By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

In this week’s Fresh Dialogues, Mark Platshon, an expert in battery technology with venture capitalists, Vantage Point , provides some Battery Basics.

What is a battery?

“Throw a dart at (two elements on) the periodic table and you can make a battery out of it…a potato and a penny can make a battery…unfortunately we have a very limited periodic table…(and remember)  Moore’s Law doesn’t apply to chemistry!”

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Why is it a hot space today?

“When did you see a $10 Billion market grow three orders of magnitude in 20 years?”

(That’s Platshon’s prediction for the growth in the lithium ion cell market as we drive more hybrid cars and new generation Electric Vehicles).

What will attract the attention of venture capitalists?

“We are looking for novelty and creativity…materials, systems, cooling…no one is going to find an execution plan because you are up against Samsung and Panasonic, the gorillas. You gotta do something that is truly novel, truly different and run like hell…cos they’re after you.”
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What about grid storage?

“We are very interested in the biggest market that hasn’t happened yet…grid storage is constipated with a lot of regulatory issues.”

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A big Problem -Shortage of electro chemists

“We graduate maybe 50 electro chemists in this country a year…(but) BYD (the China-based battery and electric vehicle company) hires about 500 a year…there’s a huge opportunity to work in this…point your kids to this cos we gotta make this happen!”

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This was recorded at SDForum’s Cleantech Breakfast held at SAP headquarters in Palo Alto on June 29, 2010. The event was expertly moderated by Jeffrey Selman of Nixon Peabody and also featured VentureBeat’s Camille Ricketts, Dania Ghantous of Qnovo Corp. and Ashok Lahiri of Enovix.

For interviews with Friedman, Krugman, Ballard et al…check out Fresh Dialogues archives

For exclusive video interviews, check out the Fresh Dialogues YouTube Channel

By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

You’ve no doubt heard about the November ballot measure (Proposition 23) which aims to to scupper California’s landmark climate change legislation, AB 32. In this Fresh Dialogues interview, Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, didn’t pull any punches in his response to those behind the plan.

“We’re not going to sit idly by and watch you dismantle our environmental achievements… which are also economic ones,” says Carl Guardino.

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which represents over 300 major companies in the valley, including Google, Hewlett Packard and IBM (approximately one in three private sector jobs) provides a proactive voice for Silicon Valley businesses on public policy issues, locally and in Sacramento and Washington D.C.

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Here’s a recap of the issue:

AB 32 is the Golden State’s attempt to cap carbon emissions to 1990 levels by introducing a version of a cap-and-trade carbon tax which would hit power plants, refineries and cement manufacturers hard.

What is Proposition 23?

Supporters call it “The California Jobs Initiative,” and point to the high cost and potential job losses of implementing AB 32; but Proposition 23’s main impact would be to suspend (and effectively repeal) the provisions of AB 32. In turn, AB 32 supporters have launched a Stop Dirty Energy Prop Campaign to thwart the proposition. As of today, Proposition 23 is way ahead in the social media popularity index with over 4,500 Facebook “likes” for Prop 23 compared to just under 3,000 for its opponents.

And here’s how Guardino describes it:

“A veiled attempt to dismantle California’s environmental achievements.”

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Who is behind it?

Two Texas-based oil companies, Valero Energy Corporation and Tesoro Corporation, provided the initial funding to launch the campaign. Valero donated over $4 Million to the cause.

Guardino’s argument

“This is an economic engine not a caboose and we’re not going to let folks ruin the engine that continues to fuel the renewable energy, clean green economy. It’s not only good for our environment – and it’s critical – it’s also good for our economy and jobs; and we’ve proved that through innovation of products, processes and what we do with our people every day in Silicon Valley.”

“What’s wonderful about Silicon Valley is that it’s never been an ‘either or’  -  it’s never been about the environment or the economy,” says Carl Guardino. “We can have our cake and eat it too.”

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The interview was recorded at the CreaTV studios in San Jose on April 29th 2010. At that time, Proposition 23 was not yet on the ballot, but Guardino correctly predicted it would receive sufficient support to qualify.

