Bill Gurley

General Partner, Benchmark

Bill Gurley is a general partner at Benchmark, the San Francisco venture firm, best known for its early investment in Uber in 2011. He has long argued that traditional IPOs cost companies too much.

Net worth: ~$2.5B (est.); Estimate

Snapshot

Known for

Decades of venture investing; telling the AI doomers to calm down and carry on.

Worth knowing

In the fall of 2008 he sent a letter to his portfolio companies telling chief executives to spend carefully but to look for opportunities that open up in hard times; his blog, Above the Crowd, became widely read in the industry.
He is 6 ft 9 in, which gave his blog its name and is referenced in the subtitle of eBoys, a book about the Benchmark team.
TechCrunch's Crunchies awards named him VC of the Year in March 2016.
In 2026 he released a book, Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love, with Crown Currency.

Age: 60
Based: Austin, TX
Primary role: Founder, The Runnin' Down a Dream Foundation
Citizenship: United States
Born: 1966, Dickinson, Texas

Latest on Bill Gurley

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Model
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Bill Gurley

Snapshot

Latest on Bill Gurley

5x in 19 Months: Inside Harvey's $15.5 Billion Legal AI Machine

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Latest on Bill Gurley

5x in 19 Months: Inside Harvey's $15.5 Billion Legal AI Machine

Safety Was Anthropic's Whole Product. On Tuesday, Its Maker Walked Out.

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In the same stories