Vinod Khosla

Founder

Nonlinearity in reinvention leads to counterintuitive results when we inspect the technological breakthroughs desperately needed to catalyze the energy transition. Paradoxically, we do not believe that "it takes everyone" to solve the problem. It takes a few instigators, in the form of 12-15 entrepreneurs, with energy, passion, and even a little luck, to change our current trajectory. Our view is that the seeds of change are already planted or will be planted in the next five years in critical areas such as electric vehicles, food & agriculture, low carbon transportation, cement, public transit, fertilizer, water, and steel. 

The pace of change is underestimated by most investors. Even five years ago, most car companies did not take electric vehicles seriously. A decade ago coal power plants were still highly valued and oil was assumed to be the world's energy source, yet today without a clear path to newer strategies, businesses are doomed. Similar trends are observed in food & agriculture as companies such as Impossible Foods have fundamentally changed our assumptions around what role plant proteins can play (spawning a hundred new startups) and the mechanism by which we reduce animal husbandry which lowers greenhouse gas and water footprint. What's clearer though is that the world still doesn't understand how material a size of the total beef market it can be. 

These results are not just anecdotal. Empirically, reinvention is non-institutional in nature as we have inspected the last half-century of key innovations in all fields, not just energy. It is hard to understand that the early parts of exponential curves look flat and uninteresting or niches until the exponential hits the knee of the curve and then global punditry and assumptions will change. We have reached the knee of the curve in EV's and will reach that point in plant proteins in the next five years. Transition curves for other industries like construction, public transit, cement, and sustainable aviation fuels are still 5-10 years away. This is part of what excites us every day: knowing that the next reinvention could be seeded by our next investment.