Tim Draper

The Future Looks Green

To see what the future of business in Silicon Valley holds, take a quick scan down the list of Tim’s DFJ-funded ventures. You’ll see over forty “green” or “clean technology” businesses, focused on everything from solar power, to electric cars, waste management and clean coal. Draper gives credit to much of the firm’s success in this area to Raj Alturu, DFJ’s Managing Director who led the firm into investing in this area almost ten years ago, before the practice became fashionable in the media.

In fact, Tim says once a business idea percolates down to the consumer level, you may be looking at a bubble-type cycle of hype, as seen in the dot com boom and bust. “I see some of the same guys, literally the same ones coming to my office with get-rich-quick schemes for social media or green technology that were in my office ten years ago with their copycat dot com schemes.” Still, with the wisdom gained from reviewing thousands of business plans and funding hundreds of businesses, Tim and his team look to separate the pretenders from the contenders. Tim cites a couple DFJ-funded social media companies where he sits on the board as exciting to him: Meebo, a social media integration platform, and Socialtext, an enterprise-focused social media software company.