November 12th, 2007
Gore: puts his mouth where the money is
Can a politician become a VC? We’re about to find out. Al Gore. Nobel Peace Prize winner. Oscar winner. Does anybody recall he was once Vice President of the world’s most indebted country? That he even served as U.S. Senator from a state that was once in the Confederacy? As did his father before him? Does anybody care?
Al Gore becomes a Valley Guy, as in Silicon Valley. He’s putting his words and contacts to work at Kleiner Perkins. That’s where the money is. KP is one of those little boutique VC shops the folks on Wall Street try to ignore until they launch another Google or Yahoo. Now Gore is going to be part of their strategy to foster the new generation of Green Tech start-ups. Guess they don’t think General Motors, Exxon and American Airways are likely to take us into the globally warmed future in a profitable way? The KP website seems to hint they see the Green Tech revolution as important as the Internet wave they rode so successfully in the last century.
Gore seems to be on a winning streak since the Supreme Court turned him down as President in 2000. He’s also said recently that much of politics is trivial, now he’s getting involved with start-ups that could bring real change around the globe. KP doesn’t need to win all the time, just a few crucial big investment scores and KP’ll be very happy, thank you. I’m not betting against this combo.
The Gore family already has a pad in San Francisco, and one daughter in med school there. Gore’s on the Apple Board of Directors. This guy has more new lives than a cat. I can foresee a day when he and the Governator sit down to break bi-partisan bread and talk real bread, as in green tech, as in long green million dollar bill$.
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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