Bill Gurley

Bill Gurley
Bill Gurley
Gurley in 2013
Born
John William Gurley

May 10, 1966 (1966-05-10) (age 60)
Dickinson, Texas, U.S.
Education
Known forInvesting, general partner at Benchmark

John William Gurley (born May 10, 1966) is an American venture capitalist. Since 1999, he has been a general partner at Benchmark, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm in San Francisco, California. He is best known for an early investment in Uber in 2011.

Early life and education

John William Gurley was born in Dickinson, Texas, outside of Houston, on May 10, 1966. Gurley graduated from the University of Florida in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science degree.[1] While at the University of Florida, he was a member of the men’s basketball team.[1] Gurley received his Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business in 1993.[2]

Career

Prior to his investment career, Gurley was a design engineer at Compaq Computer, where he worked on products such as the 486/50 and Compaq's first multi-processor server. Before Compaq, he worked in the technical marketing group of AMD's embedded processor division.[3]

Gurley was a partner at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He spent four years on Wall Street as a research analyst, including three years at CS First Boston. Author Jeffrey Pfeffer called him “one of Wall Street’s premier technology analysts."[4] He covered companies including Dell, Compaq and Microsoft and was the lead analyst on the Amazon.com IPO.[5]

Benchmark

At Benchmark, Gurley has led investments in and holds (or held) board seats on Brighter, DogVacay,[6] Good Eggs,[7] GrubHub, HackerOne,[8] Linden Lab, LiveOps, Nextdoor, OpenTable, Sailthru,[9] Scale Computing,[10] Stitch Fix,[11] Vessel,[12] and Zillow.[13]

Other investments of his have included: Avamar Technologies (acquired by EMC Corporation), Business.com (acquired by R.H. Donnelley), Clicker.com (acquired by CBS Interactive), Demandforce (acquired by Intuit), Employease (acquired by ADP, Inc.), JAMDAT Mobile (acquired by Electronic Arts), Nordstrom.com (acquired by Nordstrom), Shopping.com (acquired by eBay), The Knot, Uber, and Vudu (acquired by Walmart).[3] He is listed consistently on the Forbes Midas List.[14]

In 2020, Gurley stepped back from his position at Benchmark, having served with the firm for twenty-one years.[15]

Views

2008 financial crisis

With the economic collapse in the fall of 2008, Gurley garnered attention when he sent a letter to his portfolio companies, advising CEOs to exercise caution in spending but to look for and take advantage of opportunities that become available during harsh economic times.[16][17][18] In a 2015 interview Gurley said of private tech investing, "it’s my belief that Silicon Valley and the venture-backed businesses have moved into a world that is both speculative and unsustainable."[19] Gurley’s warnings, and posts on his personal blog, Above the Crowd on venture capital spending, have been widely discussed in the industry.[20][21]

Investment banking

Gurley has been a proponent of direct listings, an alternative to a traditional initial public offering as a method for going public.[22] He argues that the costs of going public in the U.S. with a traditional IPO are too high, especially for venture capital-backed tech companies.[23] The problem, in his view, is that investment banks on average set an offer price that is lower than what investors are willing to pay, resulting in the company needing to sell more shares to raise a given amount of cash. This additional share issuance dilutes the value of the shares held by the pre-issue shareholders, including company founders and employees. With a direct listing, a company issues a prospectus and the stock starts trading at a price that is determined by supply and demand.

Personal life

Gurley is known for his above-average height; he is 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m).[24] The title of his blog, Above the Crowd, and the book eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists that profiles the Benchmark team, both reference his height; the subtitle of eBoys is “The true story of the six tall men who backed eBay, Webvan, and other billion-dollar start-ups."[25]

A fictionalized version of Gurley portrayed by actor Kyle Chandler appeared in the Showtime drama series Super Pumped.[26]

In 2026, Gurley released Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Thrive in a Career You Actually Love with Crown Currency.[27][28]

Gurley is married with three children and currently lives in Austin, Texas.[29][30]

Awards

In March 2016, Gurley was named VC of the Year at TechCrunch’s annual Crunchies awards.[31]

