Big data will replace the need for 80% of all doctors

For electric power generation, we are very optimistic about solar-thermal technology, and we’re intrigued by the potential of enhanced geothermal energy to replace coal-based power generation. Traditional carbon capture and sequestration-based coal power generation is somewhat unlikely to be competitive.

Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good is one of the reasons we have a coal-dependent infrastructure, with the resulting environmental impact that all of us can see. I suspect environmentalists, through their opposition of nuclear power, have caused more coal plants to be built than anybody. And those coal plants have emitted more radioactive material from the coal than any nuclear accident would have.

Entrepreneurs have the flexibility and the ability to do things that large companies simply cannot. Could a large company pull off a trick like Amyris, going from anti-malaria medicine to next-generation fuel?

No one will pay you to solve a non-problem.

I've probably failed more often than anybody else in Silicon Valley. Those don't matter. I don't remember the failures. You remember the big successes.

I'm not a political person. I'm a techie nerd, and I enjoy the techie part. I mean, all my life, I've loved great technology.