A billionaire venture capitalist who got rich betting on emerging tech giants Amazon and Google said one of his biggest regrets was Elon Musk’s refusal to back electric car maker Tesla in 2007.
John Doerr, chairman of Kleiner Perkins, the venture capital firm that has amassed a fortune Estimated at $11.5 billion by Forbes, He told Bloomberg News on Tuesday He said that ten and a half years ago, long before he became the world’s most valuable automaker, he had the opportunity to support the fledgling unicorn.
Doerr, 71, said Musk, whose stake in Tesla had earned him the distinction of being the world’s richest person, struck him as “an ambitious, somewhat crazy entrepreneur” at the time.
But according to Doerr, the idea of investing in a car company at the time took a turn as the odds piled up against Tesla.
“This is probably the worst investment decision of all time,” he told Bloomberg News.
As of Tuesday, Tesla has a market capitalization of $933.92 billion, making it the world’s most valuable automaker.
Investing in Tesla would have made a good profit back then. Sergey Brin, Musk’s friend, co-founder of Google, was one of Tesla’s first investors.
in 2008, invested at least $500,000 While helping raise $40 million. If he were to cash out his investment now, he would pocket at least $100 million. According to Business Insider.
Musk’s net worth It is valued at $263.6 billion by Forbes.
Despite the bad decision, no one is likely to feel sorry for Doerr, who managed to get a good return on his investment in technological achievements such as Twitter, Google, Slack and Amazon.
Earlier this year, Doerr and his wife Ann cut a $1.1 billion check as a gift to Stanford University, which will use the money to build a school dedicated to fighting climate change.
Doerr sits on Google’s board of directors and has served on boards advising President Barack Obama on economic policy.
In 2000, Google co-founders Larry Page and Brin Asked Doerr if he could set up a meeting with Apple CEO Steve Jobs so they can offer iconic visionaries a top executive role in the novice search engine.
Instead, Doerr suggested that the two men who need “adult supervision” meet with Novell CEO Eric Schmidt.
Schmidt was eventually hired as CEO at Google and led the company for a decade as it became the dominant search engine.
Kleiner Perkins currently manages nearly $20 billion in assets.
