Clean Energy Entrepreneurs Receive Cold Response from Venture Capital

Anyone coming to New York City who expects to see selfless acts of warmth and empathy for one’s fellow man may have chosen his destination poorly.  Having said that, my visit to the 2011 New York Venture Summit was even more horrifying in terms of human relations than I might have imagined. 

Here, we had 75 entrepreneurs in life sciences, technology, and cleantech each of whom were given seven pressure-packed minutes to present their business plans in PowerPoint to a small panel of venture capitalists. Most presenters were clearly nervous – who wouldn’t be? The room was packed full with judges and fellow contestants, each waiting anxiously for his turn to arrive.  Finally, when his name was called, the speaker would walk to the podium and deliver his pitch -- one that would culminate either in the couple of million dollars of funding necessary to get his “baby” off the ground, or, far more likely, rejection.

And when I say “rejection,” you had to experience it first-hand to believe it. The panelists were (for some reason) asked to comment on each plan after the presentation. And while these comments normally contained some level of constructive criticism, for the most part they were unkind, and often really quite vicious.

A smirking wunderkind from Khosla Ventures (whom I desperately wanted to slap) and the guy sitting next to him from Kleiner Perkins frequently turned to one another and snickered audibly at presenters’ statements they thought were poorly-conceived.  A panelist from another firm grilled a presenter (a PhD in materials science) on a business point after his talk. “I understand,” said the presenter humbly in response to the criticism. “Yeah right,” his tormentor mocked with obvious sarcasm.

Maybe I simply don't have the thick skin required to deal effectively in today’s world. Or maybe I'm taking too much pity on the victim in this master-slave relationship. After all, the VCs have the money, and the entrepreneurs desperately need it; beggars cannot demand to be treated with respect and kindness. But have we come to this? Some of the smartest, most driven people on Earth, many with fantastic breakthrough ideas -- developed over years, in some cases decades of work -- being publicly ridiculed by a team of snotty young MBAs?

Had I not been paid to be there, I would have left before lunch. As I told the conference organizers, “Good conference overall, but this idea of rude, arrogant pigs heckling the presenters – often in the middle of their talks – is really deplorable. It’s shameful. Don’t expect to see me next year.”

- Craig Shields is editor of 2GreenEnergy.com and author of Renewable Energy - Facts and Fantasies (published by Clean Energy Press, 2010)