Excerpts of a February 15, 2008 commentary by Michael S. Malone, ABC News Silicon Insider columnist since 2000: "Silicon Insider: Solar Companies Glow Despite Economic Slump":
"Here's a toast to the superiority of pragmatists over idealists. Of entrepreneurs over bureaucrats. And most of all to those... engineers and scientists.... Amidst all of the gloomy or, at best, hesitant corporate financial news of the last few weeks, one industry sector literally seems aglow: solar.
....SunPower is majority owned by Cypress Semiconductor. And, of course, Cypress is run by one of my favorite people, T.J. Rodgers.... Needless to say, we reporters love T.J., because he's always good for an outrageous and inflammatory quote. T.J. is an unapologetic capitalist and an absolutely ferocious competitor."
"During the early 1990s, when the tech world, and especially chip companies, was suing everyone in sight over intellectual property, T.J. alone refused to cave in to the blackmail and sign licensing deals. He fought every single suit, bar none, and then wallpapered his office with copies of the complaints.
...wrote to Rodgers asking him to put more women and minorities on Cypress's board. T.J., a pure meritocrat who happens to be one of the great supporters of allowing more trained immigrants into the U.S., politely told the Sister to go to hell. He later did the same thing to Jesse Jackson.
....So, it goes without saying that when the word "green" comes to mind, T.J. Rodgers, the ultimate free market libertarian, is probably the last person you'd ever think of. And yet, here he is, at the absolute epicenter of the Green Revolution, helping lead the charge that will likely very soon make solar power as inexpensive as other sources of electricity.
And SunPower is rapidly becoming a more important business to Cypress than semiconductors themselves.
The story of how T.J. got to this point is one of the great untold business stories of the new century. And it should serve as an object lesson to those who wish to change the world by fiat, rather than by market forces. A column is too short a space to tell it all, but I can give you a quick summary....
You may not like their politics, or their attitude, or their style. But if we really do have an energy revolution in this country and free ourselves from our addiction to fossil fuels, it will be because of hard-charging, take-no-prisoners entrepreneurs like T.J. Rodgers - not UN committees, environmental groups, or government officials."
Sad to see that SunPower has been bought by Total now - such a great example of entrepreneurship in solar!