| Bill Gurley | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 10, 1966 Dickinson, Texas |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Florida University of Texas |
Bill Gurley is a general partner at Benchmark Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm in Menlo Park, California. His current investments include: Avvo, Glassdoor, LiveOps, Move Networks, Nanosolar, OpenTable, Red 5 Studios, Second Life,[1] Tropos Networks, Vudu, Inc. and Zillow.com.[2] His previous investments include: Avamar Technologies (acquired by EMC Corporation), Business.com (acquired by R.H. Donnelley), Clicker.com (acquired by CBS Interactive), Crossgain (acquired by BEA Systems), Employease (acquired by Automatic Data Processing), JAMDAT Mobile (IPO: JMDT; acquired by Electronic Arts), Nordstrom.com (acquired by Nordstrom), Shopping.com (IPO: SHOP, acquired by eBay), and The Knot (IPO: KNOT).[3] Gurley was an early investor in green technology with a 2002 Series A investment in Nanosolar.[4] He is listed consistently on the Forbes Midas List[5] and is considered one of “technology’s top dealmakers.[6]”
With the economic collapse in the fall of 2008, Gurley garnered attention[7] when he sent a letter[8] to his portfolio companies, advising CEOs to exercise caution in spending but to look for and take advantage of opportunities[9] that become available during harsh economic times.
Before joining Benchmark, Gurley was a partner at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He had also spent four years on Wall Street as a research analyst, including 3 years at CS First Boston. He was considered “one of Wall Street’s premier technology analysts.[10]” He covered companies including Dell, Compaq and Microsoft and was the lead analyst on the Amazon.com IPO.[11]
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 Advanced Micro Devices' embedded processor division.[3] With both a financial/business and engineering background he “has a way of sizing things up that makes him both intriguing and highly quotable.[12]"
Gurley is known for his above average height; he is 6’9”.[13] The title of the newsletter he once authored, “Above the Crowd,[14]" and the book eBoys 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.[15]"
Gurley was born in Dickinson, Texas, outside of Houston, on May 10, 1966. Gurley received his MBA from the University of Texas in 1993 and his Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida in 1989, where he was a member of the men’s basketball team.[13] He is married with three children and lives in the Bay Area.
Randall E. Stross, eBoys : The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work. (New York: Ballantine Books, 2000). ISBN 0-345-42889-7.