Steve Westly, former California State Controller and current operator of the VC Westley Group, says he got interested in the smart grid and clean tech in order to save the world and make massive amounts of money in the process. Greeting the assembled crowd warmly and expressing a great deal of excitement to be present atGreenBeat 2009, he recalls putting solar panels up on Carter’s white house and the heartbreak of Reagan tearing them down. Emotional investment seems to come off the man in waves. Now what is he actually saying about it all?
For starters, he is willing to dismiss the Flores law suit against PG&E as growing pains. “Any start up technology is going to have it’s failures,” he says.  “When the Internal Combustion Engine first came out people thought it would never survive because it scared the horses, and how would the ever get around that?  A few years later, they drove cars and horses weren’t even in the picture.” He makes a fair point: early failures and shortcomings don’t necessarily condemn anything in the long term.
He’ll readily admit that the government “is going to mess the whole thing up” when asked about tech and standards but that he’s glad for government involvement anyway — the incentives and grants are going to kick-start the whole transition to more intelligent utilities, he says. He also stresses that there is a lot of money to be made: again and again the theme of profitability comes up. He is, after all, a venture capitalist. “Bring your business plans,” he asks. Many in the room have done just that. He warns, though, to have a clear idea of when your idea reaches profitability or it will be a short meeting. His smile manages to say “I’m joking around with you” and “I’m serious about that one, bud” at the same time. It’s business, even if this push might help save the world from an inhospitable climate change.
Westly also predicts winners on the appliance side, which many are expecting to be a write-off in the whole thing. After all, if you are given a smarter refrigerator by the utility company who wants to buy one? Westly responds saying “You can get a free phone from AT&T too but people will buy the Iphone. When you see a really cool gadget, lots of people will want to buy it”.  He’s also expecting lots of apps to operate on the smart grid, with an open source set of protocols and languages controlling it all. It’s as if he’s picturing (as many are) an expansion of the Internet, a sort of SkyNet minus the killer robots.
Asked what success in the Smart Grid push looks like, Westly says “the standard definition of success is how many of these things are deployed. We’re at 8 million, I think that number is going to quadruple in the next few years. But what I really want to see is the U.S., California and the Silicon Valley leading this whole thing. I want somebody like any of us, maybe somebody in this room, to think of the next big idea, to invent the next Iphone.”  Presumably, he also wants that person to come to him for investment.

Steve Westly, former California State Controller and current operator of the VC Westley Group, says he got interested in the smart grid and clean tech in order to save the world and make massive amounts of money in the process. Greeting the assembled crowd warmly and expressing a great deal of excitement to be present atGreenBeat 2009, he recalls putting solar panels up on Carter’s white house and the heartbreak of Reagan tearing them down. Emotional investment seems to come off the man in waves. Now what is he actually saying about it all?
For starters, he is willing to dismiss the Flores law suit against PG&E as growing pains. “Any start up technology is going to have it’s failures,” he says.  “When the Internal Combustion Engine first came out people thought it would never survive because it scared the horses, and how would the ever get around that?  A few years later, they drove cars and horses weren’t even in the picture.” He makes a fair point: early failures and shortcomings don’t necessarily condemn anything in the long term.
He’ll readily admit that the government “is going to mess the whole thing up” when asked about tech and standards but that he’s glad for government involvement anyway — the incentives and grants are going to kick-start the whole transition to more intelligent utilities, he says. He also stresses that there is a lot of money to be made: again and again the theme of profitability comes up. He is, after all, a venture capitalist. “Bring your business plans,” he asks. Many in the room have done just that. He warns, though, to have a clear idea of when your idea reaches profitability or it will be a short meeting. His smile manages to say “I’m joking around with you” and “I’m serious about that one, bud” at the same time. It’s business, even if this push might help save the world from an inhospitable climate change.
Westly also predicts winners on the appliance side, which many are expecting to be a write-off in the whole thing. After all, if you are given a smarter refrigerator by the utility company who wants to buy one? Westly responds saying “You can get a free phone from AT&T too but people will buy the Iphone. When you see a really cool gadget, lots of people will want to buy it”.  He’s also expecting lots of apps to operate on the smart grid, with an open source set of protocols and languages controlling it all. It’s as if he’s picturing (as many are) an expansion of the Internet, a sort of SkyNet minus the killer robots.
Asked what success in the Smart Grid push looks like, Westly says “the standard definition of success is how many of these things are deployed. We’re at 8 million, I think that number is going to quadruple in the next few years. But what I really want to see is the U.S., California and the Silicon Valley leading this whole thing. I want somebody like any of us, maybe somebody in this room, to think of the next big idea, to invent the next Iphone.”  Presumably, he also wants that person to come to him for investment.