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Entrepreneurs have the flexibility and the ability to do things that large companies simply cannot. Could a large company pull off a trick like Amyris, going from anti-malaria medicine to next-generation fuel?

Vinod Khosla

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Vinod Khosla
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: January 28
Businessman
Businessperson
National Capital Region of Delhi
Simply
Anti
Company
Tricks
Ability
Entrepreneur
Malaria
Next
Companies
Entrepreneurs
Cannot
Medicine
Flexibility
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Generation
Trick
Things
Large
Fuel
Like
Generations
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More quotes by Vinod Khosla

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We don't need a fuel that's cleaner, we need a fuel that happens to be cleaner, but is half the price of oil.
Vinod Khosla
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I do not know what got me interested in technology. What was very clear to me very early on was that I was not interested in religion and that naturally increased my curiosity about science and technology, and I fundamentally believe the two are conflicting.
Vinod Khosla
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The U.S. has fallen well behind Europe in recognizing climate change and the implications of climate change.
Vinod Khosla
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Is it 10 years, 20, 50 before we reach that tipping point where climate change becomes irreversible? Nobody can know. There's clearly a probability distribution. We need to ensure this planet, and we need to do it quickly.
Vinod Khosla
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Electric cars are coal-powered cars. Their carbon emissions can be worse than gasoline-powered cars.
Vinod Khosla
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The willingness to fail gives us the freedom to succeed.
Vinod Khosla
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The first rule of venture capitalism is hands-on experience. You have to get your hands dirty.
Vinod Khosla
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The world is hung up on food-based biofuels. Not only are they the wrong thing, they're the uneconomic thing.
Vinod Khosla
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Imagine the world of mobile based on Nokia and Motorola if Apple had not been restarted by a missionary entrepreneur named Steve Jobs who cared more for his vision than being tactical and financial.
Vinod Khosla
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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.
Vinod Khosla
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Future is not extrapolation of past
Vinod Khosla
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It doesn't matter what your probability of failure is. If there's a 90% chance of failure, there's a 10% chance of changing the world.
Vinod Khosla
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For electric power generation, we are very optimistic about solar-thermal technology, and we’re intrigued by the potential of enhanced geothermal energy to replace coal-based power generation. Traditional carbon capture and sequestration-based coal power generation is somewhat unlikely to be competitive.
Vinod Khosla
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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.
Vinod Khosla
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Innovative, bottom-up methods will solve problems that now seem intractable—from energy to poverty to disease. Science and technology, powered by the fuel of entrepreneurial energy, are the largest multipliers of resources we have to solve our many social problems.
Vinod Khosla
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Communication always changes society, and society was always organized around communication channels. Two hundred years ago it was mostly rivers. It was sea-lanes and mountain passes. The Internet is another form of communication and commerce. And society organizes around the channels.
Vinod Khosla
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Now it will take a long time to scale biofuels, but I'm the only one in the world forecasting oil dropping in price to $35 a barrel by 2030. I'll put it on the record: Oil will not be able to compete with cellulosic biofuels. If you do it from food, the food will get so expensive you can't make fuel out of it.
Vinod Khosla
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I don’t mind the low probability of success, but it better be impactful if we do succeed.
Vinod Khosla
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As for companies invested in the space - I think its important to distinguish between a good investment and a material climate change technology - you can have the first without the second, even in the clean tech space.
Vinod Khosla
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Certain food-based biofuels like biodiesel have always been a bad idea. Others like corn ethanol have served a useful purpose and essentially are obsoleting themselves.
Vinod Khosla