All Rights Reserved. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Following the dot-com crash, three co-founders of consumer review site Epinions sued Benchmark, Gurley and other investors in 2005 for failing to disclose financial information material to a proposed merger. Some tussles with founders led to lawsuits. Identities / John William Gurley - Bill Gurley . The firm has an atypical approach to splitting profits, divvying them up evenly among partners (most venture firms vary titles and compensation levels). And after hearing Holder’s report, Gurley supported Kalanick taking a leave of absence. "[10] He covered companies including Dell, Compaq and Microsoft and was the lead analyst on the Amazon.com IPO. Gurley’s worry turned to panic, according to colleagues who spoke to Bloomberg Businessweek in 2018. In a bid to accelerate its goal to automate driving, Uber acquired self-driving startup Otto. A towering Texan at 6 feet, 9 inches, Gurley is a former jock known for his acid wit on Twitter and an easygoing, convivial demeanor in person. SPACs are all the rage today, and in recent quarters have hit the biotech sector in a big way. In October 2019, Gurley hosted an event to help popularize direct listings as an alternative to the traditional IPO. © 2020 Forbes Media LLC. (Photo credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg) Benchmark general partner Bill Gurley continues to sound the alarm on so-called unicorns, the fast-growing group of privately-held technology companies valued at one billion or more. Big Tech Draws Record Revenue, Harsh Criticism With Election... Dorsey Keeps Twitter CEO Job on Elliott, Silver Lake Review, Apple to Launch MacBooks With Own Chips Next Week, WeChat Parent Tencent Joins Trump Ban Fight to Protect Data, Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg. “I convinced him his best path to launching that career was by establishing himself as the most credible lead analyst on the best venture-backed internet IPOs.”. The suit alleged investors deprived founders and employees of tens of millions. He was Uber’s most engaged board member and the closest thing Mr. Kalanick has to a consigliere. Benchmark's long-serving general partner is currently an investor in Good Eggs, HackerOne, Instawork, Nextdoor, Solv and Stitch Health. A towering Texan at 6 feet, 9 inches, Gurley is a former jock known for his acid wit on Twitter and an easygoing, convivial demeanor in person. "[36], Gurley is on the advisory council of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas and is a board member at KIPP Bay Area Schools. Have a confidential tip for our reporters? He was the first to call Dell Computer’s comeback. Venture capital investing has long been characterized as an opaque and discreet industry, with limited access to the individuals who make deals happen. In the beginning of the 2020 lockdown, venture capitalist Bill Gurley tweeted, “I am living through my third “reset” in Silicon Valley. Benchmark Capital partner Bill Gurley says there is indeed a bubble in tech startups, and it will not end well. "[34], Gurley is known for his above average height; he is 6’9”. That's in addition to other exits like Glassdoor, acquired in May 2018 by Recruit Holdings for $1.2 billion, Sailthru, acquired by CM Group in January 2019, and earlier exits including the Stitch Fix IPO in November 2017 and the acquisitions of Vessel, DogVacay and Brighter. John William Gurley, CFA (born May 10, 1966) is a general partner at Benchmark, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California. Through a spokeswoman, Gurley declined to be interviewed for this article. Google successfully sued Uber for knowingly stealing trade secrets, winning a sliver of Uber shares to settle the case. “They don’t all make it.”, Oil Holds Gains on Signs OPEC+ Will Delay Easing Output Cuts, Delivery Giant Meituan Said to Weigh Second Listing in China, Philippines Allows Land-Based Casinos to Accept Bets Online. [7], With the economic collapse in the fall of 2008, Gurley garnered attention[21] when he sent a letter[22] to his portfolio companies, advising CEOs to exercise caution in spending but to look for and take advantage of opportunities[23] that become available during harsh economic times. Venture investors’ success depends on their ability to convince entrepreneurs to sell them equity in their startup. [3][4], John William Gurley was born in Dickinson, Texas, outside of Houston, on May 10, 1966. Recently, Palantir (PLTR) and Asana (ASAN), used direct listings as an alternative to the traditional underwritten initial public securities offerings (IPO). He described dozens of relationships he’d had in the industry over the years; notably missing was any mention of Kalanick and Uber. He seemed to be deciding how to answer. The announcement was released one day after the company announced the resignation of CEO Travis Kalanick following months of controversy over Uber's corporate culture. Bill Gurley salary income and net worth data provided by People Ai provides an estimation for any internet celebrity's real salary income and net worth like Bill Gurley based on real numbers. 