Peter Schwartz on energy VCs not knowing what they're doing

I am starting a nonprofit to enable cooperatives in Clean Tech energy in the rural sector. The Federal Government does not want your control over clean tech energies.

Peter Schwartz claims those that do not know what they are doing. I put that squarely on the VC's. You do not know what you are doing otherwise we would now have 20% renewables instead of 12% which 8% is hydroelectric. If you persist in the avenue you will fail like you did in the Dot Com sector where the Fed increased bond rates and you moved money by the billions into the safety of bonds. The value here is your hands off of the utility grade investment. Your hands are in the product, not in 100 MW power plants.
If you do not have PE's, nor Architects, nor RE Brokers, you have no business under California law giving presentations to city officials. If you do not involve local government we will be where we are today with very little and PGE building gargantuan nuclear power plants. That is the real threat.

BTW, almost 10 years in the energy industry.

Schwartz' assertion that operating experience counts in VC resonates with me. That said, it's clear that most, if not all of the top performing VC investors, started from an operating perspective and invested in their sector of domain experience. I would warrant that ALL of these VCs then branched into areas in which they did NOT have domain experience and, in effect, built their experience on the fly. John Doerr came out of intel and did many successful deals in related companies (Compaq, Sun etc) but also went on to fund Google, Amazon and other companies in sectors that he learned rather than experienced. So, while I can agree that his general comment has validity (Experience beats inexperience,) I'd argue that plenty of VCs have learned and prospered. I've heard Peter's rant in other contexts and would say this--venture capitalists fail for a lot of reasons, one being lack of experience in a sector. Another is lack of investing (vs operating) experience. I've seen some deeply experienced entrepreneurs fail as VCs despite investing in their domain, largely because they lacked VC/investing experience.

As a venture capitalists (with bits of operating experience in my background,) I generally support the assertion that experience is invaluable, as Peter notes, in being an effective VC. It's not enough, by far, however. And, as noted, many others have paved a path to success without having had the experience Peter highlights.

I'd be surprised if an of the VCs who've invested in thin film solar companies have any solar experience at all. Ask any experienced solar installer and they'll tell you that thin film efficiency is too low and installation costs are too high.

Yes, when crystalline silicon modules were $4+/watt, cheap thin film sounded like a good idea. But now that module prices are plunging it's become crystal clear that ordinary crystalline silicon modules are the way to go.

Peter Schwartz's comments that domain expertise is important will really hit close to home when all those thin film solar companies try to compete against ordinary, easy-to-install, high efficiency crystalline panels at $1.50/watt.

Another point of view here - and I have a little experience first hand. VC's do not CARE about their investments. Not the product. Not the people. Not the brand, the name, the history or reputation. They ONLY care about the return on their investment and how this will make them look. They care about the media exposure for themselves, not the company they've invested in. It's the biggest greed and ego pool I've ever stepped into. I quickly stepped out.

as the rest of the world goes nuclear for safe clean energy this country still don't get it. 20yrs from now when we are a third world country we will discover how the energy leaders of our country have sold us down the creek....remember Los angles and their street cars... history repeating ...eh'