The Social

NEW YORK--"I'm anti-tax, but I'm pro-carbon tax," Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk said onstage at the Wired Business Conference here Monday--a remark that prompted interviewer and Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson to quip that he was a "true Silicon Valley libertarian."

Tesla Motors Chairman and CEO Elon Musk

(Credit: Tesla Motors)

Gasoline "should probably be $10" per gallon, said onetime PayPal co-founder Musk, who is also attempting to make sending satellites into space cheaper with a start-up called SpaceX. "I'm not paying for the true cost of gasoline at the pump...since nobody's explicitly paying for the CO2 capacity of the oceans and atmospheres, it's getting consumed. We will pay for it down the road, but we are sort of ignoring it for now."

Musk's company has put out the Tesla Roadster, a pricey sports car that runs exclusively on electric power. On the way is the Model S, a more affordable sedan. Separate from the technology, Tesla has gained a reputation for financial difficulties and corporate bickering. Earlier this month, former CEO Martin Eberhard sued Musk and the company for libel and breach of contract.

Musk's rash attitude and devotion to cutting-edge innovation has constructed him as a figure less than willing to compromise. He didn't sound too satisfied, for example, with the level of innovation in the Toyota Prius, the car that is practically synonymous with environmental consciousness in the auto industry.

"A Prius is not a true hybrid, really," he said. (A plug-in Prius is on the way.) "The current Prius is like, 2 percent electric. It's a gasoline car with slightly better mileage."

That said, Tesla shines quite a bit brighter due to the utter disarray of the U.S. auto industry, with major automakers falling into bankruptcy and Detroit in a continuing downward spiral. This, according to Musk, was the inevitable result of a completely broken system.

"Great companies are built on great products," he said, and when those products take a turn for the worse, so does the company. Automakers, Musk theorized, focused too much on the money rather than innovation. "The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design."

Musk said that unions weren't inherently the problem but the way that they were structured was. "It's not out of the question to have unions. But if they do have a union, they've got to understand that they're on the same side of the company," Musk said. "I really am kind of against having a two-class system where you've got the workers and the management sort of like the nobles and peasants." In other words, Musk thinks Detroit could use a dose of Silicon Valley corporate culture.

Surprisingly, Musk implied that Detroit will survive. "I think it'll probably be a healthier place. This has been somewhat cathartic. Maybe, I think, maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but I think this will be a cathartic experience," Musk said. "I think GM and Ford, maybe not Chrysler, but GM and Ford will come out of this healthier...and more competitive."

He wants Tesla to be part of that, obviously.

"I'd like to take up some of the manufacturing plants," he said. "When the mess gets sorted out I'd like to have a conversation with whoever's in charge."

Google's goat army.

(Credit: Official Google Blog)

The economy is still in shambles, we're all panicking about the bacon fever, and even those bright and shiny "green" initiatives might not be so green. Sad!

But did you know that Google is conserving energy by cutting its Mountain View, Calif., lawns with adorable goats?

Yes, it's true. The company has enlisted an innovative start-up called California Grazing to bring some of the Google greenery a more carbon-friendly, less polluting alternative to lawn mowers. It sounds like the use of goats is confined to peripheral fields where weeds and brush could cause wildfires, so it's not like Googlers run the risk of having goats wander into their office buildings. No word on whether they pay the goats in leftover free food from the company mess halls.

"A herder brings about 200 goats and they spend roughly a week with us at Google, eating the grass and fertilizing at the same time," a post on the official Google blog read. "The goats are herded with the help of Jen, a border collie. It costs us about the same as mowing, and goats are a lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers."

Happy Friday!

The coastal resort that hosted the Summit Series event last weekend.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News)

PUERTO MORELOS, Mexico--They kept their Twitter feeds quiet and their iPhone cameras dormant. Most of them didn't want their names to be used.

