in the hands of a very few people. No, it's not in the grasp of international conferences. It is held firmly by Venture Capitalists John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, Caufield and Byers, KPCB the Menlo Park based Venture Capitalist, is considered to be the prime mover behind investment in High Tech Green Technology. Venture Capitalists (VCs) VCs gain the confidence of investors over time by finding, investing and nurturing small startup companies and exploiting their ideas and technology. VCs form subscribed funds with investors. The VCs try to minimize risk by investing in a number of startups and then, when some of them show promise, they fuel them further, dropping further investment in the weak ones.. After a reasonable amount of time, say 3 years, they close the fund and pay off the investors taking a substantial commission for themselves. They are valuable to the fund investor because of their expertise in high technology ventures and the people who have new ideas. The investors come back again and again, if the VCs have done well. Many VCs have become fabulously rich. They often invest in their own funds. Usually the profits come from taking the startup public or selling it to a much larger company. The public option is preferred. It is highly unusual for VCs to invest $500,000,000 in a single company. John Doerr has rolled the dice by investing so heavily in Bloom's Fuel Cells. This is by far his biggest and slowest maturing bet. He's been right many times having funded Google, for example. He is fabulously rich now and is considered by many to be the top VC of all time. Bloom's vision is simple: Clean Affordable Energy Everywhere. They now have a lot of big customers:
Bloom's Fuel Cells
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On a recent 60 Minutes segment the founder of Bloom, KR Sridhar PhD held a stack in his hands that he said would generate all the electricity needed by a European home, while two of them would do for a North American home. Sridhar got the idea for his present product from NASA where he used to work. Fuel Cells have been used on most every NASA mission. In the past Fuel Cells have been expensive, quirky and costly to maintain. Furthermore, they have used hard to get, expensive exotic metals. No reliable, mass produced and cost effective Fuel Cell has ever been produced. Bloom and John Doerr claim that they are on the brink of overcoming the past limitations. Bloom uses no precious metals. To see how a fuel cell works
Doerr's Big Bet As of today, the test customers are using arrays of the Bloom Fuel Cell technology to reduce electricity charges. That is, they are a supplement to the grid. In order to be successful, Bloom has to expand the customer base of large companies and then move into grid generation use and/or avoidance (direct to the home) This means that companies like OPG would be customers and Bloom would be competing with nuclear, coal, natural gas, solar and wind power generation John Doerr has been wrong before on technology that he became enamored with.... e.g. Segway. He thought that he could change the way people move in large cities. Can he change the way we live? Doerr is very smart and decisive. He is not an expert on mass production and after prototype distribution. Many are not betting against him, however, but some are saying that Bloom's Fuel Cell has about a 20% chance of changing our world. Doerr has 'double downed' on Bloom, however. His misses and near misses have not out shown his many successes. He's mild looking, but he is very tough. Has he underestimated the cost to market of Bloom's Fuel Cell? Let's hope that he is right and affordable energy will result. Doerr is a 'Humming Bird' constantly on the move. This long courtship with Bloom is very unusual for him. Is he hung up or is he just persistent and right? Common
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