The Aspen lunch, and passions that ran to sustainability
Parts of this entry are out of date. It is published anyway, because an incomplete record that invites correction is more useful than no record at all.
Kleiner Perkins partner; among the most consequential venture investors of the internet era, and later the public face of the firm's greentech work.
Jonathan Hare's account is that his real passions ran to sustainability, healthcare and cybersecurity rather than to the internet and web deals that made his name.
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Having just met E. O. Wilson by chance on the path at Aspen Meadows, Hare joined Doerr and Vinod Khosla for lunch — uninvited, knowing both, seated between them. He pitched the whole vision.
He could do that because he had been camping out in Kleiner Perkins' offices at will, having been gently advised by Scott Sandell to find somewhere other than NEA's office to camp in.
Doerr assured everyone, in the line the whole era repeated, that it was impossible to overhype the Internet. Hare's verdict from twenty-six years on, published with its full sting: he was right about that — as long as you invested in Google or Amazon, and could afford to hold on. Everyone else got the hype, the three-year winter, and the education.
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Told Hare to camp somewhere else
Open →partner at the same firm"Bill knew."
Open →met minutes earlierThe commission, the foundation, and the name
Open →Everything above is a distillation. The primary source is published in full, so that any claim on this page can be walked back to what was actually said — and where the two differ, the source governs.
This entry is deliberately incomplete. The gaps below are the things only certain people can settle — and settling one is a contribution like any other: recorded, timestamped and attributed to whoever made it.
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