There was more than a little bit of paranoia in the air as the guests arrived at last weekend's Summit Series event, formally the Young World Leaders Summit--not the most modest of names. It was a gathering of about five dozen under-35 entrepreneurs and executives at a beachfront luxury resort outside the glitzy vacation city of Cancun. Among those present at the retreat, which was fully paid for by sponsors, were a handful of executives from Facebook and other Silicon Valley start-ups, media and publishing entrepreneurs, young venture capitalists, edgy youth marketers, and jet-setting global issues advocates. As for an itinerary, there were snorkeling lessons, ample pool- and beachside chill time, and plenty of parties.

"We want to create the Allen & Co. retreat for young people," Summit Series organizer Elliot Bisnow said in an interview overlooking the Caribbean Sea, referring to the annual gathering of tech and media moguls in Sun Valley, Idaho. Bisnow had previously put together the inaugural Summit Series event in Park City, Utah, last spring, with 19 young entrepreneurs meeting for a ski weekend. He said it was so successful that he and fellow organizers Ryan Begelman and Ben Hindman decided to expand it for the Mexico edition. "It took us awhile to figure out the messaging, but we want to create an environment for the top young people in the world to get together in a fun place and talk ideas, business, challenges."

What can also take awhile, for that matter, is convincing the notoriously look-at-me young digerati to turn everything off. But for the Summit Series, they complied without protest. Given the dire financial climate, they knew that the vicious gossip-blog culture could make this all look really bad.

But why did they risk it in the first place? After the American International Group spa resort scandal and, closer to home, last month's blogospheric revulsion at a YouTube video of young dot-commers dancing poolside at a mansion in Cyprus as the markets crashed, scrutiny of executive excess is at an all-time high. And the young folks at the Summit Series event aren't stupid: they knew what investors, partners, and shareholders would think if they should, gasp, be outed having a good time.

Some said they came for the networking, and the promise of meeting interesting new people with whom they might not otherwise cross paths--or even cut a deal or two. Others said they honestly just needed a few days to get away from the business world and get a much-needed refresher during difficult times. The offer of four expense-free, breezy days in coastal Mexico was too good to pass up. (Disclosure: I paid for my accommodations.)

"The way young people do business today is much more relationship-driven than it used to be," said Bisnow, an energetic 23-year-old who was a nationally ranked tennis player before dropping out of college to start his company, a D.C.-area newsletter start-up called Bisnow on Business. "I think it's so valuable to be able to create friendships in special places, not in a stodgy boardroom." It's not quite a novelty: that's what golf courses, Ivy League alumni clubs, and Elks lodges have done for years.

So, in order to maintain a level of image control and to ensure that attendees were comfortable talking openly, the few reporters present were asked beforehand to agree to keep most of the goings-on off the record. Photographs were not permitted during the tequila-soaked evening hours.

And indeed, a brief flurry of nerves surfaced during Thursday night's dinner reception when one prank-minded marketer in attendance decided to float a rumor that a poolside photograph from the Summit Series had surfaced on gossip blog Gawker. Due to the international locale, most people there had spotty or extremely expensive mobile data access, and nobody wanted to admit to being paranoid enough to run back to his room and check the Web. Luckily, before too long, the prankster had admitted to his joke, and after that, the only thing close to mass hysteria arose when some people realized they couldn't always access Wi-Fi from their rooms.

There were a few organized activities. On one day, the young creators of socially conscious shoe brand Toms, which gives away one pair of shoes to a child in a developing country for each pair it sells, took Summit Series attendees on a road trip to donate shoes in a nearby village. Another featured a cave-diving outing. There was also a presentation from business guru and Twitter heavy-hitter Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Work Week--"Some people really get misled by the title," Ferriss told me as we all walked to a nightclub in nearby Playa del Carmen one night.

