Supply Chain Reaction

Al Gore is working again. This time it’s not in Hollywood or D.C. He’s landed a gig as a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), one of Silicon Valley’s better-known venture capital firms.

Gore, who also sits on Apple’s board and is a senior advisor at Google, isn’t making his first imprint on the tech world. The former United States Vice President, turned "An Inconvenient Truth" documentary star, turned Nobel Peace Prize winner ruffled many feathers when he appeared at last year's Embedded Systems Conference and presented a keynote about how the so-called climate crisis could be an opportunity to attract a new generation of engineers.

Now it appears he and KPCB are looking to encourage not only green thinking, but a flow of greenbacks to green players. KPCB is actively investing in “greentech” innovation and entrepreneurs, has partnered with Generation Investment Management (an independent partnership that focuses on research into fundamental equity analysis and is chaired by Gore), and says on its Web site that the “combined network, expertise, vision and global reach of Gore, Generation and KPCB will help our entrepreneurs change the world.” 

“Change the world” is a little over the top, folks. In fact, Gore himself often comments that we can’t change the world, but instead can alter its progress or decline when it comes to the environment. What this green for greentech move will do is continue the green changes already in progress within the electronics supply chain, perhaps speeding their adoption as the 35-year-old firm is very well connected and has a slew of big name companies in its portfolio, including Sun, Amazon and Google. If the firm’s investments lean toward greentech, and other VC firms follow suit, what we’ll begin to see is, of course, more money for environmentally friendly technologies. And that’s not a bad thing, so long as it doesn’t hamper innovation.

And, to be true, Gore won’t be walking away without a few greenbacks himself. While it has been reported   that he’ll be donating all of his partner salary to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based group he founded to focus on accelerating policy solutions to the climate crisis, that donation doesn’t include stock options – the big money when it comes to VC compensation.

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