Bill Gross

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This article concerns the business-startup manager; for the bond manager, see William H. Gross

Bill Gross (fl. 2000s) is an American business manager.

He founded the business incubator Idealab in March, 1996, and serves as the company's Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer.

Gross serves on the boards of numerous companies. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology and of the Art Center College of Design. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.

He came up with the contextual advertising concept, introduced as paid placement and pay-per-click on GoTo.com and later made popular by Google. Google eventually paid a licensing fee to Overture Services Inc., the company that Gross created and is now owned by Yahoo Inc.)

In 2005, Gross is working on development of a rooftop concentrated photovoltaic solar collector exclusively for California flat-roofed commercial buildings.

In November 2001 Gross defaulted on a $50 million personal loan he had taken from the Bank of America. In March 2006 the board of directors of Idealab voted to pay off the loan, protecting Gross from bankruptcy. Gross's efforts to use Idealab to bail out his personal finances were the subject of a minority shareholder lawsuit filed in 2002, which was eventually settled.[1] Court documents filed by the plaintiffs allege that the funds were used in part to finance Gross's purchase of a Gulfstream personal jet.[2]