John Doerr On EverythingJohn Doerr On Everything

At Web 2.0, New York Magazine's John Heilemann talked to John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) about a myriad of issues, from some of our nation's priorities to the economy to where he sees venture investment going. Heilemann, fresh off a flight from Chicago where he finished covering the presidential election, claimed his first two questions came directly from Barack Obama.

Heilemann mentioned that Barack Obama will be the first president to appoint a CTO, and he wanted to hear from Doerr about the biggest issues that CTO should tackle. Doerr's answer: Research and development in universities to re-invigorate the spirit that launched the Internet originally; and more in renewable energy (an area that Kleiner has invested in heavily this year).

Doerr gave some thoughts on the state of the economy, talked about the role of the public sector in technology investment, provided some thoughts on the compressed venture capital market, and shared 11 tips for companies trying to make it through the economic crisis.

Of the nine Web companies Kleiner has invested in recently, five of them were iPhone companies. Doerr said he believes that the iPhone platform is more important than the personal computer, and he named some of the more interesting companies and applications for the iPhone, including NG:Moco (a game company) and CoolIris (a different way to browse the Web).