A second presentation came from Scott Harrison, founder of Charity Water, a nonprofit bottled water company that donates all proceeds to the construction of clean water facilities in developing countries and uses Google Earth to prove it. Harrison's graphic images and his tale of transformation from hard-partying club promoter to impassioned philanthropist left some of the younger Summit Series guests--particularly the ones still cushioned by Valley venture cash and a Web 2.0 bubble that has yet to fully pop--a bit shell-shocked. After the talk, they left the room and returned to the pool, looking sheepish but eager to order another round of margaritas.

Beyond that it was mostly an unstructured gathering--and considering many of the entrepreneurs had never gone to college, this was probably the closest they'd come to Spring Break in Cancun. That said, the Summit Series' five-to-one male-to-female ratio probably put the kibosh on most legitimate debauchery--other guests at the quiet resort must have thought it was some kind of fraternity reunion or bachelor party.

Getting down to business
But business was inescapable, and that was the point. During the day, many of the Summit Series' pale 20-something men shuffled about in swim trunks by the pool, a BlackBerry in one hand and a pina colada in the other, and a copy of the latest bestselling business-productivity book under their arms--like Malcolm Gladwell's The Outliers, a just-released title about what makes some people wildly successful while others pass by unnoticed. The more outgoing ones hopped from beach chair to beach chair, making introductions. A few of the dreamier, ideas-oriented types scribbled away in Moleskine or Muji notebooks as they looked out over the beach. One young publishing entrepreneur shared his favorite beach drink recipe with some new friends: blended ice, bananas, and rum. Then they talked ad strategies.

"Dozens of deals have been done this weekend. People have sold companies," Bisnow boasted, smiling broadly. He declined to say which ones, but I could confirm at least one small deal: that one of the new-media CEOs in attendance had offered ad inventory to another guest's nonprofit organization.

The sponsorships were important, too, Bisnow added. They'd turned down plenty of requests, he said, before settling on office giant Staples, real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle, the wealth management division of Goldman Sachs, and investment firm Charles River Ventures. At the previous Summit Series event in Park City, Bisnow told me, 6 of the 19 attendees had ended up doing business with sponsor Jones Lang LaSalle.

"This is, in my opinion, one of the best sponsorships in the world," he added, and said that the dates for the next Summit Series event were already on the calendar. They'd be back in Park City, with 250 attendees and a flagship sponsorship by men's magazine GQ. Bisnow, whose broad-shouldered build and neatly trimmed haircut give off a vibe of bold, frat-president confidence, expressed no concern about financial issues getting in the way.

But still, no amount of money talk or margaritas could drown the presence of the ongoing economic crisis. One of the CEOs at the Summit Series, who runs a public company, was worried about the perception that he was at a beachfront retreat while his company's stock--like so many others'--had lost 30 percent of its value. Another left abruptly on day two of the four-day retreat, reportedly due to a "business emergency" involving funding that was in danger of falling through. And by Saturday afternoon, two or three of the investor-dependent dot-com founders, one of whom complained that the event had been too "cliquey," were vocally itching to get back to their fledgling companies.

I wondered if maybe some of them had wanted more structure, a more concrete networking plan that would make them less nervous about skipping town for a few days. "I don't like structure," Bisnow told me with a grin. "I'm young and eccentric and I want to hang out."

Over breakfast on Sunday, shortly before vans started to arrive to take the Summit Series-goers to the Cancun airport for their flights back to New York, D.C., San Francisco, and elsewhere, co-organizer Hindman, who founded an offbeat walking-tour company, said to Bisnow that some get-to-know-you activities would've been good. The Valley guys didn't spend enough time meeting the eco-entrepreneurs, for example.

"Yeah," Bisnow admitted, nodding and taking a bite of food. "That might be cool next time."

The other suggestion: More women, please.

One thing's for sure: Glam Media isn't letting that $85 million funding round sit around and ferment.

The latest of many announcements from the don't-call-it-an-ad-network media firm is that it has launched a "Wellness" division, opening up its ad services to sites in the health, fitness, and "green" niches.