For other Fresh Dialogues interviews re. AB 32:

Former Secretary of State, George Shultz: “it would be “an unmitigated disaster” if the measure to suspend AB 32 passes in the November election.” click here

Akeena Solar’s Barry Cinnamon click here

For more interviews with Friedman, Krugman, Ballard et al…check out Fresh Dialogues archives

For more exclusive video interviews, check out the Fresh Dialogues YouTube Channel

By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

Reid Hoffman’s concept of leveraging the power of entrepreneurship was echoed again this summer when I talked with Lesa Mitchell, VP for Advancing Innovation at the Kauffman Foundation. She shared her enthusiasm that, for the first time, the Federal Government is waking up to the enormous impact entrepreneurship can have on the economy and recently created an Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It has limited staff and funding, but it’s a start. I wonder if it will one day include a department of GREEN entrepreneurship? It’s widely accepted that “picking winners” is not the best use of government resources, however, there is much government can do to create a fertile ecosystem for startups to thrive.

Lesa Mitchell recently testified before Congress and shared some of her top recommendations with me:

1. The need to development world-class commercialization boot camps for university students and faculty and entrepreneurs, to get innovation out of labs and into commercial production – this she says is the “low hanging fruit.”

2. Before giving grants, the government must set rules to encourage transparency, sharing data, resources and outcomes. Mitchell cited Kauffman’s iBridge Network (a Craigslist for innovation) as a suitable model to create a “lens into universities.”

3. A free agency licensing model should be adopted to encourage more rapid commercialization of innovation. This idea has created some controversy, but the Kauffman team should be applauded for not pulling its punches.

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For more information on the Kauffman Foundation’s work on entrepreneurship and startup trends click here

For more interviews with Friedman, Krugman, Ballard et al…check out Fresh Dialogues archives

For more exclusive video interviews, check out the Fresh Dialogues YouTube Channel

By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

June 24 marked the 13^th annual SDForum Visionary Awards, a celebration of the innovators and chutzpah that make Silicon Valley unique. Although the four visionaries come from diverse backgrounds, Silicon Valley was the common theme for the evening. The visionaries gave a revealing glimpse into the Silicon Valley State of Mind. What exactly is Silicon Valley? What’s its role in the world?

This week, we look at Reid Hoffman’s viewpoint. He’s co-founder of LinkedIn and a renowned innovator in Silicon Valley. He had some strong words to say about the power of entrepreneurship and its ability to jumpstart the economy.

The other honorees this year were Chris Shipley, Arthur Patterson and Brent Schlender. Bill Gates was also there. Alas, in virtual form only.

Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn introduced Reid Hoffman as someone with a brilliant strategic mind and ability to invent the future. As well as being Executive Chairman of LinkedIn, Hoffman is also a partner with venture capitalists, Graylock Partners. Pointing to his colleague’s multidisciplinary background (Hoffman studied symbolic systems and philosophy at Stanford and Oxford respectively), Weiner concluded that education provided the building blocks to create an outstanding public thinker and social networking pioneer. Weiner reminded the audience that Hoffman understood the ability of technology to inform and connect people, inspiring him to launch Socialnet (a precursor to LinkedIn) before Facebook and MySpace existed.

Hoffman walked to the podium with some reluctance, saying that listening to the introduction made him “want to run and hide”; yet he started his speech off by grounding us in time and place.

“It’s an enormous privilege to be at this center fulcrum of how we change the world, that we call Silicon Valley,” he said, and posed the powerful question, “What more should we do with that?”

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Talking like a true Silicon Valley techie, he suggested not two “answers,” but two “vectors” to his question. And, the visionary he is, Hoffman thinks BIG. First, he recommended leveraging entrepreneurship as a powerful way to get the world economy back on track.  Drawing from author, Tom Friedman’s thesis, Hoffman said,

“We live in a world that is increasingly flat and increasingly accelerating. When you have challenges like economic turbulence and uncertainty… entrepreneurship is a really good pattern…we need to make it more available globally.”

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Provoking wry laughter from the crowd, he pointed out that there is no entrepreneurs’ lobby in Washington DC, and implied there should be one to encourage entrepreneurship as part of the stimulus package, both here in the U.S. and around the world.

His second “vector” or call to action was: how can we take business models to the non-profit sector? Drawing from his work at Kiva.org and Endeavor.org, he suggested hybrid models of self-sustaining nonprofits that can help spread entrepreneurship and create high impact change.

