Paul Hawken

When cattle ranchers clear rain forests to raise beef to sell to fast-food chains that make hamburgers to sell to Americans, who have the highest rate of heart disease in the world (and spend the most money per GNP on health care), we can say easily that business is no longer developing the world. We have become its predator.

We assume that everything's becoming more efficient, and in an immediate sense that's true; our lives are better in many ways. But that improvement has been gained through a massively inefficient use of natural resources.

My venture investing career has three phases, all roughly 6-8 years long. The first, at Euclid, was software to Internet. The second, at Flatiron, was Internet to bubble. And the third, at USV, has been web 2 to mobile. I have always used a new firm to denote a new investment phase for me. Throw away the old. Start with the new.

At one point, I didn't get out of bed for, I think, three months, and I went down to the bottom of the hill one day and I had to call somebody to get me to come back up - come pick me up because I couldn't physically walk up the hill.