Is it really possible to align social goals with personal enrichment?
Bill Joy, founder of Sun Microsystems and a partner at Kleiner Perkins, thinks you can. (Kleiner Perkins was an early investor in Google, and reportedly turned a $12.5 million investment into a $4.3 billion payday - a 34,300% return.)
Bob Cringely interviews Bill Joy for a full 60 minutes on NerdTV. You can download the entire 77 MB video (torrent works best), or read the transcript.
In 2000, Bill infamously warned about the perils of new technology, and demonstrated his social conscience and concern for the ethical implications of business and technology. Cringely tried several times to bait Bill into discussing this dystopian vision, but Bill carefully avoided that territory in the interview -- one gets the impression that he's backed away somewhat from his sky-is-falling conclusions from five years ago.
In the NerdTV piece, Bill says that irresistible economic forces are driving the destruction of oceans and the atmosphere, and that good intentions are not strong enough to change the course of history:
Bill believes in fighting fire with fire -- that the way to defeat these irresistible economic forces is through opposing economic forces. Find a way to make environmental choices profitable, and the problem will solve itself:Bob: Well yeah, we're pumping the earth dry of oil and burning it up in ways that aren't environmentally responsible.
Bill: We're doing an experiment without precedent. There's an article in the paper today about how the oceans are getting more acidic. Just kind of break down the shells of the reefs. It's a non-controlled experiment. It'd be better not to do it, but the economic forces are driving us in that way so it's not necessarily practical to just wish it to change because people will do pretty much what they want to do.
Bill: So the best thing to do is find some profitable way to alter the course. If you can find a way to not use so much energy or to make the energy more efficiently or find an alternative source of energy that doesn't produce so much CO2 that would be a very positive thing. And so we looking at investments in areas like solar and fuel cells, other innovative new technologies that might address this issue.We can't wait for politicians to solve these issues:
Bill: I'm not looking to the politicians, at least the current class of leader in this country at least to really address these issues. So we're trying to do it on the entrepreneurial side.
Bob: Is that a simpler world where it's "let's make some money doing good?"
Bill: The government can lead but ultimately we need new ideas to solve these problems as well. A less backwards looking, less distractive strategy from the government would help. But if that's not forthcoming I think there's still an opportunity to make a lot of money by doing better. So we can hopefully achieve and make progress in that direction without waiting for political change.
Bill sees the same ethic in Google's high-minded goals coupled with practical engineering -- finding a way to do great things on a global scale and get rich doing it.
Bob: We have just another minute. You know what are you excited about in the future?
Bill: I'm excited about the people who come through the office everyday with great plans that will make positive change in the world. And to work with the entrepreneurs that are bringing this change and hope that their stories inspire more people to do the same. I find the story of for example a company that KPBC Factories and Google, very inspiring. Larry and Sergey are, I think, great role models compared to some of the role models that we've had in the past for business success. They wanna do good. You know they have a vision that's a good vision, great vision, a vision of good things. To be able to back entrepreneurs like that is a very great pleasure.
Conclusion -- the Don't Be Evil ethic isn't just a naive wish to avoid evil, it's an approach that builds sustainable advantage.