SHAI AGASSI and Evan Thornley met last September, when Thornley, then a novice Victorian state Labor MP and former internet entrepreneur, was visiting the US with his son.

Agassi says he could tell then that Thornley's political honeymoon was over. "Evan tried to see if setting policy - governing - was a way he could contribute to society," says Agassi.

"I sensed when we were chatting, it was one of those things where he was somewhat dismayed with politics, even though he didn't give up on it.

"We laughed about it: entrepreneurs have a virus, a bug and when you have that virus, you create from nothing, which is what entrepreneurs do. We engineer a future that doesn't exist. We imagine it and we engineer it. And I think Evan is an imagineer, just as much as I am."

Thornley is now chief executive of Better Place Australia, after controversially quitting parliament on December 28. He was about to be promoted to the cabinet.

From Tel Aviv, where Better Place has its research headquarters, Thornley says he wasn't unhappy with politics. "I was in the difficult situation of having a couple of very exciting paths in front of me, and I could only achieve one of them." he said.

Gerard Wright