Bill Gurley
General partner at Benchmark Capital for over two decades; was the lead analyst on Amazon's IPO before moving into venture capital. Writes Above the Crowd on tech and marketplace economics.
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What they believe
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Complex systems are multivariable and nonlinear, so they can behave one way for years and then switch when a single variable changes.
I would describe complex systems as multivariable nonlinear systems. And multivariable nonlinear systems are very hard to predict. They can behave one way for a long time and then one variable can switch and they can behave another way.
youtube.comSaid 9 Jun 2026This on korrents
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9 June
From one piece Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley 15 beliefs · youtube.com
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korrents.com
Publishing what you know about a field draws the people working in it toward you, so writing becomes a calling card.Their words
in the venture world, for the founder that doesn't know you, when they see your knowledge on a subject or they see what you're talking about in their own business, they reach out to you. So, it becomes a calling card.
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korrents.com
Someone who is not already product-first almost never becomes good at product afterwards.Their words
it probably took my whole career for me to fully understand how hard it is to hire someone who's not a product first individual and then get them to be good at it. I'm sure there there are examples, but it's got to be 5% or less of the use case.
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Their words
they started from a place of corporate governance where they were looking out for fraud. And so so risk mitigation rather than shareholder interest. And so when you come at it from that perspective, you're like, there should be rules and people should adhere to the rules and when people get outside of the rules, that's bad.
+ 12 more
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Their words
I would agree to that type of package for every company I've ever worked with, and most CEOs wouldn't take it. Uh, it basically says you don't make money unless the stock goes way up. And if you stock goes way up, you make an obscene amount of money. And I would do that deal over and over and over and over again.
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Their words
the whole industry is is kind of stuck in this world where they make a lot of money because it is this way. But there's zero reason why it should cost 2 or 3%. Just zero.
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Their words
I think it is insanely unfair to the companies the way they're forced to go through this process where the bankers pick the price and pick the shareholders. There's just no need to do that. If you took a freshman computer science student and a freshman finance student and said, you know, imagine how a company should go public. They would match supply and demand anonymously like you would in any auction.
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Their words
Look, first of all, if a company's successful, someone will knock on your door and try and give you more money. So, like almost every round is preemptive for successful companies. And when you take that much money, $300 million, the only way to spend it is to take your burn rate up. And I always thought of burn rate as a measure of risk.
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Their words
the investor community writ large has slowly become aware of and believes it strongly in increasing returns and power laws. And so over time, if they all believe that, they're going to be more willing to invest on the come and take risk.
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Their words
the regulation gets extremely difficult and mundane and expensive that could actually lead to more igopoly and I think some of the players know that and are begging for regulation.
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Their words
the competitive dynamic in China is more intense because it's more intense. Everyone's chosen to go open source and that creates a system that in my mind is capable of innovating far faster than the competitive system we have here. All the models learn from one another.
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Their words
a more common trait that's related in the entrepreneurial world is obsessive learning like constant learning because the disruptions that allow for the technology waves that allow for companies to be disruptive and take market share from an incumbent are all tied to something dynamic that's happening on the edge.
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korrents.com
Knowing both the deep history of a field and its bleeding edge is what makes someone genuinely differentiated in it.Their words
I'm suggesting you should understand the really old stuff, the history, because it's differentiating and shows a passion and it gives you a great frame of mind, but you also want to really understand the new edge. If you do both of those things, like you're I think you're a power player in your field, you know.
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Their words
We do live in a world where information is really cut up, but we also live in a world where you can have access to more information than you ever could. And that's even more true now with LLMs.
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korrents.com
Optimising a single metric is a trap, because the second-order consequences of the change only surface much later.Their words
you got to be really conscious of the consequence and not get too deterministic about a single metric or a single variable and know what's important and what's on top.
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Their words
I would describe complex systems as multivariable nonlinear systems. And multivariable nonlinear systems are very hard to predict. They can behave one way for a long time and then one variable can switch and they can behave another way.
3 November 2025
28 November 2022
3 June 2021
24 August 2020
27 February 2019
9 July 2018
19 April 2018
18 December 2017
15 November 2017
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Catastrophic CareTheir words
he wrote a fascinating book and I think uncovered all the things about the US healthcare system that kind of undermine its success.
