Superstar venture capitalist Vinod Khosla recently explained some of his operating principles when speaking in India: Don’t trust forecasts. Don’t believe the experts. And invest in companies that have a 90% probability of failure.
Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems and funded telecom company Cerent, which sold to Cisco for $7 billion. For almost two decades he was an active partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; in 2004 he formed Khosla Ventures, now his net worth is $1.3 billion. If you get the opportunity to hear him speak, it's worth listening.
Khosla quotes a favorite book, Expert Political Judgment by Philip Tetlock, in which the author studied 80,000 forecasts over 20 years and found the average accuracy was about the same as that of dart-throwing monkeys. “Forecasts get in the way of disruption,” said Khosla.
Khosla said that by 2025 there will not be a lithium ion battery because there isn’t enough lithium in the world to power the batteries needed for electric vehicles. He reckons that the forecasts for oil and energy consumption for 2030 and 2040 are “wrong by a factor of three.” “We’ll have 5 billion people who want an energy-rich lifestyle, but there isn’t ten times the oil available today. The only answer is technology disruption and resource multiplication.”
PS: My forecast for 2020? 50% of all new cars sold will be electric. But then I'm no expert.