With hippie food brand SoyJoy as a sponsor, Glam's Wellness channel has already ushered in about 20 sites that deal with "mind-body-spirit, empowerment, and a healthy planet," according to a release Monday. Among them are BeThree, Conscious Living TV, Ecofabulous, Low Impact Living, and Spaparazzi; two others, Natural Solutions magazine and Earth Pledge, will also contribute content to the Glam.com hub that the company runs.

Glam has been on a roll recently, with high-profile hires, acquisitions both domestic and international, and new advertising strategies that have left some thinking that it's the future of the ad industry and others wondering if it's just a big pink package of Valley hype.

But launching a health-and-living vertical, besides being the trendy thing to do, is part of Glam's planned expansion beyond strictly targeting women, something CEO Samir Arora alluded to in a talk at the EconAds conference earlier this summer.

Crunchy, Prius-driving yoga types are a fairly different demographic than the one most of Glam's current sections target: fans of celebrity news, fashion, beauty, and the like.

Next stop: Glam for dudes?

I guess this is what Disney would consider edgy: the company has reportedly acquired Ideal Bite, a "sassy" eco-focused e-mail newsletter that explicitly states it's "not for readers under age 18." The price was about $15 million, PaidContent reported. That's a lot smaller than Club Penguin, which Disney acquired for $350 million last year.

Ideal Bite is small even as far as e-mail lists go--it's no DailyCandy--but its demographic was likely of interest to a buyer like Disney. The site's median household income is $82,000, press materials state; the median age is 35; and the target demographic is the sort that "drinks organic wine after yoga." In other words, yuppie moms.

And "green" media is unsurprisingly a hot niche. Last year, Discovery Communications acquired the blog TreeHugger to accompany its Planet Green cable network, and the TreeHugger-Discovery partnership was recently selected to power the new eco-news division at the Huffington Post.

When we last heard from Ideal Bite, it was throwing a chic launch party in New York last year following an investment by the Pilot Group, the firm headed by MTV co-founder and former AOL exec Bob Pittman. The celebration featured a mechanical bull and dancers clad entirely in leaves, which I expect won't be featured in any kind of Disney-bought-us gala.

Then again, Disney is responsible for Desperate Housewives.

The Huffington Post, the news aggregation and commentary site founded by political pundit Arianna Huffington and former AOL exec Ken Lerer, is finally jumping on the post-Al-Gore bandwagon.

The company announced Wednesday that it will be launching HuffPost Green, a site division specific to "green" content through a content partnership with Discovery Communications' Planet Green channel as well as TreeHugger, the popular eco-news blog that Discovery acquired last year.

If you're like me, your reaction to this news might've been, "What? You mean there isn't a 'green' section already?" The New York-based Huffington Post got its start as a liberal answer to the wildly popular Drudge Report news site, and while it's since branched beyond its political roots, it remains targeted toward a well-educated, left-leaning audience.

But although it runs sections pertaining to politics, media, entertainment, business, and "living," as well as a comedy site called 23/6 in conjunction with IAC, there still hadn't been a section devoted to the unavoidably trendy niche of environmental media. Until now.

"HuffPost Green will focus on eco news and trends--from style and eco-conscious celebrities to green lifestyle tips and the latest scientific findings and expert analysis," a release from the company explained, hinting that we will likely see photos of Leonardo DiCaprio with his shirt off in addition to the latest grim findings on climate change. "The section will also feature advice on sustainable investing and highlight eco-friendly businesses and sustainable business sectors such as renewable energy, green building, recycling and organics."

The new section of the site is set to launch June 4. Huffington Post representatives said the effort was spearheaded by current Editor-at-large Willow Bay, a TV journalist who currently hosts programs on the Lifetime women's cable network.

The E-Fuel Micro-Fueler, on display in New York. Click for photo gallery.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News.com)

NEW YORK--"Henry Ford had it right all along," E-Fuel founder and CEO Thomas Quinn declared, referring to the fact that many original Model T Ford automobiles ran on the ethanol, not gasoline. But that was before the era of Prohibition, which banned production of the biofuel along with other forms of alcohol.

