ABOUT THE SPEAKER
John Doerr - Venture capitalist
John Doerr is an engineer, acclaimed venture capitalist and the chairman of Kleiner Perkins.

Why you should listen

For 37 years, John has served entrepreneurs with ingenuity and optimism, helping them build disruptive companies and bold teams. In 2018, he authored the New York Times bestseller, Measure What Matters, a handbook for setting and achieving audacious goals. Through his book and platform, WhatMatters.com, he shares valuable lessons from some of the most fearless innovators of our time.

John was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than half a million jobs and the world’s second and third most valuable companies. He’s passionate about encouraging leaders to reimagine the future, from transforming healthcare to advancing applications of machine learning. Outside of Kleiner Perkins, John works with social entrepreneurs for change in public education, the climate crisis, and global poverty. John serves on the board of the Obama Foundation and ONE.org.

More profile about the speaker
John Doerr | Speaker | TED.com
TED2007

John Doerr: Salvation (and profit) in greentech

Filmed:
1,134,698 views

"I don't think we're going to make it," John Doerr says in an emotional talk about climate change and investment. To create a world fit for his daughter to live in, he says, we need to invest now in clean, green energy.
- Venture capitalist
John Doerr is an engineer, acclaimed venture capitalist and the chairman of Kleiner Perkins. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:25
I'm really scared. I don't think we're going to make it.
0
0
4000
00:32
Probably by now most of you have seen Al Gore's amazing talk.
1
7000
4000
00:36
Shortly after I saw that, we had some friends over for dinner
2
11000
4000
00:40
with the family. The conversation turned to global warming,
3
15000
4000
00:44
and everybody agreed, there's a real problem.
4
19000
4000
00:48
We've got a climate crisis.
5
23000
2000
00:50
So, we went around the table to talk about what we should do.
6
25000
3000
00:55
The conversation came to my 15-year-old daughter, Mary.
7
30000
3000
01:00
She said, "I agree with everything that's been said.
8
35000
3000
01:05
I'm scared and I'm angry." And then she turned to me and said,
9
40000
5000
01:10
"Dad, your generation created this problem; you'd better fix it." Wow.
10
45000
7000
01:18
All the conversation stopped. All the eyes turned to me.
11
53000
3000
01:22
(Laughter)
12
57000
4000
01:27
I didn't know what to say. Kleiner's second law is,
13
62000
5000
01:32
"There is a time when panic is the appropriate response."
14
67000
4000
01:36
(Laughter)
15
71000
1000
01:37
And we've reached that time. We cannot afford to underestimate
16
72000
6000
01:43
this problem. If we face irreversible and catastrophic consequences,
17
78000
8000
01:51
we must act, and we must act decisively.
18
86000
2000
01:54
I've got to tell you, for me, everything changed that evening.
19
89000
4000
01:58
And so, my partners and I, we set off on this mission to learn more,
20
93000
4000
02:02
to try to do much more. So, we mobilized. We got on airplanes.
21
97000
4000
02:06
We went to Brazil. We went to China and to India,
22
101000
3000
02:09
to Bentonville, Arkansas, to Washington, D.C. and to Sacramento.
23
104000
5000
02:14
And so, what I'd like to do now is to tell you
24
109000
3000
02:17
about what we've learned in those journeys.
25
112000
3000
02:20
Because the more we learned, the more concerned we grew.
26
115000
3000
02:23
You know, my partners at Kleiner and I were compulsive networkers,
27
118000
2000
02:25
and so when we see a big problem or an opportunity
28
120000
3000
02:28
like avian flu or personalized medicine,
29
123000
3000
02:31
we just get together the smartest people we know.
30
126000
3000
02:34
For this climate crisis, we assembled a network, really,
31
129000
4000
02:38
of superstars, from policy activists to scientists and entrepreneurs
32
133000
5000
02:43
and business leaders. Fifty or so of them.
33
138000
2000
02:45
And so, I want to tell you about what we've learned in doing that
34
140000
4000
02:49
and four lessons I've learned in the last year.
35
144000
3000
02:52
The first lesson is that companies are really powerful,
36
147000
3000
02:56
and that matters a lot. This is a story about
37
151000
3000
02:59
how Wal-Mart went green, and what that means.
38
154000
3000
03:02
Two years ago, the CEO, Lee Scott, believed that green is
39
157000
5000
03:07
the next big thing, and so Wal-Mart made going green a top priority.
40
162000
5000
03:13
They committed that they're going to take their existing stores
41
168000
2000
03:15