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Likedrcmnd.app
SapiensTheir words
Sapiens I read recently, which I really enjoyed.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
StartupTheir words
it's the most real startup journey that's ever been written, and it's actually more real because it didn't work.
+ 2 more
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Recommendsrcmnd.app
Crossing the ChasmTheir words
Crossing the Chasm for enterprise plays you have to read.
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Lovedrcmnd.app
Innovator's DilemmaTheir words
Innovator's Dilemma is probably the most efficient analysis of why startups are able to disrupt.
6 September 2017
Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 16 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Complex systems are multivariable and nonlinear, so they can behave one way for years and then switch when a single variable changes.
I would describe complex systems as multivariable nonlinear systems. And multivariable nonlinear systems are very hard to predict. They can behave one way for a long time and then one variable can switch and they can behave another way.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Optimising a single metric is a trap, because the second-order consequences of the change only surface much later.
you got to be really conscious of the consequence and not get too deterministic about a single metric or a single variable and know what's important and what's on top.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Information is more fragmented than ever and simultaneously more available than ever, and language models widen that access further.
We do live in a world where information is really cut up, but we also live in a world where you can have access to more information than you ever could. And that's even more true now with LLMs.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Show 13 more
Knowing both the deep history of a field and its bleeding edge is what makes someone genuinely differentiated in it.
I'm suggesting you should understand the really old stuff, the history, because it's differentiating and shows a passion and it gives you a great frame of mind, but you also want to really understand the new edge. If you do both of those things, like you're I think you're a power player in your field, you know.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Obsessive continuous learning is the common trait among entrepreneurs, because the disruptions they exploit sit on a moving edge.
a more common trait that's related in the entrepreneurial world is obsessive learning like constant learning because the disruptions that allow for the technology waves that allow for companies to be disruptive and take market share from an incumbent are all tied to something dynamic that's happening on the edge.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
An open-source model ecosystem innovates faster than a closed one, because every participant learns from the others' work.
the competitive dynamic in China is more intense because it's more intense. Everyone's chosen to go open source and that creates a system that in my mind is capable of innovating far faster than the competitive system we have here. All the models learn from one another.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Costly and burdensome AI regulation would entrench an oligopoly, which is why some incumbents are asking to be regulated.
the regulation gets extremely difficult and mundane and expensive that could actually lead to more igopoly and I think some of the players know that and are begging for regulation.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Investors have collectively absorbed the idea of increasing returns and power laws, and that belief is what makes them take ever more risk.
the investor community writ large has slowly become aware of and believes it strongly in increasing returns and power laws. And so over time, if they all believe that, they're going to be more willing to invest on the come and take risk.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Burn rate is a measure of risk, and preemptive rounds push successful companies to raise it whether or not they need to.
Look, first of all, if a company's successful, someone will knock on your door and try and give you more money. So, like almost every round is preemptive for successful companies. And when you take that much money, $300 million, the only way to spend it is to take your burn rate up. And I always thought of burn rate as a measure of risk.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
The IPO process is unfair to companies because bankers pick both the price and the shareholders, where an anonymous auction would do the job.
I think it is insanely unfair to the companies the way they're forced to go through this process where the bankers pick the price and pick the shareholders. There's just no need to do that. If you took a freshman computer science student and a freshman finance student and said, you know, imagine how a company should go public. They would match supply and demand anonymously like you would in any auction.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Card payments cost two to three percent because of how the industry is structured, not because moving money has to cost that much.
the whole industry is is kind of stuck in this world where they make a lot of money because it is this way. But there's zero reason why it should cost 2 or 3%. Just zero.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
A pay package that pays nothing unless the stock rises enormously is a good deal for shareholders, and most chief executives would refuse it.
