building up from there instead of relying on whatever traditional wisdom there is people follow rules that others have created everybody does it this way but i dontbut youve faced a fair bit of flak for this havent you i dont consider it criticism its a fact which i acknowledge i fail often im not afraid of failure it doesnt embarrass me id rather try something and fail at it than not try at all it is ok to fail i lose only one times my money i can make it back a 100 times so why should i care what others think my investors dont care they only care about the rate of return i give them and since i dont calculate it i dont know what my rate of return is i know its big enough which is why they keep giving me money otherwise in this market environment you couldnt raise a fund like i just closed its one of the largest funds in venture capitalis that the way of a classic venture capitalist youre absolutely right it is the way it used to be done in the 1980s when venture capital wasnt an industry and had very few practitioners it was like music where there are few artists it was like an art form over the 1990s because it had such good returns it became an industry where anybody could become a venture capitalist they forgot that there was an art form to be practiced its all about taking risks managing risks and accepting failure like the music industry its all about talent not everybody can start a great company so we spend a lot of time identifying talentthe environment for alternative fuel is difficult isnt it im sorry but the press has it all wrong most of the startups that we do dont rely on subsidies so this is sort of a bad notion that the press is pushing that somehow it has to rely on subsidies the fact is even if there is a subsidy in the us were investing in global companies with global markets there is no subsidy in australia or china or india for fuel i think its a good idea to stop subsidising poor technology and let good technology succeedthe dominant perception of the industry is that it sucks up a lot of money you dont think nonclean tech companies have failed look the basic nature of competition in capitalist markets is that most people fail if there are 10 solar startups its very unlikely that more than three will succeed if there are 10 lighting startups it is very unlikely more than three will succeed if there are 10 engine startups most of them will fail it doesnt matter some people will win some will lose its the nature of capitalism but there arent too many other investors who have taken such huge bets on clean tech its always nice to invest where others arent investing right i have