Bill Gurley

Education and early career

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. While at the University of Florida, he was a member of the men’s basketball team. Gurley received his Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business in 1993.

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.

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." He covered companies including Dell, Compaq and Microsoft and was the lead analyst on the Amazon.com IPO.

Benchmark

At Benchmark, Gurley has led investments in and holds (or held) board seats on Brighter, DogVacay, Good Eggs, GrubHub, HackerOne, Linden Lab, LiveOps, Nextdoor, OpenTable, Sailthru, Scale Computing, Stitch Fix, Vessel, and Zillow.

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). He is listed consistently on the Forbes Midas List.

2008 recession

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. 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." Gurley’s warnings, and posts on his personal blog, Above the Crowd, on venture capital spending, have been widely discussed in the industry.

Awards

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

Investment banking critic

Gurley has been a proponent of direct listings, an alternative to a traditional initial public offering as a method for going public. 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. 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.

Uber

Gurley left Uber's board of directors in June 2017. 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.

Gurley reportedly initially had a close relationship with CEO Travis Kalanick. He was Uber’s most engaged board member and the closest thing Mr. Kalanick had to a consigliere. Eventually, however, as described in Chapter 28 of Mike Isaac's book Super Pumped, Gurley soured on Kalanick. Gurley shared his support for Kalanick on Twitter, stating "There will be many pages in the history books devoted to @travisk - very few entrepreneurs have had such a lasting impact on the world."

In April 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gurley would be stepping back from Benchmark as he was not investing in a new fund that his venture capital firm was raising.

In popular culture

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

Personal life

Gurley is known for his above-average height; he is 6 ft. 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."

Gurley is married with three children and currently lives in Austin, Texas.

References

References

1. (2016). "#3 Bill Gurley". Forbes.
2. "John William Gurley CFA: Executive Profile & Biography - Bloomberg".
3. [http://www.benchmark.com/sv/general_partners/gurley.shtml Benchmark Capital: Silicon Valley Team: General Partners: Bill Gurley] {{webarchive. link. (June 16, 2008)
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.
7. (May 15, 2018). "Benchmark Makes 'Contrarian' Bet on Small Grocery Startup in Age of Amazon". Bloomberg.com.
8. Gage, Deborah. (May 28, 2014). "HackerOne Emerges With $9 Million to Root Out Software Bugs". Wall Street Journal.
9. Nisen, Max. (February 11, 2013). "Sailthru Raises $19 Million For Using Big Data Respectfully". Business Insider.
10. Arrington, Michael. (2010-03-09). "Benchmark, Others Store $9 Million In Scale Computing".
11. Taylor, Colleen. (October 17, 2013). "Stitch Fix, The Online Personal Shopping Startup, Sews Up $12 Million Series B Led By Benchmark". TechCrunch.
12. (June 24, 2014). "Jason Kilar's New Startup Has a Name, and a Whole Lot of Money". Re/Code.
13. (July 2, 2017). "Bill Gurley reunites with Zillow's Spencer Rascoff to talk 'insane curiosity' and finding good leaders". GeekWire.
14. Schubarth, Cromwell. (April 24, 2020). "The Funded: Perennial Midas List investor Bill Gurley takes a step back at Benchmark". [[Silicon Valley Business Journal]].
15. [http://www.businessinsider.com/2008/10/benchmark-s-bill-gurley-how-to-survive-depression-without-canning-everyone?op=1 How To Survive Great Depression 2.0 Without Firing Everyone] article by Henry Blodget on ''[[Business Insider]]'' October 17, 2008, accessed March 16, 2015
16. [http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10069083-60.html How Tech Start-ups Plan on Getting By]
17. [https://techcrunch.com/2008/10/09/benchmark-capital-advises-startups-to-conserve-capital/ Benchmark Capital Advises Startups To Conserve Capital, Look For Opportunities]
18. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/bill-gurley-sees-silicon-valley-on-a-dangerous-path-1445911333 Bill Gurley Sees Silicon Valley on a Dangerous Path] ''Wall Street Journal''. October 28, 2015
19. markmilian, Mark Milian. "VC Bill Gurley Tells Startups to Beware of 'Dirty' Fundraising Terms".
20. (October 20, 2015). "Silicon Valley investor: Unicorn startups are like career college students".
21. Isaac, Mike. "Silicon Valley Investor Warns of Bubble at SXSW".
22. "And The Winners Of The 9th Annual Crunchies Are…".
23. 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".
24. O'Shaughnessy, Patrick. (September 24, 2019). "Bill Gurley--Direct Listing vs IPO".
25. "Bill Gurley to leave Uber's board of directors – TechCrunch".
26. (June 21, 2017). "Amid Tumult at Uber, Bill Gurley Is Said to Be Leaving Board". The New York Times.
27. (March 18, 2017). "In Silicon Valley, a Voice of Caution Guides a High-Flying Uber". The New York Times.
28. (June 21, 2017). "Kalanick Critic to Step Down From Uber Board of Directors". Bloomberg.com.
29. "Bill Gurley on Twitter". Twitter.
30. Winkler, Yuliya Chernova and Rolfe. (April 23, 2020). "WSJ News Exclusive {{!}} Venture Capitalist Bill Gurley Isn't Joining Benchmark's Next Fund". Wall Street Journal.
31. "Bill Gurley is stepping away from an active role at Benchmark, 21 years after joining the firm".
32. Kiefer, Halle. (2021-05-27). "Kyle Chandler to Take You for a Ride in Showtime's Super Pumped".
33. "When $8 billion is yours to lose: How Uber's top investor suffered through the wildest tech drama of the year". CNBC.
34. [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0345428897 Amazon.com: eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work: Randall E. Stross: Books]
35. 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".
36. (April 7, 2007). "Bill Gurley". [[The Mercury News]].