The folks over at AutoBlogGreen have some great photos of former Secretary of State Colin Powell checking out the Fisker Karma at the Washington Auto Show this week — he’s looking under the hood and chatting with Fisker’s CEO. But while Powell is probably a natural gear head in his own right, there’s a bigger connection between Fisker and Powell: the venture firm Kleiner Perkins.
Colin Powell joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a strategic limited partner back in 2005. There was a lot of buzz over his appointment at the time, but since then he hasn’t seemed to offer much of a public face for the firm — and of course, Kleiner now has Al Gore to help with political connections. Kleiner has invested in Fisker Automotive, the maker of the Fisker Karma — reportedly at least $10 million. Anyhoo, just saying. Washington DC and Silicon Valley are pretty chummy these days.

{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/02\/05\/why-colin-powell-likes-the-fisker-karma-kleiner\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_0ec04644658c8a036b97040059f8aed2","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}