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Bob Metcalfe on the Internet and Energy

Ethernet pioneer Bob Metcalfe talks about his new focus: investing in renewable energy.

Many data center professionals know Bob Metcalfe as the father of the Ethernet protocol and a founder of 3Com. He's now focused on investing in renewable energy as a general partner at Polaris Venture Partners. In an interview at earth2tech, Metcalfe talks about the lessons learned from the evolution of the Internet and how they can be applied to energy technology and investing:

It's interesting, people may resent the Internet people wandering into the energy space and (are) constantly saying that we don't know anything. I'd say to that that you guys have had a long time to fix it, so now get out of the way. Energy is a big important problem and the world needs cheap and clean technology. There will be many surprises ahead for energy technology. I remember when the Internet was just like this: there were telco and netheads and bad standards and a series of bubbles. I'm looking forward to a number of enertech bubbles