and reduce their energy consumption by 20 percent,
42
170000
3000
03:18
and their new stores by 30 percent, and do all that in seven years.
43
173000
5000
03:24
The three biggest uses of energy in a store are heating
44
179000
3000
03:27
and air conditioning, then lighting, and then refrigeration.
45
182000
4000
03:31
So, look what they did.
46
186000
2000
03:33
They painted the roofs of all their stores white.
47
188000
2000
03:36
They put smart skylights through their stores
48
191000
2000
03:38
so they could harvest the daylight and reduce the lighting demands.
49
193000
4000
03:42
And, third, they put the refrigerated goods
50
197000
2000
03:44
behind closed doors with LED lighting.
51
199000
2000
03:47
I mean, why would you try to refrigerate a whole store?
52
202000
3000
03:50
These are really simple, smart solutions based on existing technology.
53
205000
4000
03:55
Why does Wal-Mart matter? Well, it's massive.
54
210000
2000
03:58
They're the largest private employer in America.
55
213000
3000
04:01
They're the largest private user of electricity.
56
216000
2000
04:03
They have the second-largest vehicle fleet on the road.
57
218000
4000
04:07
And they have one of the world's most amazing supply chains,
58
222000
3000
04:10
60,000 suppliers. If Wal-Mart were a country,
59
225000
3000
04:14
it would be the sixth-largest trading partner with China.
60
229000
3000
04:17
And maybe most important, they have a big effect on other companies.
61
232000
5000
04:22
When Wal-Mart declares it's going to go green and be profitable,
62
237000
5000
04:27
it has a powerful impact on other great institutions.
63
242000
3000
04:30
So, let me tell you this:
64
245000
1000
04:31
when Wal-Mart achieves 20 percent energy reductions,
65
246000
3000
04:34
that's going to be a very big deal. But I'm afraid it's not enough.
66
249000
6000
04:40
We need Wal-Mart and every other company to do the same.
67
255000
5000
04:45
The second thing that we learned is that individuals matter,
68
260000
3000
04:48
and they matter enormously.
69
263000
3000
04:51
I've got another Wal-Mart story for you, OK?
70
266000
2000
04:53
Wal-Mart has over 125 million U.S. customers.
71
268000
3000
04:56
That's a third of the U.S. population.
72
271000
2000
05:00
65 million compact fluorescent light bulbs were sold last year.
73
275000
4000
05:05
And Wal-Mart has committed they're going to sell
74
280000
3000
05:08
another 100 million light bulbs in the coming year. But it's not easy.
75
283000
4000
05:13
Consumers don't really like these light bulbs.
76
288000
2000
05:15
The light's kind of funny, they won't dim,
77
290000
2000
05:17
takes a while for them to start up.
78
292000
2000
05:19
But the pay-off is really enormous.
79
294000
3000
05:22
100 million compact fluorescent light bulbs means
80
297000
3000
05:25
that we'll save 600 million dollars in energy bills,
81
300000
4000
05:29
and 20 million tons of CO2 every year, year in and year out.
82
304000
5000
05:36
It does seem really hard to get consumers to do the right thing.
83
311000
3000
05:40
It is stupid that we use two tons of steel, glass and plastic
84
315000
5000
05:45
to haul our sorry selves to the shopping mall.
85
320000
2000
05:49
It's stupid that we put water in plastic bottles
86
324000
3000
05:52
in Fiji and ship it here.
87
327000
3000
05:56
(Laughter)
88
331000
2000
05:58
It's hard to change consumer behavior
89
333000
2000
06:00
because consumers don't know how much this stuff costs. Do you know?
90
335000
4000
06:05
Do you know how much CO2 you generated to drive here or fly here?
91
340000
4000
06:10
I don't know, and I should.
92
345000
2000
06:13
Those of us who care about all this would act better
93
348000
2000
06:15
if we knew what the real costs were.
94
350000
3000
06:18
But as long as we pretend that CO2 is free,
95
353000
3000
06:21
as long as these uses are nearly invisible, how can we expect change?
96
356000
5000
06:26
I'm really afraid, because I think the kinds of changes
97
361000
4000
06:30
we can reasonably expect from individuals
98
365000
2000
06:33
are going to be clearly not enough.
99
368000
3000
06:38
The third lesson we learned is that policy matters. It really matters.
100
373000
3000
06:41
In fact, policy is paramount.
101
376000
2000
06:44
I've got a behind-the-scenes story for you
102
379000
2000
06:46
about that green tech network I described.
103
381000
1000
06:47
At the end of our first meeting, we got together to talk about
104
382000
3000
06:50
what the action items would be, how we'd follow up.
105
385000
3000
06:54
And Bob Epstein raised a hand. He stood up.
106
389000
4000
06:58
You know, Bob's that Berkeley techie type who started Sybase.
107
