Former Vice President Al Gore has been hailed for his work on the Academy Award-winning film An Inconvenient Truth, and for bringing climate change to the forefront of public attention. He even won a Nobel Prize this year. Now, visionary venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers has brought Gore on board to help pursue the next big (green) thing.
The firm, which boasts well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr among its partners, has backed such successful companies as Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), and Netscape, which played a crucial role in bringing the Internet into the mainstream, before falling in battle with Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT).
Of course, even visionaries can make mistakes. Our own David Gardner likes to tell the story of how KPCB didn't see the Fool's future potential. In fact, somebody over there apparently called us "toast" quite a few years ago.
Oh well, nobody's perfect. And as David also pointed out, Kleiner Perkins' successes have come with a few flubs, like the notorious @Home. But we shouldn't hold grudges, especially since Gore's coming aboard to address another potentially huge market opportunity: clean, green, renewable technology.
Motley Fool Rule Breakers has touched on that area, too, having recommended several stocks like PowerShares Wilderhill Clean Energy (NYSE: PBW) and Suntech Power (NYSE: STP). In fact, David Gardner's found one of Doerr's guiding mantras highly compatible with the Rule Breakers service: "The best way to accurately predict the future is to invest in it."
However you feel about Al Gore or the prospect of global warming, there are plenty of reasons not to ignore the idea of cleaner, more sustainable energy alternatives. They often make good long-term business sense, which is a crucial quality for prospective investors.
All jokes about "inventing the Internet" aside, it's hard to deny that Gore has had a knack for aligning himself with some of the most forward-looking, creative industries and companies, including his spot on the board of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). That makes his involvement with Kleiner Perkins seem like another sign that renewable energy will be a vastly growing market opportunity for investors to watch.
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