I would agree to that type of package for every company I've ever worked with, and most CEOs wouldn't take it. Uh, it basically says you don't make money unless the stock goes way up. And if you stock goes way up, you make an obscene amount of money. And I would do that deal over and over and over and over again.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Proxy advisers judge companies by rule-compliance rather than shareholder interest, because they grew out of fraud prevention.
they started from a place of corporate governance where they were looking out for fraud. And so so risk mitigation rather than shareholder interest. And so when you come at it from that perspective, you're like, there should be rules and people should adhere to the rules and when people get outside of the rules, that's bad.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Someone who is not already product-first almost never becomes good at product afterwards.
it probably took my whole career for me to fully understand how hard it is to hire someone who's not a product first individual and then get them to be good at it. I'm sure there there are examples, but it's got to be 5% or less of the use case.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Publishing what you know about a field draws the people working in it toward you, so writing becomes a calling card.
in the venture world, for the founder that doesn't know you, when they see your knowledge on a subject or they see what you're talking about in their own business, they reach out to you. So, it becomes a calling card.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
Venture capital bends toward the young, because the work is a hustle and later-life obligations cap how many hours anyone can give it.
I think the the whole industry bends towards youth for that reason and because it's a hustle business like there there's there's always a rock you haven't looked under and you know age brings children and homes and and and other requirements you get tied to and responsibilities and you're just not able to go spend 80 hours a week studying YouTube like you just can't.
Mental Models That Change How You Think | Bill Gurley Said 9 Jun 2026
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Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 5 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Loved Innovator's Dilemma
Innovator's Dilemma is probably the most efficient analysis of why startups are able to disrupt.
abovethecrowd.com 15 Nov 2017
Recommends Crossing the Chasm
Crossing the Chasm for enterprise plays you have to read.
abovethecrowd.com 15 Nov 2017
Loved Startup
it's the most real startup journey that's ever been written, and it's actually more real because it didn't work.
abovethecrowd.com 15 Nov 2017
Show 2 more
Liked Sapiens
Sapiens I read recently, which I really enjoyed.
abovethecrowd.com 15 Nov 2017
Loved Catastrophic Care
he wrote a fascinating book and I think uncovered all the things about the US healthcare system that kind of undermine its success.
abovethecrowd.com 15 Nov 2017
Where they publish
Blog Above the Crowd Writing on venture capital, marketplaces and tech economics since 1996. Has a feed.
Long essays on the economics of high-growth tech and marketplace businesses -- among them the widely cited breakdown of revenue-multiple valuations ahead of Facebook's IPO.
Recent
- I Wrote a Book!!! 3 Nov 2025 CLICK HERE TO PRE-ORDER Almost a decade ago I had an inspiration. Leveraging a habit of reading biographies, I noticed a pattern of success amongst three unrelated individuals – a restauranteur, a basketball coach, and…
- Venture Capital Red Flag Checklist 28 Nov 2022 In his recent bankruptcy proceeding filing, John Ray III, the new CEO and Chief Restructuring Officer at FTX, minced no words: I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience. I have been the Chief Restructur…
- Customers Love Free Stuff … But That’s Not Your Problem 3 Jun 2021 Thanks to the pioneering work of Barry McCarty and others, paying the "IPO Pop Tax" is now 100% optional.
Show 7 more
- Going Public Circa 2020; Door #3: The SPAC 24 Aug 2020 If you are looking past or through Covid — and why not, all of Wall Street is — the topic du jour in Silicon Valley is Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs. SPACs are all the rage, and everybody and their bro…
- Money Out of Nowhere: How Internet Marketplaces Unlock Economic Wealth 27 Feb 2019 (*) Benchmark is/was an investor in companies labeled with the asterisk. In 1776, Adam Smith released his magnum opus, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations , in which he outlined his fundamenta…
- Benchmark’s Newest General Partner Chetan Puttagunta 9 Jul 2018 The partners at Benchmark are pleased to announce Chetan Puttagunta has joined the firm as our newest General Partner. As early-stage investors, we are acutely aware of the work of other venture capitalists on the board…
- The Thing I Love Most About Uber 19 Apr 2018 In spite of all the ink that journalists, analysts, and pundits have spilled on Uber over the years, no mainstream article has focused on what I consider to be the most elegant feature of this now ubiquitous, high growt…
- “Customer First” Healthcare 18 Dec 2017 The subject of the “consumerization of healthcare” has been around for many years. Most frequently people use this phrase in association with personal technology devices (heart-monitors, exercise accessories, sleep moni…
- The Ezra Klein Show: VC Bill Gurley on Transforming Health Care 15 Nov 2017 In November of 2015, I posted a tweet that declared Benchmark was interested in discovering Internet healthcare investments. Our firm has had the good fortune to invest in many two-sided networks that used information a…
- Thinking of Home: Dickinson, Texas 6 Sept 2017 For those of you who have moved away from the town where you grew up, the few times that you see your hometown in the national news creates an enormous sense of pride. Over the past few weeks, the town I grew up in, Dic…
Link verified 8 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
x.com @bgurley Where he argues in public about markets, IPOs and venture economics.