393000
3000
07:01
Well, Bob said the most important thing we could do right now
108
396000
4000
07:05
is to make it clear in Sacramento, California
109
400000
3000
07:09
that we need a market-based system of mandates
110
404000
3000
07:12
that's going to cap and reduce greenhouse gases in California.
111
407000
4000
07:17
It's necessary and, just as important,
112
412000
3000
07:20
it's good for the California economy.
113
415000
2000
07:22
So, eight of us went to Sacramento in August and we met
114
417000
3000
07:25
with the seven undecided legislators and we lobbied for AB32.
115
420000
5000
07:30
You know what? Six of those seven voted yes in favor of the bill,
116
425000
3000
07:33
so it passed, and it passed by a vote of 47 to 32.
117
428000
5000
07:39
(Applause)
118
434000
3000
07:42
Please. Thank you.
119
437000
2000
07:46
I think it's the most important legislation of 2006. Why?
120
441000
1000
07:47
Because California was the first state in this country
121
442000
4000
07:51
to mandate 25 percent reduction of greenhouse gases by 2020.
122
446000
4000
07:55
And the result of that is, we're going to generate 83,000 new jobs,
123
450000
5000
08:00
four billion dollars a year in annual income, and reduce the CO2 emissions
124
455000
4000
08:04
by 174 million tons a year.
125
459000
3000
08:09
California emits only seven percent of U.S. CO2 emissions.
126
464000
5000
08:14
It's only a percent and a half of the country's CO2 emissions. It's a great start,
127
469000
3000
08:17
but I've got to tell you -- where I started -- I'm really afraid.
128
472000
4000
08:22
In fact, I'm certain California's not enough.
129
477000
3000
08:26
Here's a story about national policy that we could all learn from.
130
481000
4000
08:30
You know Tom Friedman says, "If you don't go, you don't know"?
131
485000
3000
08:33
Well, we went to Brazil to meet Dr. Jose Goldemberg.
132
488000
4000
08:37
He's the father of the ethanol revolution.
133
492000
3000
08:40
He told us that Brazil's government mandated
134
495000
3000
08:43
that every gasoline station in the country would carry ethanol.
135
498000
4000
08:47
And they mandated that their new vehicles
136
502000
3000
08:50
would be flex-fuel compatible, right?
137
505000
2000
08:52
They'd run ethanol or ordinary gasoline.
138
507000
3000
08:55
And so, here's what's happened in Brazil.
139
510000
2000
08:57
They now have 29,000 ethanol pumps --
140
512000
3000
09:00
this versus 700 in the U.S., and a paltry two in California --
141
515000
4000
09:04
and in three years their new car fleet
142
519000
2000
09:06
has gone from four percent to 85 percent flex-fuel.
143
521000
4000
09:11
Compare that to the U.S.: five percent are flex-fuel.
144
526000
3000
09:14
And you know what? Most consumers who have them don't even know it.
145
529000
4000
09:19
So, what's happened in Brazil is, they've replaced
146
534000
3000
09:22
40 percent of the gasoline consumed by their automotive fleet with ethanol.
147
537000
4000
09:26
That's 59 billion dollars since 1975
148
541000
4000
09:30
that they didn't ship to the Middle East.
149
545000
2000
09:32
It's created a million jobs inside that country,
150
547000
3000
09:35
and it's saved 32 million tons of CO2. It's really substantial.
151
550000
4000
09:39
That's 10 percent of the CO2 emissions across their entire country.
152
554000
3000
09:43
But Brazil's only 1.3 percent of the world's CO2 emission.
153
558000
4000
09:47
So, Brazil's ethanol miracle, I'm really afraid, is not enough.
154
562000
6000
09:54
In fact, I'm afraid all of the best policies we have
155
569000
3000
09:57
are not going to be enough.
156
572000
3000
10:01
The fourth and final lesson we've learned
157
576000
2000
10:03
is about the potential of radical innovation.
158
578000
2000
10:05
So, I want to tell you about a tragic problem
159
580000
2000
10:07
and a breakthrough technology.
160
582000
2000
10:09
Every year a million and a half people die of
161
584000
3000
10:12
a completely preventable disease. That's malaria. 6,000 people a day.
162
587000
4000
10:17
All for want of two dollars' worth of medications
163
592000
2000
10:19
that we can buy at the corner drugstore.
164
594000
2000
10:21
Well, two dollars, two dollars is too much for Africa.
165
596000
4000
10:25
So, a team of Berkeley researchers with 15 million dollars
166
600000
4000
10:29
from the Gates Foundation is engineering, designing a radical new way
167
604000
6000
10:35
to make the key ingredient, called artemisinin,
168
610000
3000
10:39
and they're going to make that drug 10 times cheaper.
169
614000
2000
10:41
And in doing so, they'll save a million lives --
170
616000
3000
10:44