“I love to play at the heart of what we do best in Silicon Valley,” said Hoffman. “To take risks, develop technologies and use financing and inspire entrepreneurship to create a lever by which we move the world.”

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Former Financial Times journalist, and popular Silicon Valley Watcher, Tom Foremski used the occasion to launch and distribute his new book, “In My Humble Opinion.” He tells me it isn’t all that humble, but you can see for yourself. Check it out here.
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For more interviews with Friedman, Krugman, Ballard…check out Fresh Dialogues archives

For more videos, check out the Fresh Dialogues YouTube Channel

By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

Guy Kawasaki, the renowned Apple evangelist shares his top tips on how to become a great evangelist and how to leverage your success. This segment is part of a longer interview which took place in front of an audience of over 500 on July 7, 2010 at UC Santa Cruz Extension, and introduced my upcoming course in Green Entrepreneurship. First up: I asked Guy for TIPS ON EVANGELIZING

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“The starting point for a great evangelist is to have a great product….” e.g. the Apple iPad: how hard could that be? Guy Kawasaki

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“The thing that has made me successful is that – unlike a lot of people – I’m willing to grind it out.” ie long hours, hard work. Guy Kawasaki

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On leveraging your success

“With a psych(ology) degree and a marketing background (diamonds), I’m living proof that you can fool most of the people all the time. I’m also living proof if you do one thing right (evangelize the Mac) – you can live off your reputation for decades.” Guy Kawasaki

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Please check back soon for more interview segments with Guy on social media, increasing your followers on Twitter ( to 200,000+) and other wisdom from the author of The Art of The Start and 8 other books on business and entrepreneurship.

For more interviews with Friedman, Krugman, Ballard…check out Fresh Dialogues archives

For more videos, check out the Fresh Dialogues YouTube Channel

By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

On the eve of Tesla’s IPO, Richard Lowenthal of Coulomb Technologies discusses the vital role of charging stations in creating a thriving ecosystem for electric vehicles. Lowenthal, a Silicon Valley based maker of charging stations, argues that a comprehensive network of charging stations is a vital prerequisite for the roll out of electric cars such as the Tesla, Smart Car, Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf in the next two years.

Lowenthal explains why a visit to Tesla Motors inspired him to launch his green company after a successful career in high tech at StrataCom and Stardent Computers. For its part, Coulomb Technologies is still in the early stages of installing charging stations and faces competition from the larger, better funded Better Place which offers battery swaps as well as charging. However, Coulomb recently won a $15 Million grant from the Department of Energy and its ChargePoint America program is scheduled to install 4600 charging stations in nine strategic regions of the United States by September 2011.

Reports indicate that despite Tesla’s questionable financials  - the company has failed to have a profitable quarter –  investors are “giddy” about today’s IPO. It seems that for some, the “cool factor” and zero to 60 in under 4 seconds trumps all….at least in the short term.

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This interview was recorded at the CreaTV Studios in Silicon Valley on April 20, 2010. For more interviews with Tesla experts click here

For more Fresh Dialogues archives

For more videos, check out the Fresh Dialogues YouTube Channel

By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

This week, a report by the Pew Charitable Trust was released, underlining how much the United States is trailing in the clean tech race. Phyllis Cuttino, Pew’s Program Director wrote a succinct piece in the Huffington Post pointing to the fact that the United States fell far behind China in clean energy finance and investment in 2009. China’s total was over $30 billion compared to the U.S. clean energy investment of approximately $17 billion. In light of the BP oil spill and the continuing saga of disaster, both environmental and economic, she reaches a strong conclusion:

“Safe and reliable clean energy can be harnessed to create new jobs, lessen our dependence on foreign energy sources and reduce global warming pollution. That is, if leaders in Washington can look past current partisan differences and work together to create an economic environment for tomorrow, in which our nation’s can-do spirit can again thrive.”

An excellent time to revisit the advice of one of the most vocal advocates for a new energy policy: Author and New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman who spoke with Fresh Dialogues on the subject of energy policy and DC last year.

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From the archives: I caught up with Pulitzer Prize winner, Tom Friedman, at the Foothill College Celebrity Forum lecture series, where he delivered a spirited argument for why the United States must embrace a green economy. In this second part of our interview, we explore his part in driving the green agenda. Last January, he took part in a congressional hearing on green tech and economic recovery, sponsored by US Senator, Barbara Boxer. We discuss his role in that; and how he deals with critics.