Real-time commentary on the same topics as the blog -- IPO structure, late-stage valuations, marketplace dynamics -- posted as the news happens rather than written up later.
Recent
- I’m with Tren. You can’t leave out Brian Arthur (and Cormac McCarthy). 20 Oct 2026 share.google
- October 17th, 2026 in college football. 18 Oct 2026
- This is a great story (below). The Runnin Down a Dream Foundation is actively searching for more partnerships. Please reach out through partnerships@rdad.org. 15 Oct 2026
Show 17 more
- More great stuff - the "rationalists" view of AI. From an expert. 11 Oct 2026
- These are the people that should lead any AI regulatory framework discussions. Software safety experts. 11 Oct 2026
- This is what real software security thinking looks like. Not moral platitudes or meeting with religious leaders. 11 Oct 2026
- It’s becoming clear that the notion of AI alignment “is” the safety problem in AI. 11 Oct 2026
- Strikes me this implies the company is certainly using customer’s prompts as part of the training data? Otherwise, why would it matter? There would be no impact to the larger system. Open to hearing why this is wrong. 8 Oct 2026
- Will it “tattle” on you? 8 Oct 2026
- Probably the most impressive single philanthropic effort I have ever seen. Why move $ through lossy non-profits when you can do direct wealth transfer. Hyper efficient. Much respect to @MichaelDell and Susan! 8 Oct 2026
- I applaud @NIHDirector_Jay decision to bring in Kristian Andersen to talk at NIH. First, Jay himself was a victim of being silenced & denigrated by the people currently in his role. Rather than repeat that atrocity, he is being professional. Second, we should always applaud more discussion, more debate, & more conversation. That is how we will find our way to root-cause. Once again, many worked to shut down discussion in early 2020 (which Jay mentions in his post). The same failure should not be repeated. Also, I would recommend anyone interested in the current views on the Covid origins disc… 7 Oct 2026
- Mustafa is the statesman AI needs. We all need to take the “hyperbole” way down. The doomerism is just the mirror image of the positive hyperbole. They go hand in hand. “We are going to cure cancer in three years!” No you won’t. Wish you were. But no. 6 Oct 2026
- This @mustafasuleyman interview is a “must watch” if you are concerned about AI safety. 4 Oct 2026
- This is directly stated in “Machines of Loving Grace” which the company makes employment candidates read and even hands out to customers. 3 Oct 2026 darioamodei.com
- Grateful that @elizabethjdias of @nytimes wrote this piece on how Anthropic thinks about their model, software consciousness, & the model's role vis-a-vis religion. If you are doing business with this company (customer/partner), evaluating it (press), or regulating it (government), it is important to know how "they" think about their models and what they are doing. It's very different from any software company that ever existed. Judge for yourself what you think about this approach, but be aware and informed. 2 Oct 2026 nytimes.com
- In the AI-doomer argument, broad multidisciplinary thinkers like @sapinker have suggested the "kill-us-all" scenarios are preposterous. The AI researchers, that are most negatively outspoken, say that their voice should count more, because they are closest to AI and know what it can do. Everyone watching this debate should read about Tetlock's work (see below). The generalists (foxes) and much better predictors than the specialists (hedgehogs) who are to close to the problem to accurately predict broader implications. So "no points" for the "we know more" argument. In fact, it works against y… 29 Sept 2026
- This is how mature enterprises solve security problems (vs braggadocios press releases that create panic instead). 28 Sept 2026
- "Don't think for a second that because you are an 'alarmist' that you are doing a social good." Amen. 24 Sept 2026
- Consequences will both harden the product and reduce the press releases where companies brag about their product flaws. 21 Sept 2026
- Lucky to have @chrisbosh in Austin sharing wisdom. 🤘 19 Sept 2026
Link verified 8 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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