In late 2006, Gore's Current made an offer for Digg which valued the social-news startup at $100 milion or more. Wonder if Rose and Gore discussed business at all in this interview. As VentureBeat recently pointed out, Digg's traffic is flat, and it hasn't significantly increased its valuation since Rose and Gore's 2006 chat.

In many parts of Silicon Valley, it seems misguided to regard the U.S. economy as reliant solely on Wall Street. The future still depends on entrepreneurs and innovations — and green-tech businesses getting “traction.” Most of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’s ventures are long-term investments. And entrepreneurs are still bringing new ideas through the door at a steady pace. “I don’t expect the credit crunch will change that,” said partner John Denniston.

Some of the firm’s fledging green ventures are evolutionary improvements on current technologies that will soon hit the market, like the electric Think car. Others promise to revolutionize various aspects of the energy economy — solar power or biofuels — much as Netscape or Google remade the Web, or Genentech ushered in the biotechnology era.

Kleiner was not the only venture firm that had suddenly seen the future and decided it was green. But Kleiner’s past success tends to legitimize the prospects of business ideas that in many cases have spent decades on the economic fringe.

The most challenging aspect of Kleiner’s endeavor is for green tech to expand into the markets more rapidly than any energy technology has done before. Academics sometimes call this process the diffusion of technology. Diffusion can go very fast, with personal computers or Facebook. But in the field of energy, new technologies have moved quite slowly into the mainstream. It has been 54 years since the silicon solar cell was invented in New Jersey at Bell Laboratories. A front-page article in the Times heralded the breakthrough – in 1954 — as something that promised to revolutionize the world.

John Doerr: “To get solutions at scale, we’re going to have to find answers that are economic for all people everywhere. We’ve got to use policy to harness innovation to make sure that the right thing to do is a profitable thing to do — so it becomes the probable thing to have happen.”

Al Gore believes when the governments of the world assign a price to carbon—within a year or two — demand for carbon-free electricity will explode.

Partner Randy Komisar says the energy market is large and outdated: “I’m not very good at hitting the bull’s-eye. I need a big target. And this is the biggest target I’ve ever seen in my life.”

(Photo by Ausra)

Malik and Cashmore, perhaps taking a cue, didn't do any real reporting on the event, leaving that to Threat Level and Laughing Squid. The two simply blogged their Al-and-me pictures as news stories on GigaOm and Mashable, bringing themselves one step closer to the old media stereotype of the vain reporter who can't stop inserting himself into the story — or in this case, into the non-story.

After giving a short speech to attendees, in which he praised their efforts to break the "feudal" system of network television, Gore promised "By tomorrow, I'll be on Twitter." Then he left. Come on, Al. How hard would it have been to sign up for Twitter on the spot, then stick around for a few minutes to lob an inconvenient truth or two across John McCain's puss during the opening leg of the debate? Instead, here's the message Gore sent: Twitter is for kids. (Video by Laughing Squid/Scott Beale)

My counterpoint is that it’s hard to criticize a guy who’s made millions of dollars on a company like eBay and then goes spending it on technology development and integration that will promote the alternative energy economy, no? We’re talking about an industry that simultaneously improves our economy and national security while lowering greenhouse gas emissions and water usage from power generation. The fact is that there are many solar installers out there of questionable skill level. Westly invests in and promotes Akeena because he knows we’re one of the best, and people will be well taken care of when purchasing from us.

At some point, it’s not worth criticizing and we should applaud people for their efforts. If your mom makes you a sandwich for lunch, are you going to get mad at her for not telling you what’s in it?

For starters, if Westly was so eager to promote Akeena to people who presumably trust his judgement (like campaign contributors), one would think that his willingness to invest in the company would be a point of pride. But according to Belliveau's logic, the alternative energy industry is good, investors and proponents of said industry are well-intentioned, and all of it is therefore above criticism.

This sentiment is not unique to Belliveau — and the argument sounds like something you'd hear from a recently born-again Christian willing to eschew reason in favor of the pious faith that their own decisions, and the judgment of church leaders, is beyond reproach because they are blessed by God.

Which doesn't surprise me, as I've long argued that the style of rhetoric employed by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth borrowed heavily from the genre of end-times sermons which he surely studied in his time at Vanderbilt's Divinity School and probably heard growing up in Tennessee.

It's this uncritical perspective that feeds the greenwashing publicity machine that allows companies like Exxon to reap windfall oil profits on the one hand while painting itself as an environmental crusader on the other. Or Google to garner praise for its plug-in hybrid program and electric car investments while the CEO and founders jet around the globe in not one but two private planes which measure fuel consumption in gallons per minute.

