One of the great things about being in the Washington D.C. area is the ability to hear directly from folks at the EPA, FDA, and other alphabet organizations.

The event sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center focused on policy in Green Nano.

The short version. We don’t know.

The long version.

As an investor, or entrepreneur, look to see if the government agencies are in alignment on what they’re looking at in nano, or green nano. This is a field without a long history or established infrastructure. So entrepreneurial companies can be flexible today.

Unfortunately, the long term policy will not be established for a while.

My challenge is, when Wall St. is looking 3 months ahead, and politicians are looking until the next election. What kind of regulations will be written when folks like myself are stuck for 7 years in an investment? Will something I invest in today become illegal in 5 years? There’s no slow slope with VC companies. You’re worth something or you’re not. 0 is a very common valuation in early stage VC. Usually after the company’s torched all the money raised.

Investors want to avoid that nice round valuation. So in order to compensate for the unknown risk, we lower the valuation on any new investments. Without any regulations, with the potential of having our entire company destroyed by the stroke of a pen, we have to make appropriate investment decisions. This is not always to the benefit of the entrepreneur.