Gawker
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meltdowns
Vinod Khosla explains Wall Street crisis
Confused by Wall Street? Join the club. Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist who is one of Silicon Valley's most revered brains, doesn't get what's happening, either. "If I can't understand it, I suspect a lot of people can't," he told Beet.tv's Andy Plesser in this video interview. "In the name of economic efficiency by slicing and dicing risk, we're reducing transparency, which is not a healthy thing." I was with him that far. But then he concluded: "Venture capital will be a pretty good place when we return to reality and invest in things we understand and are real." That rules out most Web startup investments made in the past couple of years. Heck, Khosla believes in cost-effective ethanol.
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By Owen ThomasComment by HughHaedjinn: Gosh. Who'd have thought that it would be difficult to accurately price derivatives of a new class of inherently risky... more » | Other threads
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vinod khosla
Ethanol investor wants to kill the electric car
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — At MIT's EmTech conference, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla made a shocking assertion: Electric cars are irrelevant. Unless some unlikely breakthrough in battery technology comes about, they will never take enough of the market to matter. This is a financially convenient argument for Khosla to make: He has invested heavily in biofuels startups. But he raises a point few in the privileged West think about: Will the rising middle classes of China and India buy a $25,000 Prius, or a $2,500 Tata Nano? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by colonelpanic: Suck my Fisker, Vinod. Bio-diesel is a fool's errand. Khosla's problem is that he got sucked into the ethanol vortex... 1 Responses | Other threads
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jason pontin
Technology Review editor addicted to Twitter, gossip
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. — I'm here in the hub of the universe for EmTech, a conference thrown by Technology Review, MIT's magazine of self-importance. Jason Pontin, who is the magazine's editor-in-chief, publisher, and whatever title he's added last week, has just introduced Vinod Khosla, one of the venture-capital industry's brightest names. But is Pontin gazing raptly at Khosla, taking in his every word of wisdom? No, he is not. I can see his laptop screen from six rows away. He is using Twitter, a recent topic of obsession for him. This grand chronicler of innovation is whiling away the duration of Khosla's presentation 140 characters at a time. Oh, wait! I take that back. Now he's reading Valleywag.
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By Owen ThomasComment by michaellamb: Hi Jason.. just wanted to make sure you had a comment on your story. You're welcome. more » | Other threads
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startups
Vinod Khosla drops $3 million on health startup
Vinod Khosla's boutique VC firm Khosla Ventures has lead a $3 million investment round in ZocDoc, a startup which aims to make it easier to schedule doctor's appointments online. Managing the bureaucracies of the healthcare industry, with a nest of on- and off-network providers, HMOs and the like would make the ancient Greek civil servants of Byzantium blanch. Health revolutionaries from Steve Case to Google haven't exactly set the healthcare industry on fire, so good luck with that. Considering Khosla is struggling to convince his own son to eat vegetables, it's a good thing he tapped Khosla Ventures partner David Weiden to sit on the company's board.
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By Jackson WestComment by internetlawattorney: Also could be a boon to doctors by lowering admistrative expenses. 1 Responses | Other threads
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valley spawn
Khosla family's vegetable drama hits Facebook
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla's 15-year old son Neal, a student at ritzy San Francisco prep school Lick-Wilmerding, is refusing to eat any vegetables. "The only vegetable he has had this week is a single, lone piece of onion that snuck into his fajitas, despite spending the majority of dinner carefully picking all the vegetables out of his food," according to his sister Nina, who IM'd Valleywag this morning in desperation. The family has gotten Neal to agree to eat vegetables, but only if a Facebook group they've set up garners 1,000 users. More » -
politics
Vinod Khosla bets on all the horses, but saddles up with Obama campaign
Accel Partners' Joe Schoendorf has asserted in the past that betting against venture capitalist Vinod Khosla is a good way to lose money. One reason why is because Khosla covers his bets — in the primary election cycle, Khosla donated the maximum amount allowable for an individual, $2,300, to the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama. Since 1986, the India-born venture capitalist has given a total of $63,800 to Democrats and $19,400 to Republicans. But now that the primary season is over and Obama and McCain are due to be coronated by their parties at the summer conventions, which horse will Khosla be riding? More » -
cleantech
Britney Spears, Perez Hilton and Vinod Khosla walk into a courtroom
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla of Kleiner Perkins was sued by prison inmate Jonathan Lee Riches, who wanted $43 million from Khosla because "Khosla’s fund invests in prison buildings," among other concerns. Riches has also sued former Giants slugger Barry Bonds and hundreds of other celebrities, inspiring Khosla to quip, "Well, there is at least one thing I have in common with Britney Spears and Perez Hilton now." [Private Equity Hub] (Photos by AP/John Raoux, Rolando Aviles, Jack Plunkett) -
cleantech
Bill Gates divesting from Pacific Ethanol at a loss
Cascade Investment LLC, the fund managed by Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, has made good on its November promise to exit from its investment in Pacific Ethanol. What's surprising? He's doing it at a loss, converting his preferred shares to common shares worth $8 apiece and selling them for less than $4 apiece. With 1.4 million shares sold in three days, that's a loss of over $5 million. Pocket change for Gates, certainly, but in almost halving his original 20 percent stake it's a strong vote of no confidence in the ethanol business. While Accel Partners Joe Schoendorf has said that "a good way to lose money is to bet against Vinod [Khosla]" who's been bullish on ethanol, I'm going to side with Gates on this one.