So three cheers for Westly as champion for the environment, but let's be honest — he's a typical Valley entrepreneur who sees an opportunity to make money and lots of it, just as Al Gore promised to the faithful in his own self-interested way.

So are we supposed to throw out commonsense ethics in the name of Mother Earth? Just because Mom packed you a baloney sandwich doesn't mean you have to eat it.

When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.

Is Gore just a wild-eyed optimist with a compelling end-of-days sermon who truly believes with enough of our Yankee moxie and knowhow we can accomplish this lofty goal? Maybe. But he's more Joseph P. Kennedy than JFK. More likely, he just realizes that if Kleiner Perkins's investments in cleantech don't pay off in 10 years, he and buddy John Doerr won't be able to threaten, "One of these days, to the moon!"

Several Valley investors who monitor startups tell me they don't bother sending Web-oriented entrepreneurs to pitch Kleiner anymore; they say the firm just doesn't seem interested.

Why would these gamblers leave the table where just a few years ago they were winning big?

For starters, broadband penetration in the developed world has nearly reached the saturation point, meaning that new Web services are increasingly competing for share in a market of fixed size. Sure, bandwidth demands are increasing because the media and tools being developed are getting richer, but those are ultimately incremental plays, and barrier to entry is much, much higher than it was for Google. The fact that there hasn't been a significant Web IPO since Google, or another acquisition the size of YouTube, tends to make me think less that Kleiner Perkins has lost its touch and more that they've smartly shifted focus to areas where big dollars make a difference.

The market that is growing worldwide is mobile, because mobile devices are less expensive than traditional computers and deploying wireless data networks is much cheaper than building out fixed-line access. Hence, in developing markets in Asia, South America and even Africa, there's a hunger for killer apps besides voice and text that will fit into your pocket — hence the $100 million iFund. Even if the money is nominally for development of iPhone applications, there's no reason to think that a good product and business model for that device can't be translated for devices running Palm, Windows and Google's Android as well.

But the key lies in John Doerr's missionary zeal for cleantech. In An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore (now a KP partner) wrote the following about global warming:

What are the opportunities such a crisis also offers? They include not just new jobs and new profits, though there will be plenty of both. We can build clean engines; we can harness the sun and the wind; we can stop wasting energy; we can use our planet's plentiful coal resources without heating the planet.

The fact is, no matter how big Crpstr.com gets, the upside falls short of the profit potential in energy and transportation by at least three or four orders of magnitude. As Lashinsky points out, the size of the energy market is $4 trillion.

It's important to remember that long before California was where you went to start your social networking startup, the primary industries driving the economy were mining, oil and defense, roughly in that chronological order. Transportation and communications technology merely allowed capitalists in the state and beyond to extend their reach in these fields around the world without leaving the comfort of their Atherton or Upper East Side home.

Telling are both KP's investment in oil exploration firm Terralliance and Gore's cheerleading for clean coal technology. While finding new and better ways to arrange for some nookie with your iPhone while wandering up and down Valencia may seem like a good investment to horny geeks, KP is looking beyond placing small bets at Faro and looking to buy the table — because the house always wins, and in global capitalism, the energy market is the house. (Photo by AP/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

When it comes to selling Digg, it seems Rose is the one who can't seal the deal and is left pining for what might have been. Rose on Diller:

He is so well connected. He basically walked into the room with this amazing, badass suit on and just sat down and was like, 'Oh, Digg. Yeah. Love it.'

Look for Digg's acquisition abstinence to end soon, with Google's Marissa Mayer — infamously known to be looking for "random play" — as the one to pop Digg and Rose's sellout cherry.

Previously:

• A is for Adelson, who cofounded Digg


• B is for Botha, who sold YouTube big


• F is for Fitzpatrick, and "hookers and blow"

Current has certainly been met with a lot of acclaim, but it's also entirely dependent on users (and journalism students) remaining interested in the project. If something as everyman as music videos couldn't command a younger generation's attention, will Current maintain a steady stream of fresh content — and viewers?

That's former U.S. Vice President and current Google "senior advisor" Al Gore, who has a previous engagement in Oslo, Norway that weekend — he's receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. ("Larry Page allowed that, on the list of excuses, that was acceptable," Gore told the Chronicle.) Gore is hoping to attend via videoconferencing, destroying any pretense of this being a high-society soirée —Necker's going to be Nerd Island for the weekend.

Tennessee has no state income tax on wages, while California's levy tops out at 9.3 percent. To minimize his tax bill, Gore has every interest in minimizing the appearance that he's spending a lot of time in California. I'm sure that we'll be hearing lots of convenient reports about Gore videconferencing his way through weekly partner meetings. (Photo by Sarah A. Friedman/Fortune)

We have dug ourselves into a 20-ft. hole, and we need somebody who knows how to build a ladder. Al's the guy," says Steve Jobs of Apple. "Like many others, I have tried my best to convince him. So far, no luck."

