Welcome to the world of wisdom and insight from one of Silicon Valley’s most esteemed venture capitalists, Bill Gurley. With a keen eye for disruptive innovation and a knack for spotting trends, Gurley’s quotes are not just words; they are guiding principles for entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone navigating the dynamic landscape of technology and business.
As a general partner at Benchmark, Gurley has played a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of numerous successful startups, from Uber to Stitch Fix. His decades of experience in the industry have endowed him with a unique perspective on entrepreneurship, risk-taking, and the ever-evolving nature of markets. Whether delving into the nuances of market dynamics or emphasizing the importance of execution, Gurley’s insights resonate with aspiring visionaries and seasoned professionals alike, offering valuable lessons for those striving to make their mark on the world stage.
Below, you’ll find a collection of enlightening quotes from Bill Gurley that encapsulate his wisdom, foresight, and passion for innovation. Feel free to explore, reflect, and perhaps even find inspiration to propel your own journey forward.
Having an investor on your board of directors who is naive about public markets or finds them complex or scary is non-optimal. Bill Gurley
The first time you went to eBay, you probably didn’t do a transaction. Bill Gurley
Facebook has stitched together your social graph. The idea of an interest graph is to bring together everyone that has shared interests. If I can isolate the people who are into mountain biking in Marin, in one place, the ability to put ads against that is really high. Bill Gurley
Many consumer Internet business executives are loyalists of the Lifetime Value model, often referred to as the LTV model or formula. Lifetime value is the net present value of the profit stream of a customer. Bill Gurley
If one asserts that buying customers below what they charge them is a corporate strategy, this is in essence an arbitrage game, and arbitrage games rarely last. Bill Gurley
Almost everybody who thinks about local thinks about daily deals, but companies like OpenTable and Zillow and Yelp are all getting their money from the local market. Bill Gurley
I have never seen Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff, or Reed Hastings complain about being public. Nor have they ever argued that being public prevented them from doing things with a long-term focus. Bill Gurley
If the goal is to build companies that maximize long-term equity value, then optimizing corporate performance in a way that Wall Street appreciates is obviously critical to that goal. Bill Gurley
Venture capital is unscalable. Production equals the time each partner has. Bill Gurley
Most firms are hierarchical in nature, with everyone getting different slices of the economic pie. The problem is those slices are negotiated every time a firm raises a new fund, so in between funds, which is most of the time, the partners are trying to outgun one another to make a stronger case for themselves. Bill Gurley
It’s really hard to run a business against somebody who is not acting as if it were in business. Bill Gurley
It’s not for everybody to tweet, it’s for everybody to follow. The more people figure that out, they see it’s RSS-plus. It’s literally the place you check for information. Bill Gurley
It is critical to bundle all future variable costs of supporting the customer in order to fairly estimate the future contribution. Bill Gurley
Marketing executives like big budgets, as big budgets make it easier to grow the top line. Bill Gurley
I think one of the key differentiators I bring to the table as a venture capitalist is a solid understanding of the public markets and how they operate. Bill Gurley
I think one thing that may have happened with both Facebook and Zynga is that they may have waited too long to go public. They got particularly cute on that front. Bill Gurley