Click here for part one of the interview about his book, Hot Flat, and Crowded.

On Friedman’s role in driving the green agenda

“I use my platform as a journalist to drive this agenda that I see as important… I see a lot of things that are very exciting happening – exploding really – on a kind of small scale, but they haven’t yet reached critical mass and when you’re talking about changing the climate, you are talking about critical mass. It hasn’t yet been translated into policy at scale.”

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On his action at the Congressional level in January

“It was an informal hearing, sponsored by Barbara Boxer, on climate and energy. John (Doerr) and I were the two main expert witnesses…No one intervention like that is going to be decisive, it takes many more…most of all from the President.”

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On dealing with critics

“I think there’s a big audience for what I say and I don’t really pay attention to the critics. I keep on marching on. I hear it and it’s fine. And it’s a free country. You can say whatever you want.  But I’ve got my own bully pulpit and I use it. I don’t use it to shout back at critics; I use it to get my message out.  I’m looking forward. You know, the dogs bark and the caravan moves on. I’m in the caravan. My feeling is, I’m out there. And therefore, if you can’t take the heat, don’t be out there… Why would I waste a column writing about one of my critics? So what I always say to the critics is: ‘you may be writing about me, I really appreciate that, but don’t think for a second that I’d waste a column writing about you.’”

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What drives Tom Friedman?

“I’m having fun. I have the best job in the world. I get to be a tourist with an attitude…go wherever I want, write whatever I want…and they pay me for that. I wouldn’t give it up for the world. I still enjoy getting up every morning, hitching up my trousers and getting out there…opening up my laptop and taking on the world.”

The interview was recorded at the Flint Center in Cupertino on September 10, 2009

For Part One of the interview, click here

For Part One transcript, click here

For Part Two transcript, check back soon

By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

Vinod Khosla recently announced a new member of his Khosla Ventures team: none other than former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who has been a vocal proponent of action to combat climate change. According to reports, Blair will be a paid advisor and will add his eloquence and global connections to Khosla’s plans to change the world through cleantech investments.

This from Dana Hull at the Mercury News:

“I’m absolutely thrilled, honored and delighted to team up with Vinod and the people he has working for him,” Blair said before taking the stage for a “fireside chat” with executives from six companies in Khosla Ventures’ vast portfolio. ”Vinod is one of the most creative, dynamic and extraordinary people I’ve ever met in my life… the answers to climate change and energy security lies in the technological innovations. I am thrilled to play whatever small part I can.”

Chances are, Blair will play much more than a “small part” in keeping global warming and the need for cleantech innovation front and center. His eloquence and British accent will no doubt help. But he’ll be keeping his distance from his fellow Brits at BP who have created an environmental disaster.

Here is an interview from the Fresh Dialogues archives which explores Vinod’s motivations for investing in Bloom Energy, future predictions and his concern about cleantech bubbles.

Click here for the FULL TRANSCRIPT
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The interview was recorded at the SDForum Visionary Awards in June 2009.

To see many other exclusive videos at the FRESH DIALOGUES CHANNEL  click here

For a full archive of interviews with Tom Friedman, Paul Krugman, Martin Sheen and many others click here

By Alison van Diggelen, host of Fresh Dialogues

This week, we feature an interview from the archives with Guy Kawasaki, Apple evangelist and venture capitalist at Garage Technology Ventures

He shares his candid thoughts on why he thinks the venture capital model is broken and delivers a bullish pitch for a $500 Million VC Fund.

On the VC Model and Startups

“I think the venture capital model is fundamentally broken, but for different reasons. It’s not the lack of exits. A series of forces: including open source, the recession - so there’s lots of people available for very low prices and cheaper commercial real estate…You can start a company for a lot less today than ever. Life is good in that sense. ..You really don’t need $2 million to build a prototype…I’m talking about a certain type of company…a web 2.0 content, social network something… I’m not talking about finding a cure for cancer.”
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The interview was recorded on April 8, 2009 when the DJIA stood at 7837

To hear or read more Fresh Dialogues interviews with Guy Kawasaki…

Click here for rules for Green Revolutionaries

Click here for Guy’s views on Prius and electric cars

Click here for Guy’s views on ebooks and the Kindle

To read transcripts click here