at least a million lives a year. A million lives.
171
619000
2000
10:47
Their breakthrough technology is synthetic biology.
172
622000
4000
10:51
This leverages millions of years of evolution
173
626000
2000
10:53
by redesigning bugs to make really useful products.
174
628000
3000
10:56
Now, what you do is, you get inside the microbe,
175
631000
3000
10:59
you change its metabolic pathways, and you end up with a living chemical factory.
176
634000
5000
11:04
Now, you may ask,
177
639000
2000
11:06
John, what has this got to go with green and with climate crisis?
178
641000
3000
11:09
Well, I'll tell you -- a lot.
179
644000
2000
11:11
We've now formed a company called Amyris, and this technology
180
646000
4000
11:15
that they're using can be used to make better biofuels.
181
650000
4000
11:19
Don't let me skip over that. Better biofuels are a really big deal.
182
654000
4000
11:23
That means we can precisely engineer the molecules in the fuel chain
183
658000
4000
11:27
and optimize them along the way.
184
662000
2000
11:30
So, if all goes well, they're going to have designer bugs in warm vats
185
665000
5000
11:35
that are eating and digesting sugars to excrete better biofuels.
186
670000
7000
11:42
I guess that's better living through bugs.
187
677000
3000
11:46
Alan Kay is famous for saying
188
681000
2000
11:48
the best way to predict the future is to invent it.
189
683000
2000
11:50
And, of course, at Kleiner we, kind of, apologize and say
190
685000
3000
11:53
the second best way is to finance it.
191
688000
2000
11:55
And that's why we're investing 200 million dollars
192
690000
4000
11:59
in a wide range of really disruptive new technologies
193
694000
3000
12:02
for innovation in green technologies.
194
697000
2000
12:04
And we're encouraging others to do it as well.
195
699000
2000
12:06
We're talking a lot about this.
196
701000
2000
12:08
In 2005, there were 600 million dollars invested in new technologies
197
703000
5000
12:13
of the sort you see here. It doubled in 2006 to 1.2 billion dollars.
198
708000
5000
12:18
But I'm really afraid we need much, much more.
199
713000
5000
12:24
For reference, fact one:
200
719000
1000
12:25
Exxon's revenues in 2005 were a billion dollars a day.
201
720000
3000
12:28
Do you know, they only invested 0.2 percent of revenues in R&D?
202
723000
4000
12:32
Second fact: the President's new budget for renewable energy
203
727000
4000
12:36
is barely a billion dollars in total.
204
731000
2000
12:39
Less than one day of Exxon's revenues.
205
734000
2000
12:42
Third fact: I bet you didn't know that there's enough energy
206
737000
3000
12:45
in hot rocks under the country to supply America's energy needs
207
740000
5000
12:50
for the next thousand years. And the federal budget
208
745000
4000
12:54
calls for a measly 20 million dollars of R&D in geothermal energy.
209
749000
5000
12:59
It is almost criminal that we are not investing more
210
754000
3000
13:02
in energy research in this country.
211
757000
3000
13:05
And I am really afraid that it's absolutely not enough.
212
760000
5000
13:10
So, in a year's worth of learning we found a bunch of surprises.
213
765000
3000
13:13
Who would have thought that a mass retailer
214
768000
2000
13:15
could make money by going green? Who would have thought that
215
770000
2000
13:17
a database entrepreneur could transform California with legislation?
216
772000
4000
13:21
Who would have thought that the ethanol biofuel miracle
217
776000
4000
13:25
would come from a developing country in South America?
218
780000
3000
13:28
And who would have thought that scientists
219
783000
2000
13:30
trying to cure malaria could come up with breakthroughs in biofuels?
220
785000
4000
13:35
And who would have thought that all that is not enough?
221
790000
4000
13:40
Not enough to stabilize the climate.
222
795000
2000
13:42
Not enough to keep the ice in Greenland from crashing into the ocean.
223
797000
4000
13:46
The scientists tell us -- and they're only guessing --
224
801000
2000
13:48
that we've got to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one half,
225
803000
4000
13:52
and do it as fast as possible.
226
807000
1000
13:53
Now, we may have the political will to do this in the U.S.,
227
808000
3000
13:56
but I've got to tell you, we've got only one atmosphere,
228
811000
3000
14:00
and so somehow we're going to have to find the political will
229
815000
2000
14:02
to do this all around the world. The wild card in this deck is China.
230
817000
7000
14:09
To size the problem, China's CO2 emissions today are 3.3 gigatons;
231
824000
6000
14:15
the U.S. is 5.8. Business as usual means
232
830000
4000
14:19
we'll have 23 gigatons from China by 2050.
