Electric cars are coal-powered cars. Their carbon emissions can be worse than gasoline-powered cars.
You know, one of the great things about most renewable technologies - not every technology, but many of them - is the jobs have to be local. When you're talking about a power plant and power generation using solar thermal technology, the jobs will be where the plant is.
Startups allow technologists and scientists to take risks and change plans in a way that would be frowned upon in a big company. Having said that, big companies will play a key role in certain areas and in partnerships with little companies. Each has its strengths.
Religion asks you to believe things without questioning, and technology and science always encourage you to ask hard questions and why it is important in science and technology. So I was always interested in science and technology.
I don't believe - till something radical changes that we are not on track to do - that hybrids are material to climate change. They're fashionable, everybody loves them, the Prius is selling well, but so are Gucci bags. But they don't impact the way the world carries stuff. You know it's a fashion statement.
I'm very excited by biomass and biofuels. We have a company, KiOR, that turns biomass - for instance, wood chips - into gasoline. The potential value of this company is huge. It could compete with regular crude oil without subsidies.
When I started doing things on my own, I was figuring - remember, it was a very nascent market. And there was a lot that was unknown about the renewable marketplace in 2004, early 2003, when I was planning on it.
I'm a fiscal hawk. I vote against all taxes, but I do believe the environment, and climate change, is a bigger issue than fiscal deficits are as a risk to the nation.
People over 45 basically die in terms of new ideas.
Everybody else is afraid to fail. I do not really care because when I fail, I try something new.
Entrepreneurs can benefit a lot from the right help and advice, and you can avoid costly mistakes. You can get incredible leverage in hiring people who wouldn't even talk to you if you have the right help. An investor isn't about money - it's about the help and advice you can get.
Will biofuel usage require land? Absolutely, but we think the ability to use winter cover crops, degraded land, as well as using sources such as organic waste, sewage, and forest waste means that actual land usage will be limited. Just these sources can replace most of our imported oil by 2030 without touching new land.
The only way you multiply resources is with technology. To really affect poverty, energy, health, education, or anything else - there is no other way.
The combination of brilliant ideas and entrepreneurial spirit should lead us to a safer and more secure future.
Knowing whose advice to take and on what topic is the single most important decision an entrepreneur can make.
New industries are created by entrepreneurs who don't necessarily have subject matter expertise when they get started, yet they are still responsible for most of the innovation we see in society.
I've probably failed more often than anybody else in Silicon Valley. Those don't matter. I don't remember the failures. You remember the big successes.