Billionaire Peter Thiel on CleanTech

Here’s a 45-minute podcast featuring billionaire/mega-entrepreneur Peter Thiel (pictured), whose point is that the development of technology has hit a plateau, and that this phenomenon is creating disastrous effects for humankind.  While I don’t agree completely, he’s certainly right in at least two of his observations:

• The rise of the financial industry over the past few decades came largely at the expense of science and technology, and

• We have an unacceptably narrow viewpoint on technology; the word today is almost completely synonymous with computers, and we’re focusing an insufficient amount of resources on energy, transportation, and cleantech more generally.

One commenter wrote: The entire economy is oriented to making a killing. Any venture that requires the actual investment of time, effort and real work without promising a sure killing in return will go nowhere.

Sad but true.