>>Rebecca Jarvis: The idea of the venture
community, of funding going towards these
businesses that have very big but untested
and potentially very expensive-to-get-there
ideas.
How difficult -- if you were starting all
of this today, do you think it would be more
difficult or easier, given the way of the
world as it stands today?
>>Martine Rothblatt: I think it would be pretty
much equivalent.
There -- People are always disbelieving until
something is created for them.
And there's this great saying by Arthur C.
Clarke, the famous science fiction writer
who discovered geostationary satellites.
He said, "If a wizened expert in a field,"
which are either VCs or the consultants that
VCs hire to advise them, "tells you something
is impossible, they are almost certainly wrong.
And if a wizened expert in the field tells
you something is possible, they're almost
certainly right."
So these VCs, they're risk averse and it will
always be difficult.
What's needed is to be practical, to make
a prototype to show people that this is practical,
to be persistent, to be ready to march through
99 noes for that one yes, and to finally communicate
your idea in a step-wise, sensible fashion.
And entrepreneurs are doing this today.
They did it 20 years ago.
Actually, they did it 200 years ago.