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By Jackson WestComment by Shadowlayer: Ethanol only works with a cheap-ass crop in a country where slave labor is almost legal: brazil. more » | Other threads
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d6 live coverage
Facebook board member lunches with Mrs. Rupert Murdoch
CARLSBAD, CA — Who are those cool cats in sunglasses at D6? Why, it's Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, a board member at Facebook, lunching with Wendi Murdoch, wife of the News Corp. CEO and chairwoman of MySpace China. Also at the table: Martha Stewart, seen here to the left; Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures; and Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe. -
quotable
Vinod Khosla gave Brazilian slave-labor employers a thumbs-up
When asked about his his $200 million investment in an ethanol startup in Brazil, where corruption is rife, labor standards lax and the environmental track record abysmal, investor Vinod Kohsla replied, "We have a very professional management team." Those responsible for actually cutting the cane might tend to disagree after being subjected to inhuman working conditions which some activists describe as "slave labor."
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By Jackson WestComment by digginestdogg: He comes from a country with huge sanitation, health, literacy, and child labor exploitation problems. And you are shocked he's... more » | Other threads
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cleantech
Vinod Khosla's Brazilian ethanol venture uses slave labor, just like most Valley startups we know
The Brazil Renewable Energy Company, or Brenco, was the target of the Brazilian Labor Ministry's slave-labor investigation unit last month. Brenco produces ethanol from sugarcane, which is more carbon-efficient than corn-based ethanol but incredibly labor-inefficient — cane farming is some of the hardest work on Earth. How did the company, backed in part by Vinod Khosla's VC firm, address this inefficiency? By paying workers less than a dollar an hour, packing them cheek-to-jowl in substandard living conditions, preventing them from leaving the unsanitary housing on their free time, feeding them poorly, and (rather ironically for an ethanol manufacturer) banning alcohol. More »
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By Jackson WestComment by matto: @Fidel on the Roof: I had Automotive Industry Cabal vs. Military Industrial Complex at even money- thanks for flipping the... more » | Other threads
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failanthropy
Wikipedia receives $500,000 from another VC
Ordinarily, this would be good news: Vinod Khosla, the former Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist, and his wife Neeru Khosla, have donated $500,000 to Wikipedia's nonprofit parent, the Wikimedia Foundation. But founder Jimmy Wales's dalliances with other VCs — chiefly Roger McNamee and Marc Bodnick of Elevation Partners — have cast a shadow over every dollar the organization receives. Is this one of the $500,000 donations McNamee recently said he helped broker? And if so, what do he and Khosla expect to get in return? For starters, keep a close eye on Wikipedia's articles on ethanol, a major business interest of Khosla's. Wales, ordinarily Wikipedia's front man, makes no appearance in the press release, quoted below: More » -
the sum of all human knowledge
While Wikipedia burns, Jimmy Wales and women in bikinis save "world on fire"
We were right: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales really did skip off to Richard Branson's Caribbean getaway in early March, even as a scandal unfolded over his governance of the world's most comprehensive list of gay animals. The powwow on Necker Island, which included Google's Larry Page, Tesla Motors chairman Elon Musk, former British prime minister Tony Blair, and VC Vinod Khosla, discussed global warming. Branson asked: "Is the world on fire?" More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by mediawhoremeow: @Erica, it "becomes a crime to make a profit" when you're running a NON-profit. As for Wikipedia being "amazing", have another... more » | Other threads
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silicon valley
Vinod Khosla thinks all you Prius owners are on personal guilt trips. The venture capitalist likens it to giving money to "art museums instead of starving people [in Africa]." Ethanol and bio-fuels are better bets because the average consumer isn't willing to spend $5,000 to save a half ton of carbon per year. Neither is Khosla. [VentureBeat] -
party report
iLike a good mustache, don't you?
ATHERTON — I'm told I left the party too early, but once Third Eye Blind started playing, Thursday night's iLike bash was pretty much over for me. Don't get me wrong — I like Third Eye Blind. It's right in tune with my utterly bland and more than slightly gay musical tendencies. But this is exactly why I will never, ever use a service like iLike, which makes a Facebook app that allows you to reveal your musical taste, or lack thereof, to your friends by posting songs, and find people with similar tastes by seeing who's going to concerts. Here's the thing: I know my taste in music is egregiously bad. I don't want to advertise the fact to the world, and if anything, I want to meet people who specifically dislike the music I listen to. That's all right, though — what I really wanted to listen to was the buzz in the room. More » -
dan farber
Geek out: Martha Stewart and John Cusak hit the D Conference
Journos Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher had a grand time hosting the Wall Street Journal's D Conference, or at least they've learned to fake it. Reporter Dan Farber has a write-up at ZDNet, and he kindly lent his event photos. Here they are, misinterpreted. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by zero0000: Is it just me or did Walt have his face surgically and permanently molded to show an arrogant and vaguely... more » | Other threads
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