Yikes! A crying venture capitalist… are falling frogs next?
BusinessWeek.com has a good wrap-up of the TED conference that recently concluded in California, where the highlight was Kleiner Perkins’ VC icon John Doerr getting emotional on stage because, as he put it simply, “I’m scared.” He’s scared because he doesn’t believe business and government are doing enough to minimize the coming economic and environmental pain associated with global warming. “I don’t think we’re going to make it,” he told the TED audience, ranging from former U.S. president Bill Clinton to singer-songwriter Paul Simon.
“And if anyone can do anything about this global warming crisis, surely they’re here, where the entrepreneurial nature of investors like Doerr and Vinod Khosla meets the celebrity power of Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker or singer Paul Simon,” according to the article.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
March 13th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Sadly I think this kind of emotionality is going to garner a lot of laughs and play right into the hands of the small-minded people, who prefer to bury their heads in the sand and deny the problem rather than risk being “alarmed”.
But it’s nice to see a guy give an honest expression of his emotions about this topic. It’s probably an appropriate response, even though we also need to keep our heads. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
March 14th, 2007 at 3:43 am
I’m scared too. Sometimes fear is the most rational reaction. It sure beats depression or apathy.
March 15th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Fear is not a substitute for depression or apathy. Where does the perceived risk or danger of potential negative implications of climate change lead you?
I feel that the attendees of the TED conference collectively possess more power than governments to affect change through their economic decision making and public influence potential. I would be honoured to be in such a position to be branded a crying venture capitalist.
Heads, honesty, and emotions tend to be mutually exclusive in economic decision making. That is, if you want to compete. There remain too many unvalued externalities to reconcile environment and economy.
Let me see your tears reflect your devotion to realizing a better world.