Free Republic

Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao says Ghislaine Maxwell was rubbing elbows with Silicon Valley's elites in 2011 — and Pao believes people suspected Maxwell's ties to child trafficking at the time and didn't care. Maxwell was arrested last week and is awaiting trial for four criminal charges related to procuring and transporting minors for illegal sex acts. Prosecutors say Maxwell participated in a sex trafficking operation alongside her partner Jeffrey Epstein. Pao, a former partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, said Maxwell was at the firm's holiday party in 2011, more than two years after Epstein was first convicted...

A leading venture capital firm gets taken to the clean energy cleaners. The story in the New York Times says Kleiner Perkins has been “humbled” by the past decade’s performance. That seems appropriate. The nation’s most famous venture capital firm had a stunning 35.7 percent annual rate of return in the decade of the 1990s. That was before they met Al Gore. Somewhere around the time Gore had won his Academy Award for warning the world about global warming, the former Vice President was hired on as a senior partner at KPCB. Fortune wrote an article describing Gore sitting in...

SUNNYVALE -- A prominent Silicon Valley clean-energy startup has been ordered to pay back wages and penalties for bringing in workers from Mexico and paying them about $2.66 an hour in pesos, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday. Sunnyvale-based Bloom Energy, which makes fuel cells and sells energy to clients including AT&T, Adobe, Coca-Cola, eBay, Google and Wal-Mart, was ordered by a judge to pay $31,922 in back wages and an equal amount in damages to 14 welders who were brought in to work alongside domestic workers refurbishing power generators. It followed a federal investigation that inspected records from...

Where did green-energy cash go? Straight to campaign donors. Read more about Peter Schwiezer’s Throw Them All Out in the new Newsweek on sale Monday. When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy. He wanted billions of dollars spent on “shovel-ready projects” to build roads; billions more for developing alternative-energy projects; and additional billions for expanding broadband Internet access and creating a “smart grid” for energy consumption. After he was sworn in as president, he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled...

The wasteful and incomprehensible "green" energy policies of the Obama Administration continue to be exposed as a rip-off of American taxpayers. The latest insane venture involves hybrid auto start-up company, Fisker. While the story of Fisker receiving a $529 million loan from the Department of Energy has been widely reported, less known is the fact that green energy charlatan, Al Gore, may have played a key role in obtaining the loan. Before we move on to Gore's involvement in the Fisker fiasco, let's review what taxpayers are paying for regarding the White House's so-called green car "investment." The Fisker...

Steve Westly's career has long straddled the worlds of progressive politics and alternative energy. Now Westly's roles bankrolling green-energy-firms such as Tesla Motors (TSLA) and alternative energy-friendly politicians such as President Obama have drawn questions about whether the former eBay (EBAY) executive and Democratic state controller's investments unduly benefitted from his political connections. An investigative report this week by the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., and ABC News suggested that after Westly raised $500,000 for Obama's presidential bid, cleantech firms backed by his Menlo Park venture capital firm clinched more than a half-billion dollars in federal aid....

The reinvention of Meg Whitman continues apace. The former eBay (EBAY) chief has been joining corporate boards at the rate of one a month in the wake of last year's unsuccessful run for governor. On Tuesday, powerhouse venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers announced Whitman is joining as a part-time strategic advisor. Whitman will coach entrepreneurs and help evaluate new digital investments, according to a statement. "Her experience and strategic advice will be invaluable," said Kleiner Perkins partner Ted Schlein. Whitman, in the statement, called Menlo Park-based Kleiner "fabulous advocates for technology-based start-ups." Whitman in January joined the...

The Truth on Carly's Prop 13 Claim Carly Fiorina directly attacked a cornerstone of California's conservative movement -- and one of the few institutional protections California's property owners enjoy. In short, she attacked Proposition 13. And there's proof. Below, I'm appending a rather interesting little op-ed from the March 2nd, 2000, San Jose Mercury-News. It's by one Carly Fiorina and John Doerr (then as now a venture capitalist and partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), and it enthusiastically endorses California's Proposition 26 of 2000. What was 2000's California Proposition 26? In brief, it was an attack on the provisions...

It was two weeks ago, that Al Gore challenged Americans to "move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes" by jumping on his alternative energy bandwagon. In a much-hyped speech July 17, the former vice president urged the nation "to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years." Gore acknowledged that achieving his ambitious goal would be difficult: "To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within...

The investment vehicle headed by Al Gore has closed a new $683m fund to invest in early-stage environmental companies and has mounted a robust defence of green investing. The Climate Solutions Fund will be one of the biggest in the growing market for investment funds with an environmental slant. The fund will be focused on equity investments in small companies in four sectors: renewable energy; energy efficiency technologies; energy from biofuels and biomass; and the carbon trading markets. This is the second fund from Generation Investment Management, chaired by the former vice-president of the US and managed by David Blood,...