233
834000
3000
14:22
That's about as much CO2 as there is in the whole world.
234
837000
3000
14:25
And if it's business as usual, we're going out of business.
235
840000
3000
14:28
When I was in Davos, China's Mayor of Dalian was pressed
236
843000
3000
14:31
about their CO2 strategy, and he said the following,
237
846000
3000
14:34
"You know, Americans use seven times the CO2 per capita as Chinese."
238
849000
5000
14:39
Then he asked, "Why should China sacrifice our growth
239
854000
4000
14:43
so that the West can continue to be profligate and stupid?"
240
858000
4000
14:47
Does anybody here have an answer for him? I don't.
241
862000
3000
14:52
We've got to make this economic so that all people and all nations
242
867000
6000
14:59
make the right outcome, the profitable outcome,
243
874000
2000
15:01
and therefore the likely outcome.
244
876000
2000
15:03
Energy's a six-trillion-dollar business worldwide.
245
878000
2000
15:05
It is the mother of all markets. You remember that Internet?
246
880000
4000
15:09
Well, I'll tell you what. Green technologies -- going green --
247
884000
4000
15:13
is bigger than the Internet.
248
888000
1000
15:14
It could be the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century.
249
889000
4000
15:18
Moreover, if we succeed, it's going to be
250
893000
2000
15:20
the most important transformation for life on the planet since,
251
895000
4000
15:24
as Bill Joy says, we went from methane to oxygen in the atmosphere.
252
899000
3000
15:28
Now, here's the hard question, if the trajectory of all the world's
253
903000
5000
15:33
companies and individuals and policies and innovation
254
908000
4000
15:37
is not going to be enough, what are we going to do? I don't know.
255
912000
7000
15:45
Everyone here cares about changing the world
256
920000
3000
15:48
and has made a difference in that one way or another.
257
923000
2000
15:51
So, our call to action -- my call to you --
258
926000
4000
15:55
is for you to make going green your next big thing, your gig.
259
930000
6000
16:02
What can you do? You can personally get carbon neutral.
260
937000
6000
16:08
Go to ClimateCrisis.org or CarbonCalculator.com
261
943000
4000
16:12
and buy carbon credits. You could join other leaders in mandating,
262
947000
5000
16:17
lobbying for mandated cap and trade in U.S. greenhouse gas reductions.
263
952000
5000
16:22
There's six bills right now in Congress. Let's get one of them passed.
264
957000
4000
16:27
And the most important thing you can do, I think,
265
962000
2000
16:29
is to use your personal power and your Rolodex
266
964000
2000
16:31
to lead your business, your institution, in going green.
267
966000
4000
16:35
Do it like Wal-Mart, get it to go green
268
970000
2000
16:37
for its customers and its suppliers and for itself.
269
972000
5000
16:42
Really think outside the box.
270
977000
2000
16:44
Can you imagine what it would be like if Amazon or eBay or Google
271
979000
5000
16:49
or Microsoft or Apple really went green and you caused that to happen?
272
984000
5000
16:54
It could be bigger than Wal-Mart.
273
989000
3000
16:59
I can't wait to see what we TEDsters do about this crisis.
274
994000
6000
17:05
And I really, really hope that we multiply all of our energy,
275
1000000
4000
17:09
all of our talent and all of our influence to solve this problem.
276
1004000
4000
17:24
Because if we do, I can look forward
277
1019000
6000
17:30
to the conversation I'm going to have with my daughter in 20 years.
278
1025000
4000
17:34
(Applause)
279
1029000
21000

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
John Doerr - Venture capitalist
John Doerr is an engineer, acclaimed venture capitalist and the chairman of Kleiner Perkins.

Why you should listen

For 37 years, John has served entrepreneurs with ingenuity and optimism, helping them build disruptive companies and bold teams. In 2018, he authored the New York Times bestseller, Measure What Matters, a handbook for setting and achieving audacious goals. Through his book and platform, WhatMatters.com, he shares valuable lessons from some of the most fearless innovators of our time.

John was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than half a million jobs and the world’s second and third most valuable companies. He’s passionate about encouraging leaders to reimagine the future, from transforming healthcare to advancing applications of machine learning. Outside of Kleiner Perkins, John works with social entrepreneurs for change in public education, the climate crisis, and global poverty. John serves on the board of the Obama Foundation and ONE.org.

More profile about the speaker
John Doerr | Speaker | TED.com