It was a classic performance from Khosla, a man who "enters any chamber believing he's the smartest man in the room," in the words of one longtime VC. "In 30 seconds, in one paragraph, I knew this was worth doing," Khosla says now, adding that the cement startup, called Calera, "may be our biggest win ever."
Over the past four years, Khosla has become the world's foremost investor in environmental startups. He has committed an estimated $450 million of his personal fortune to financing 45 ethanol factories, solar-power parks, and makers of environmentally friendly lightbulbs, batteries, and automotive components.
These investments have made him the most prominent of an increasingly rare breed, the so-called angel investors who put their own funds into the youngest of companies -- including outfits that are pursuing the most innovative, but not yet commercially viable, approaches to serious problems such as global warming. It's a kind of seed-stage investing that traditional venture funds have largely abandoned.
And rightly so, Khosla says. "If somebody comes to you with a cold-fusion idea, you should not be funding it as an investor with other people's money. Funding it, if they're credible people, as a science experiment, as a hobby, is perfectly okay -- as long as it's your own money."
Khosla's green investing has made him something of a celebrity, mentioned in the media with the likes of mogul Richard Branson, former President Bill Clinton, Hollywood producer Stephen Bing, and General Motors chairman and CEO Richard Wagoner.
Image: Turbines of the new Burbo Bank off shore wind farm lay in the wake of a maintenance boat in the mouth of the River Mersey in Liverpool, England. | Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
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