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. But as years passed, Kalanick told colleagues he had an easy way of dealing with Gurley: Ignore his phone calls, and their frequency would diminish. Benchmark is famous for making early, disciplined bets on startups, and taking an active hand in building companies. [19][20], Previous investments 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 Automatic Data Processing), JAMDAT Mobile (acquired by Electronic Arts), Nordstrom.com (acquired by Nordstrom), Shopping.com (acquired by eBay), The Knot, Uber, and Vudu (acquired by Walmart). Investment Bankers As Underwriters: Barbarians Or Gatekeepers? Bill Gurley, an early investor in Uber, reaped one of the biggest paydays in venture capital history. He took time to answer some of my questions recently about what he looks for in a great company. And let’s be honest, the current tech valuation climate has been very kind to him. The now-legendary investment banker Frank Quattrone was an early mentor of Gurley’s, convincing him to move to Silicon Valley to cover internet companies for his firm in exchange for helping Gurley navigate the region’s burgeoning venture scene.“From the first time we met, Bill confessed that his long-term interest was in becoming a VC investor,” Quattrone wrote in an email. He was the first to call Dell Computer’s comeback. After graduating from the University of Florida, he worked as an engineer at Compaq Computer and tried (unsuccessfully) to get a job with then-hot venture firm Austin Ventures. When he finally got his wish, in 2017, he learned about huge losses that Uber had been quietly sustaining. When Uber Technologies Inc. went public on Thursday, investor Bill Gurley received one of the biggest personal payouts in venture capital history: an amount estimated to be more than $600 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Along with the firm’s history of successful exits—it backed Twitter Inc., Instagram, Snap Inc. and Stitch Fix Inc. among others— Benchmark has a track record of fighting with founders.“We were always the anti-Benchmark,” Andreesen Horowitz partner Ben Horowitz told the New Yorker in 2015. Ravikant declined to comment.Raj Abhyanker, an engineer and lawyer, sued Benchmark in 2011, claiming it stole his idea for a neighborhood social network—much like the Benchmark-backed NextDoor. “From the first time we met, Bill confessed that his long-term interest was in becoming a VC investor,” Quattrone wrote in an email. Through a spokeswoman, Kalanick declined to be interviewed for this article.“He is an extremely powerful ally. He's been at the table backing some of the biggest names in tech in the last 5 years. Net Worth: $2 billion. Once privately valued at $76 billion, Uber's shares trade lower as of April 2020, but it still represents a career-clinching deal for Gurley, whose firm Benchmark held an eye-popping stake of more than $6 billion in Uber at the time -- and had sued one-time CEO Travis Kalanick in 2017 as part of a boardroom battle. The day after Kalanick’s forced resignation, Gurley quit Uber’s board, handing his seat to Benchmark’s Matt Cohler. VideoEditor’s Note: The following is a guest post written by Bill Gurley, a general partner at Benchmark Capital who has led investments in OpenTable, Zillow and Uber (and many other successful startups). Crafting a reputation for being “founder friendly,” and remaining loyal to the original team, has become increasingly important in recent years as money from SoftBank Group Corp.’s investment vehicle and other megafunds has flooded the ecosystem and investors jockey to prove they’re good for more than simply writing a check. It was at Gurley’s insistence that Kalanick fired Levandowski. Gurley seemed not to mind, but didn’t give up trying to get on the board’s audit committee. That spring, he dug in, trying to right the ship. And also under Kalanick’s leadership, a toxic company culture flourished, creating unequal compensation and work conditions, according to former Attorney General Eric Holder who Uber hired in 2017 to investigate claims of sexism and harassment. It's a line he's been saying for the past several months. Bill Gurley on CNBC September 14, 2007 with Bill Griffeth [permanent dead link] Above the Crowd blog; Bill Gurley on LinkedIn; Official Forbes Profile This page was last edited on 18 October 2020, at 19:09 (UTC). Replacing founders does happen, but it’s maybe 5% of the time,” said Shawn Carolan, a partner at Menlo Ventures which backed Uber just after Benchmark.

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