I am now, have been and will be wrong

 

Schools are doing this, trying to capture the entrepreneur in the engineers. 

 

I hope it works.

 

I don't know it will.

 

Many of the key elements that seem to drive someone towards academia and research are similar to forces that drive people away from the world of entrepreneurship.

 

I'm not saying you can't train someone to be a passable entrepreneur.  the same way you can train someone to be a passable sports player, or an average worker.  But in a world of extremes, the great entrepreneur finds success.  the average one finds frustration.

 

The context of having fewer cleantech entrepreneurs/startups vs the dot com era makes sense, when you realize the resources required for a dotcom (very little) against the resources for a cleantech company (sizable).

 

a website as a prototype and a final product do not consume the same amount of resources as a new PV solar cell, or wind turbine etc.

 

I still see "VC" financing that is project financing.  It shouldn't be that way, the risk/reward profiles are very different. However, today, given the state that the financial markets are in, getting anything papered is a challenge.  The times are going to stay difficult for a while.

 

that 2nd half economic recovery talk is gone, and we are not close to the bottom on housing.  Folks are finally realizing that the contagion has spread throughout all mortgages.

 

So even as these entrepreneurs get trained, the money might not be as easy as it was 10 years ago.