References

  1. 1 2 "#3 Bill Gurley". Forbes. 2016. Retrieved November 13, 2019.
  2. ↑ "John William Gurley CFA: Executive Profile & Biography - Bloomberg". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved January 19, 2017.
  3. 1 2 Benchmark Capital: Silicon Valley Team: General Partners: Bill Gurley Archived June 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  4. ↑ Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Human Equation. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998) p.82.
  5. ↑ Byran Eisenberg, Call to Action: Simple Formulas to Improve Online Results. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2006) p. 27.
  6. ↑ Rao, Leena (November 13, 2012). "The Airbnb For Pets, DogVacay, Raises $6M From Benchmark". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 13, 2012.
  7. ↑ "Benchmark Makes 'Contrarian' Bet on Small Grocery Startup in Age of Amazon". Bloomberg.com. May 15, 2018. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  8. ↑ Gage, Deborah (May 28, 2014). "HackerOne Emerges With $9 Million to Root Out Software Bugs". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved May 28, 2014.
  9. ↑ Nisen, Max (February 11, 2013). "Sailthru Raises $19 Million For Using Big Data Respectfully". Business Insider. Retrieved February 23, 2013.
  10. ↑ Arrington, Michael (March 9, 2010). "Benchmark, Others Store $9 Million In Scale Computing". TechCrunch. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
  11. ↑ Taylor, Colleen (October 17, 2013). "Stitch Fix, The Online Personal Shopping Startup, Sews Up $12 Million Series B Led By Benchmark". TechCrunch. Retrieved October 17, 2013.
  12. ↑ Kafka, Peter (June 24, 2014). "Jason Kilar's New Startup Has a Name, and a Whole Lot of Money". Re/Code. Re/Code. Archived from the original on August 29, 2014. Retrieved August 29, 2014.
  13. ↑ "Bill Gurley reunites with Zillow's Spencer Rascoff to talk 'insane curiosity' and finding good leaders". GeekWire. July 2, 2017. Retrieved May 15, 2018.
  14. ↑ Schubarth, Cromwell (April 24, 2020). "The Funded: Perennial Midas List investor Bill Gurley takes a step back at Benchmark". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved November 26, 2024.
  15. ↑ Chernova, Yuliya; Winkler, Rolfe (April 22, 2020). "Venture Capitalist Bill Gurley Isn't Joining Benchmark's Next Fund". Wall Street Journal.
  16. ↑ How To Survive Great Depression 2.0 Without Firing Everyone article by Henry Blodget on Business Insider October 17, 2008, accessed March 16, 2015
  17. ↑ How Tech Start-ups Plan on Getting By
  18. ↑ Benchmark Capital Advises Startups To Conserve Capital, Look For Opportunities
  19. ↑ Bill Gurley Sees Silicon Valley on a Dangerous Path Wall Street Journal. October 28, 2015
  20. ↑ "Silicon Valley investor: Unicorn startups are like career college students". Fortune. October 20, 2015. Retrieved August 24, 2016.
  21. ↑ Isaac, Mike. "Silicon Valley Investor Warns of Bubble at SXSW". Retrieved August 24, 2016.
  22. ↑ Levy, Ari (October 1, 2019). "You don't have to be a big brand name to do a direct listing, investors try to convince start-ups". CNBC.com. Retrieved November 5, 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  23. ↑ O'Shaughnessy, Patrick (September 24, 2019). "Bill Gurley--Direct Listing vs IPO". Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy. Retrieved November 5, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. ↑ "When $8 billion is yours to lose: How Uber's top investor suffered through the wildest tech drama of the year". CNBC. Retrieved August 3, 2023.
  25. ↑ Amazon.com: eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work: Randall E. Stross: Books
  26. ↑ Kiefer, Halle (May 27, 2021). "Kyle Chandler to Take You for a Ride in Showtime's Super Pumped". Vulture. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
  27. ↑ "Runnin' Down a Dream by Bill Gurley: 9780593799666 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  28. ↑ "Video Bill Gurley discusses 'Runnin' Down a Dream'". ABC News. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  29. ↑ Mathews, Jessica (May 16, 2023). "From his new home in Austin, legendary VC Bill Gurley opens up about why he stepped back from Benchmark and his next act". Yahoo Finance. Retrieved November 13, 2019.
  30. ↑ "Bill Gurley". The Mercury News. April 7, 2007. Retrieved November 26, 2024.
  31. ↑ Lardinois, Frederic; Kumparak, Greg. "And The Winners Of The 9th Annual Crunchies Are…". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 24, 2016.

Further reading

  • Randall E. Stross, eBoys : The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work. (New York: Ballantine Books, 2000). ISBN 0-345-42889-7.
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