While Apple fanatics usually jump on every word out of Jobs' mouth, they appear content to keep this political endorsement as quiet as... well, as quiet as Al Gore kept the internal Apple options investigation. Despite the well-known liberal politics of Apple's CEO and many of his devotees, support for his fellow board member's presidential run is not as well received as Gore's support for the sometimes controversial executive.

Is Steve Jobs' endorsement of Al Gore a colossal mistake on the order of the overpriced Cube, a brilliant strategy to shut Gore up about a "greener Apple", or seemingly important but ultimately irrelevant like the iPod shuffle not having a screen?

• Phone fraud offender Hewlett-Packard takes another giant leap towards becoming even more of the class bully, this time with news that they actually conducted feasibility studies to figure out how to plant spies in news bureaus. To be continued tomorrow. Don't worry, by then we'll find out the government was involved in the conspiracy. [NY Times]
• Ex-Rocketboomer Amanda Congdon finds a new gig touring America. This time around the vlogger is honing her chops on the road to L.A. We just hope blogger Robert Scoble stops propositioning her. [Scobleizer]
• The Baltimore Sun got tired of writing about the ethics involved in snitching and gang violence so now they just interview bloggers like Sean Bonner of the Metroblogging network. We know how they feel. [Baltimore Sun]
• Google Co-Founder Larry Page and I have something in common. Unfortunately for me it isn't making wads of cash or being business-minded, but an affiliation with the University of Michigan, where Google just opened up a new AdWords office. [Michigan Daily]
• Al Gore's pet project Current TV finally launches their own public portal with Yahoo. That's an inconvenient truth for Google, which has Gore on its board and plays content-maker to Google Current, a semi-hourly show based on Google searches like thong girl. [Current TV]

— Beth Gottfried

It's every boy's wet dream: get topless with Martha Stewart. At any rate, that guy in the shades looks jealous.

Al Gore, confused by the scenery, spent the whole time asking when the shuttle would blast off.

"I never attend a conference without my Wubby."

J. Peterman: "Elaine, you may call it Myanmar, but it will always be Burma to me."

"Ahahahaha, ahaha, aha...yes, yes, I am the love child of Steve Rubel and Tucker Carlson."

After host Kara Swisher was pried out from under the statesman's body, Mossberg wrote, "Lesson Learned: Don't offer Al Gore cake."

My god, Blodgett, you don't have to say yes to every conference invite.

Sandwiched between Al Gore and a big techie journalisty guy, Esther Dyson can't help but make an "I am cute and tiny!" face.

A moment of silence for the Guy Who Forgot to Bring Collared Shirts. (Don't be that guy.)

"No," says blog publisher Arianna Huffington, "I don't have any spare change. Now move away, you're standing in front of my Prius."

Walt Mossberg: "Whatever you do, let's please not make Marissa Mayer giggle."

Photos: D Conference [Dan Farber on Flickr]

Gore "owns a ton of Google and he's made enough money that he could wait until a month before and just drop $50 million in to launch a [2008] race," a well-placed Democrat told Deborah Orin of the New York Post.

"He's got way more than enough money to buy this thing at any point in the process."

So — ignoring the tech-friendly statesman's insistence that he's not running — a surge for Google is a surge for Gore, and each trade is like a vote. It's like free speech for rich people.

Gore Can 'Buy' 2008 Election [NewsMax.com]

First, Wired News and Wired magazine are distinct business entities with independent editorial teams. Opinions and decisions made on the online side of the house do not necessarily reflect those on the print side, and vice versa.

Second, the author and editors of the articles in question left Wired News long ago, taking their political opinions with them. There are a lot of disappointed Gore fans in the world, and not all of them write for the Huffington Post.

Third, just be happy the new Wired cover headline wasn't "Current_ TV sucks."

Rants 'n' Raves: Unsmear Gore Now [Wired News. That title again is Wired News]

In addition to Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the jet's passengers included former Vice President Al Gore, who serves as an adviser to the company, and actor Chris Tucker, who starred in the "Rush Hour" series of films with Jackie Chan.

Halfway through that line, did you get whiplash too?

By the way, d'you think Chris took that Larry-Lucy makeout pic? He totally did, didn't he.

S.F. mayor's friendship with Google's founders [SF Chron]
Earlier: Gavin Newsom is friends with the Google guys! Honest! [Valleywag]
Ages ago: Larry and Lucy flying high [Valleywag]