Q&A: Venture capitalist John Doerr on big regrets and the clean energy revolution

Billionaire funder and philanthropist messed up not backing ‘ambitious, slightly crazy entrepreneur’ Elon MuskVenture capitalist John Doerr invested early in Google and Amazon, but passed on Tesla. It is one of his biggest regrets.

In addition to investing, he is expanding his philanthropy, focusing on sustainability and climate change. In May, Doerr and his wife gave Stanford University $1bn — its largest gift ever — to create the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. He also released a book in November called“Climate science is going to become the new computer science,” said Doerr, a regular contributor to Democratic candidates and progressive initiatives.

He joined Kleiner Perkins in 1980 under its founding partners — Eugene Kleiner, Tom Perkins, Frank Caufield and Brook Byers — when the Menlo Park, California-based firm managed about $100m. Assets have since grown to about $20bn. There have been 400 new car companies in the US’s history. Everyone but one has gone bankrupt. But I was still very attracted to the market, and we had the choice of backing a brilliant car designer by the name of Henrik Fisker, or an ambitious, slightly crazy entrepreneur by the name of Elon Musk at Tesla. Well, we made the wrong decision.My good fortune was to have a technical background, to listen very carefully, to learn to be inquisitive and to be service orientated.

You’ve written that one of your daughters asked what are you doing about climate change, and that propelled you to do something more than you had been doing. ? Well, I took my family and some friends to see that. We went home for dinner and had a discussion. The science wasn’t so clear then. But when it came to my 15-year-old daughter Mary, she looked at me and said, “Dad, I’m scared and I’m angry. Your generation created this problem. You better fix it.” And the room went silent.

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