Now, he hopes ethanol can have a real revival.

In a press event at Revel, a Meatpacking District restaurant that features a greenhouse-like roof and trees growing inside, Quinn and his fellow executives unveiled the EFuel100 MicroFueler. It looks like a cross between a gas pump and an old-fashioned refrigerator, it'll cost $9,995, and it'll be available for customers in the fourth quarter of 2008 (if all goes well).

What is it, exactly? It's a home ethanol refinery. Connect it to a power source and a water source, add sugar "feedstock" and yeast or discarded alcohol (yes, that could mean last week's tequila) and in a week it can produce 35 gallons of ethanol that Quinn said any car can run on.

"I'm from Silicon Valley and I've worked with some very talented entrepreneurs in my lifetime," explained Quinn, whose previous start-up Gyration was responsible for a patent in Nintendo's "Wiimote" controller. "A couple years ago, I sensed this paradigm shift that we're all feeling today." He was referring to fossil fuel shortages and the rising cost of gasoline. With gas prices well over $3 per gallon, and no real middle ground in the market between industrial biofuels (there are still only 1,200 ethanol stations in the U.S., and only three in the entire state of New York) and "moonshining" operations that can be difficult and dangerous, he saw the opportunity to create the EFuel100.

"It's almost third-grade science to make ethanol," Quinn said. Anyone in the U.S. can obtain a license to produce alcohol, ethanol included.

But ethanol, for better or for worse, has gotten a bad rap. Some have connected rising food prices to the fact that corn-based ethanol means crops are going toward fuel rather than human consumption, and some reports have claimed that ethanol's carbon footprint isn't as "green" as it appears.

E-Fuel's executives have attempted to counter this rumor by saying that its sugar-based ethanol won't hurt food prices because sugar is a surplus crop, and that sugar ethanol is inherently more efficient than corn. And it's safe to make at home, because no combustion is involved.

Throughout the press conference on Thursday, Quinn reiterated that there's nothing unusual about making car fuel in your backyard.

"We're already in the ethanol business," he explained, gesturing to the bar at the back of the restaurant, "but we're using it as a beverage drink."

Say it ain't so! Climate change could make even PBR get more expensive!

(Credit: Pabst)

We all know already that climate change will affect everything from food prices to cute baby polar bears.

But now it's really hitting home, folks. A report from a researcher at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand suggests that rising temperatures may threaten beer.

An Associated Press report details the findings from climate scientist Jim Salinger, who presented his research at the Institute of Brewing and Distilling's annual convention in Wellington, New Zealand. The grim results? Climate change may affect the production of malting barley, an ingredient crucial to the tasty beers we all know and love.

If we aren't careful, the regions in Australia and New Zealand in which malting barley can grow could experience some tragic shrinkage. Salinger's study didn't extend beyond those two countries, but he did warn that "similar effects could be expected" across the globe.

"It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up," the Associated Press article quoted Salinger as saying.

One word: Noooooooooooo!

A representative for eco-blog TreeHugger has confirmed that the site has been acquired by Discovery Communications, parent company of the Discovery Channel, The Science Channel, Animal Planet, and several other properties. A report of the deal initially surfaced in the New York Post today.

A press release from Discovery and TreeHugger confirmed that the blog will be part of the upcoming Planet Green network, but financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The New York Post had suggested a $10 million price tag.

"TreeHugger.com is a strategic complement to our digital media portfolio, aligning perfectly with Discovery?s corporate values and the Planet Green initiative," Bruce Campbell, Discovery Communications' president of Digital Media, Emerging Networks and Business Development, said in a joint statement. "Bringing TreeHugger.com into the Discovery family gives it the resources to continue doing what it does best: bringing green living to the masses."

TreeHugger founder Graham Hill added, "Discovery Communications, with its global reach and high level of commitment to Planet Green, is launching the most significant effort in green media to date--and we?re excited to be part of it."