Vinod Khosla (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I read this interesting tweet by Vinod Khosla, one of the Co-founders of Sun Microsystems and then of Klein Perkins fame and now running Khosla Ventures. Vinod Khosla is a VC and Tech industry veteran if you don’t know of him. Anyways, coming back to the tweet, it read:
“I don’t see a big business coming out of any of these” Typical clueless analyst who never did anything real herself nyti.ms/17sfU9a
— Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) April 29, 2013
Source: Bloomberg TV
Brilliant! I have written a lot about thinking like a VC takes a totally different perspective on things and an open mind. A lot of us are brain washed into believing that what we know, see and experience is the end of it. There are a few among us who think outside that box to overuse the cliche. I believe that the food industry needs a disruption as well, we have been consuming food the same way and thinking this is the best way to consume anything. I think the biggest culprit in food is Sugar, I am not talking about naturally occurring sugar in things that grow out of the ground or things that roam the earth. I mean processed, polished, cleaned WHITE sugar. I have to admit that I have a streak of sweet tooth and find it incredibly difficult to resist a “Bragdarefur” or a “Snikers Bar”, and I am sure many have the same craving. It is incredible to note that Sugar was not part of the staple diet until the later part of this century, but it has taken over everything we consume. I always perk up my ear when I see someone laughing at a VC or an Entrepreneur, like the journalist or analyst referred in the above link by Vinod Khosla. Fred Wilson wrote about this as well with the title “Return and Ridicule“. I believe that disruption of the food industry is happening as I type this, check out this video from Bloomberg, about a Chef in Chicago who is really changing the taste buds to eliminate sugar from his cooking. I think that is really cool.
I think the mainstream media and journalists underestimate 10 years in Innovation and overestimate the next couple of months. Venture investing is a patience game, you need to take long term view of the world to be able to think what you see today can be displaced by something different or better in the future. I think we don’t know enough about anything to really become very good at predicting, but we should have an open mind to think what if it was possible? I would love to be able to have the sweet taste of sugar in my food without exposing myself to the serious risk of diabetes or obesity or cardio vascular diseases. I think we need companies like Klein and Perkins or Khosla Ventures to take these long bets on Health and Innovation.
Related articles
- Vinod Khosla To Entrepreneurs: Venture Capitalists Are Not Your Friends (millennialambitions.com)
- Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla on Perseverance by DROdio (danielodio.com)
- The History and Origins of Sugar (berries.com)
- Vinod Khosla: “A Company Becomes The People It Hires” (erickschonfeld.com)
- VLAB Founders’ Series presents Startup Office Hours with Vinod Khosla (venturebeat.com)