Gore Admits Financial Reasons for Advancing Global Warming Hysteria Photo of Noel Sheppard. By Noel Sheppard | April 11, 2008 - 09:38 ET For years, NewsBusters has reported on Al Gore's financial interests in advancing global warming hysteria around the world. On March 1, while speaking at the TED Conference in Monterey, California, the Nobel Laureate admitted to having "a stake" in a number of green "investments" that he recommend attendees put their money in instead of "sub-prime carbon assets" like "tar sands" and "shale oil." This occurred as pictures of such products appeared on the screen with names of...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - In a career marked by second acts, Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, is becoming a partner at Silicon Valley's most storied venture capital firm. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers said on Monday that Gore, a campaigner for action to slow global climate change, will join the Menlo Park, California-based venture capital firm as a partner focused on alternative energy investments. The venture firm, which since 1972 has backed seminal computer start-ups ranging from Sun Microsystems to Compaq Computer to Amazon.com to Google Inc, has...

September 13, 2007 Renewable Energy: Not Just Another Investment Bubble by Mark Braly, Contributing Writer Davis, California [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] Renewable energies and demand-side technologies have become the third largest investment class for venture capitalists (VC) in the U.S. This was just one of the messages heard by the more than 700 investors and entrepreneurs who convened on the campus of the University of California Davis this week for a three-day conference that showcased the newest in clean energy technologies. The event, which ran Sept. 10-12, kicked off with a panel of Silicon Valley venture capitalists in a session entitled "The Green...

Some of the world's wealthiest are going green, spending their own greenbacks to protect the environment and fight global warming. In honor of the 37th annual Earth Day this Sunday, we are highlighting our picks for the 11 greenest billionaires. These moguls have made significant commitments to the environment, whether through investment in technology, commitment to earth-friendly living or simply by raising the world's environmental awareness. Among the green billionaires are high-profile folks like Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT) co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Gates' investment firm invested $84 million in California's Pacific Ethanol (nasdaq: PEIX), which makes ethanol from corn;...

Silicon Valley’s technology investors have taken to the ramparts, threatening to tear down the oil and gas industries’ dominance with innovations that use ethanol, solar and wind. A chief champion of the cause has been Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the marquee venture capital firms. Its principals, John Doerr in particular, have passionately advocated development of alternative energies as a way to create energy independence and clean up the carbon-saturated atmosphere. But Kleiner has also poured millions of dollars into Terralliance, a company that makes technology to enable more efficient drilling of oil and gas. The investment underscores...

The coalition of environmental entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who lobbied hard for California's global warming law now wants to take its efforts nationwide. It just hasn't decided which policies to push. The Greentech Innovation Network -- created by venture powerhouse Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers -- met Thursday and Friday in Berkeley to discuss which policies and technologies could most effectively fight global warming. The group heard advice from experts including a federal energy official, the president of Iceland and former Vice President Al Gore. John Denniston, a partner with Kleiner Perkins, said the organization is already talking with members...

SACRAMENTO - A hotly contested bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California would spur a wave of new clean-energy technology, prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr predicted Wednesday. Entrepreneurs ``are going to go out and compete and innovate to bring enormous solutions to the market'' if the bill passes, Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, said at a news conference at the Capitol. He was joined by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-Los Angeles, and executives from several alternative-energy companies. Assembly Bill 32, sponsored by Núñez and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Woodland Hills, would mandate cuts in...

Backers of a measure that would hit energy companies drilling in California with $4 billion in new taxes planned to start running a hard-hitting TV ad across the state today urging voters to "make oil companies pay.'' There's nothing subtle about the new ad, said Paul Begala, a consultant for Proposition 87. "We're not shy; our most important goal is to get California off its dependence on oil,'' said Begala, a former Clinton White House aide and CNN television commentator. "If you want support, you have to build support.'' Prop. 87 would tax companies for oil pumped in California, based...

Direct democracy in California is becoming the latest hot investment for venture capitalists looking to merge their societal goals with a good return on their money. By backing ballot measures tailored to promote their personal and financial interests, investors can quickly change public policy and make a buck at the same time. Proposition 87 on the November ballot, which would tax oil to promote alternative fuels, is winning support from a key financier who is heavily invested in the kind of technologies that the initiative would reward. Vinod Khosla, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems and now a prominent...

In California politics, Silicon Valley executives used to be considered newbies, nerds or simply multimillionaires with too much time and money on their hands. No longer. Emboldened over the past decade by some success passing ballot propositions, a handful of the valley's most influential power brokers are once again aiming to use the initiative process to put their stamp on public policy in California. Two of the boldest electoral initiatives yet to emerge from valley interests will be on November's ballot: NetFlix founder Reed Hastings and Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr are backing Proposition 88, an unprecedented statewide real...