The Color of Money

When Paul Newman played "Fast Eddie" in The Hustler 1961 and reprised his role along with Tom Cruise in The Color of Money in 1986, the color reference to U.S. currency notes was the traditional green cloth of a pool table. Today's game is the race to invent and commercialize green technologies, or GreenTech.

Historians may debate the specific catalyst that led to the inflection point in America's mindset towards "going green." I think Al Gore may lay claim that his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth, brought the collective consciousness of our nation forward on issues of global warming, carbon footprints, and conservation. As he is no longer running for public office, hopefully his Nobel Prize won't be as misrepresented and maligned by politicians and the press as his poorly worded statement in an interview with Wolf Blitzer in 1999 that "during my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Of course, he never meant to imply that he "invented" the Internet. I'll bet you have never seen reported the statement from Vincent Cerf (who is commonly referred to as the Father of the Internet) that "the Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the Vice President in his current role and in his earlier role as Senator." But I digress...

GreenTech is now the hottest ticket in VC, as investors quest for the next "killer app" since Al Gore invented the Internet (oops, there I go piling on!) The term GreenTech refers to all innovations in energy and environmental technologies. Although investors can point to very few IPOs or other liquidity events, this space is expected to result in billions of dollars in value creation for new ventures. As with any Gold Rush, there will be snake-oil salesmen and profiteers at work; nevertheless, I believe that fortunes will be made in the process of saving our small planet.