Neal Dikeman is a partner at Jane Capital Partners and CEO of Carbonflow. He makes an impassioned and very reasonable argument that Silicon Valley investors and start ups should be looking out for, learning from, and respecting the oil companies.

Oil companies have tons of money, and tons of experience selling energy. I've said before, and firmly believe, that when oil companies refocus on providing energy, not oil, they will be the force to be reckoned with. Of course, Neal seems to make this a warning to clean tech companies. I think it's more of an opportunity.

For the last 5-7 years, web start ups seemed to have their biggest exits when companies like Google or Ebay bought them. I think that's the model for energy related start-ups. A cellulosic ethanol company shouldn't really think of themselves as being a competitor to Chevron, they should make themselves so profitable and interesting that Chevron would want to buy them. At which point they gain access to all the Chevron gas stations. That is the future. Cleantech won't be putting the Chevrons and Exxon-Mobils out of business, but it has the possibility of making them many times cleaner.

And that the big fortunes made in cleantech investing todate have not been made on high risk early stage technology bets, but on 10 or 20 year old technologies who were in the right place at the right time when the policies came in. Or the low cost manufacturers of mature known technologies (think corn ethanol or wind developers and Chinese solar manufacturers) who moved fast when policies moved, making hordes of 'that's not a venture' bets. Disruptive technology has never been the winner.....

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So while you fight the good fight to develop technology to change the world, don't forget, be humble, learn what can be learned, build what can be built, and walk softly, because the elephant in this room floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee, and he has yet to take the field.