The globe's human population is currently around six-and-a-half billion, and it is slated to reach nine billion people in the next twenty years. Tom Siebel, Chairman of First Virtual Group, points out that this sharp increase will propel a worldwide demand for food, water, energy, and healthcare. And, he adds, the business opportunities in providing these essentials are unparalleled.

Facing the likelihood of carbon reporting and carbon tracking that will be necessary with upcoming cap and trade legislation, Tom Siebel, First Virtual Group Chairman, announces a new initiative to help reduce the cost of reporting on an enterprise's carbon footprint - a tool that he foresees will serve a $3 trillion market in 2020.

Most of the promise of post-industrial society has been realized, says Tom Siebel, Chairman of First Virtual Group, and all of the great technological advances and development of great companies are behind us. The tech sector is hovering around a mere three percent annual growth rate, says Siebel; keeping it just on par with the rate of current economic growth.

Tom Siebel, Chairman of First Virtual Group, paints a picture of the dramatic explosion of the dot-com boom; an era, he recalls, where "risk was a business problem, and not an anathema." With a 17 percent growth rate - an increase unprecedented before or since, says Siebel - the business opportunities of the 1980's era appeared to be unlimited. Changes in technology were total replacements, rather than incremental, meaning that every client had to buy and keep buying or find themselves lagging into obsolescence. He credits this free market flow with conjuring a revolution in computing and communications.

Forward-thinking entrepreneurs should consider government restrictions in their long-term business planning, says First Virtual Group's Chairman Tom Siebel. They should also be aware of the opportunities that exist through population growth and a growing demographic of the aged. And they should be thinking about solving the energy problem, and the provision of clean food and water for the planet.