A Humbled Kleiner Perkins Adjusts Its Strategy

New York Times ^ | 5/7/2013 | RANDALL SMITH

[Wayne07]

During the dot-com boom, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital investment firm, all but minted money, making prescient early investments in Netscape Communications, Amazon.com and Google and delivering astonishing returns to investors. Along the way, it became a symbol of Silicon Valley.

But the firm has hit a rough patch over the last decade, frustrated by unsuccessful forays into clean technology and by a catch-up effort to take later-stage stakes in social media companies.

Kleiner has held a series of status-report meetings with its outside investors this year, acknowledging that recent fund performance “wasn’t great,” one attendee said. “They really believed green tech was going to be the next big technology wave,” this investor added.

[...]

At a Congressional hearing last month, Republican members of a House oversight committee asked witnesses from Fisker and the Energy Department whether Democratic political contributions and influence of Kleiner partners, led by the Obama adviser John Doerr, had helped Fisker gain $192 million in government green-energy loans.

[...]

clean technology became Kleiner’s marquee strategy. Kleiner hired Al Gore, the former vice president, soon after his 2006 film about global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won two Oscars. A member of President Obama’s economic recovery advisory board, Mr. Doerr has advocated for government policies and subsidies favoring clean-technology innovation.

“Going green is bigger than the Internet,” Mr. Doerr said in 2007. “It could be the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century.” [...]

Kleiner Perkins has helped raise “over $2 million in political contributions in the 2008 election cycle, most of which went to Democrats including President Obama,” Mr. Jordan said. He asked if that, or Mr. Doerr’s role as an Obama adviser, helped Fisker “to get a loan, get taxpayer money from the Department of Energy?”

[Wayne07]

Stupid silicon valley bubble heads manage to steal hundreds of millions from US taxpayers, but still lose the money. The curse of being in bed with Al Gore. I excerpted some of the highlights above, but the article is worth a read. You can see the leftist group think of California oozing out of the article.

[bigbob]

Kleiner Perkins seems to have segued into oblivion: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-46140279/segways-corporate-savior-drives-off-cliff-but-didnt-take-company-with-him/

[Madhattan]

I saw mr Perkins stupidity in plain view when I saw the Maltese Falcon. Who needs something like that to sail?

[LRoggy]

Al Gore is really good at investing OTHER people’s money, isn’t he? Everything he touches in the private sector turns to c**p.

[Brad from Tennessee]

[Kleiner hired Al Gore, the former vice president, soon after his 2006 film about global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won two Oscars.]

Kleiner Perkins would invest in a green start-up then send Gore to D.C. to make sure the new company got a big subsidy. Gore personally enriched himself by harvesting “Stimulus” money for a “smart meter” firm he was part of.

[winner3000]

Yes, but Al Gore himself laughs all the way to the bank, and has no problem expanding his carbon footprint. I like to call him Big Foot!

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

“...but still lose the money. The curse of being in bed with Al Gore.”

How much of the millions stolen and lost wound up in algore’s bank accounts? EVIL abounds. EVIL abounds in the present Barack Sortelo regime, even more so than it did in the Willie Jeff regime, and the same players are soaking ‘We the People’ and getting rich by doing so. To HELL with the whole lot of ‘em.