Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla on Energy and Net Development

Vinod Khosla, one of the world's most powerful venture capitalist, says in this video interview that the oil spill in the Gulf will spur innovation in clean energy development. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has just joined Khosla Ventures as an advisor.

Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla on Energy and Net Development Male: The disaster in the Gulf, its impact on policy, economy and other things, what is the impact on perhaps companies, start-ups, innovation is there anything positive that you can see other of this catastrophe. Vinod Khosla: You know the event is unfortunate and as my favorite quote is “The crisis is a terrible thing to waste” and if you do not waste this crisis, I think we can use it to our advantage. We can once and for all, decide to address the issue of energy dependence, energy security, climate change all together and hopefully create a much more wiper and eco system. In fact, if you compare the in and out of the ecosystem and the energy eco system what’s wrong with the energy ecosystem is to rate of change is slow the innovation is slow. The internet was like that when it used to be called ISTN and it used to be called telecommunications but when this new energy came in, newer minds came in, newer news came in, it completely change the picture. I do believe the same thing will happen to energy. Male: Let me just ask you one last question, as for exciting about Tony Blair tell us a little bit, about what he’ll be doing with you guys? Vinod Khosla: I’ll be excited to be working with Tony Blair obviously well respected and well-recognized name. To me as we book on the clean tech side and work on the energy infrastructure and the energy ecosystem there are lots of things we in Silicon Valley don’t know. I mean it’s important to recognize what we don’t know because it’s exactly the things that from Mr. Blair brings to our partnership in terms of expertise and advice that he can give us. There is a lot of politics, there’s a lot of geopolitics, there’s a lot of social change and embedded interests in the energy space and I think he can advice us on that. Male: Very good, well thank you for your time. Vinod Khosla: T hank you.