Clean Tech’s Impact on Recessionary Times

Historically, every five or ten years, entrepreneurs - which is you, primarily young people, come up with some new breakthrough: iPod, iPhones, eBay, Google, Twitter, even as big as Guitar Hero. All of a sudden, sales go through the roof. It employs people, and in theory, it makes people’s lives better. We're seeing that now with clean tech. I'll tell you now, just through the things I talked about, zero-emission vehicles, this is a big deal. To your point, what is this going to do for the economy? We're in a recession. One of the things that jumpstarts you out of recession: part of it is consumer psychology, but part of it are products that people have to have that drive the economy. This Tesla Model S, not the sports car which is historic, that goes zero to 60 like a Ferrari, but this five-seater that's cheaper - we released that car five-and-a-half to six weeks ago in Los Angeles. We've taken over 1,000 orders in five weeks. We're taking more orders for this than GM is taking orders for Saturn. The point is, I believe that clean tech industry is likely to help provide the jumpstart that will lift America and, hopefully, the rest of the world out of recession. You saw today, I don't know if you follow this as closely as I do, but we had the first big IPO we've had in 10 months, the longest stretch in 50 years since we had a big IPO. It was a billion dollar company. I love this joke. The company is called Solar Wind. It has nothing to do with clean tech. Nothing to do with solar. Nothing to do with wind. It's OK. It's a software company from Austin. People at UT beat you to the punch, but this is going to reignite the economy. I think the next two or three IPO's, big ones we will see are likely to be clean tech companies. By the way, Tesla and a firm called Silver Spring, it's in Smart Grid space, I think will be blockbuster IPO's. Clean tech will help lift the country out of recession. By the way, one of the things you should always ask yourself i...