CEOInterviews.AI
Start App
Try: AI strategy tariffs earnings guidance layoffs interest rates growth

Bill Gurley

General partner at Benchmark, Benchmark

Search every verified Bill Gurley interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark, appeared at the All-In Summit on September 17, 2026, delivering a presentation titled "Searching for Feynman." In the talk, he discussed the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that six years later its root cause remains unknown and expressed skepticism about fears regarding artificial intelligence, saying his "psecond co is way higher than my pdoom." He called for continued scientific inquiry into the pandemic's origins, noted that China has tested 80,000 animals without finding a crossover, and said he has funded research through US Right to Know. He also referenced historical catastrophes and figures such as Richard Feynman in his remarks. On August 5, 2026, Gurley appeared on The Tim Ferriss Show, where he discussed investing rules, finding outliers, and insights from Jeff Bezos. During that conversation, he criticized the use of artificial intelligence for tasks like determining traffic light states, calling it "really stupid" because such systems are state machines. He also questioned why research funded by government dollars, such as through the NIH, should become proprietary, and commented on nuclear energy costs being driven by regulation rather than the product itself.

Recent appearances

  • Bill Gurley: Searching for Feynman

    September 18, 2026 · 📺 All-In Podcast

    (0:00) Bill Gurley takes the stage at the All-In Summit (1:29) Bill's Presentation: Searching for Feynman Links to additional resources mentioned in talk and used in research: https://www.p3.institute/searching_fo... Thanks to our partners for making this possible! IREN is a vertically integrated AI Cloud platform, delivering data centers, compute and software for AI training and inference. https://iren.com/ Oracle connects the data, applications, and infrastructure that turn AI into business outcomes—with the flexibility, choice, and control to optimize as AI evolves. http://oracle.com/ai…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

  • #651: Legendary Investor Bill Gurley on Investing Rules, Finding Outliers, Insights from Jeff Bez...

    August 05, 2026 · 📺 BlackNova Productions

    Brought to you by Protekt's REST (https://protekt.com/tim) sleep supplement, Athletic Greens's AG1 (http://athleticgreens.com/tim)  all-in-one nutritional supplement, and Shopify (http://shopify.com/tim)  global commerce platform providing tools to start, grow, market, and manage a retail business.  Bill Gurley (@bgurley (  / bgurley  ) ) has spent more than 20 years as a general partner at Benchmark. Before entering the venture capital business, Bill spent four years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst, including three years at Credit Suisse First Boston. Bill also maintains…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Anthropic's Digital God, Pope vs AI, Job Loss Narrative Flips, Open Source Crackdown Coming?

    July 18, 2026 · 📺 Zenvora Productions

    (0:00) Bill Gurley joins the show! (6:00) Making yourself valuable in the age of AI, first class of "AI Natives" (17:37) Reacting to Pope Leo's AI encyclical: Who guards the guardians? (26:54) Anthropic's Digital God: Do they believe they are creating a superior species? (38:32) AI sovereignty, the next era of privacy, open-source crackdown coming? (59:56) The Great AI Jobs Debate: Dario and Sam Altman flip their rhetoric, Goldman CEO says no AI job apocalypse Follow Bill Gurley: https://x.com/bgurley Apply for Summit 2026: https://allin.com/events Follow the best…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Silicon Valley Royalty Bill Gurley On The Dangerous AI Funding Bubble

    July 13, 2026 · 📺 Forbes

    In this episode of The Under 30 Podcast, hosts Alex and Zoya sit down with Silicon Valley royalty and legendary venture capitalist Bill Gurley to break down the highly polarized start-up landscape. 00:00 Introduction: Silicon Valley Royalty Bill Gurley 00:36 Bill Gurley's Career Trajectory: From Engineering to VC 02:46 Counting Cards: Tricking the System in Vegas 05:26 The Prediction Market Boom & High-Stakes Risks 07:52 AI vs Non-AI: The New Venture Capital Divide 09:36 The Real Danger of Chasing Massive Valuations 14:24 Bad Economics: Selling a Dollar for $0.80 18:28 What It Takes to Get Bi…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Bill Gurley & Greg Gretsch: Runnin' Down a Dream

    July 08, 2026 · 📺 Jackson Square Ventures Book Club

    In this Jackson Square Ventures Book Club session, Bill Gurley, Benchmark General Partner and author of Runnin’ Down a Dream, joins JSV Managing Director Greg Gretsch for a conversation about building a career around work you actually love. Drawing on his own path and lessons from leaders across industries, Bill explores how curiosity, craft, ambition, mentorship, and community can shape a more fulfilling career, and why the most successful paths are often the ones that do not follow a conventional script. Whether you're a founder, operator, investor, or anyone thinking seriously about what…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

  • E81: All-In Summit: Bill Gurley & Brad Gerstner on markets, downturns & investment cycles

    July 07, 2026 · 📺 Family Cartoon

    This conversation was recorded LIVE at the All-In Summit in Miami and included slides. To watch on YouTube, check out our All-In ...

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • How to Build a Career You Love | Bill Gurley | TED

    June 15, 2026 · 📺 TED

    Passion doesn't drive work — fascination does, says venture capitalist and author Bill Gurley. Drawing on years of research into the lives of high achievers, he shows why obsessive, lifelong learning is the real engine of career excellence. (Recorded at TED2026 on April 17, 2026) Join us in person at a TED conference: https://tedtalks.social/events Become a TED Member to support our mission: https://ted.com/membership Subscribe to a TED newsletter: https://ted.com/newsletters Follow TED! Instagram:   / ted   LinkedIn:   / ted-conferences   TikTok:   / tedtoks   Facebook:   / ted   X:   / te…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

  • The Mistakes Even Experts Miss | Bill Gurley

    June 09, 2026 · 📺 The Knowledge Project Podcast

    Bill Gurley spent years on Wall Street, built his career as a partner at Benchmark, worked through Uber’s hypergrowth era, and now serves on the board of the Santa Fe Institute, where he studies complexity and systems thinking. In this episode, Bill shares the mental models he returns to most, including systems thinking, second- and third-order effects, and the importance of understanding both the bedrock of your field and the bleeding edge. He explains what separates great founders, why storytelling and product instincts matter, how he uses AI across different models, and what he sees comin…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Bill Gurley: Become the Most AI-Enabled Version of Yourself

    May 31, 2026 · 📺 Tom Bilyeu Clips and Tom Bilyeu

    Welcome to Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu. In today's episode, Tom continues his deep-dive with venture capitalist Bill Gurley, this time turning the lens on AI economics, market bubbles, and the policy ideas that could rebalance America. Together they wrestle with whether AI is a real wave or a speculative trap, why OpenAI and Anthropic are pivoting to compete with their own customers, and how Carlotta Perez's framework explains why real waves always create bubbles. Gurley shares why he believes patents may be obsolete, why open source is the most underestimated force in technology, and how Ch…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

  • How the Telecommunications Act of 1996 Killed the American Dominance - Bill Gurley

    May 28, 2026 · 📺 Autonomy Institute

    The Feast on the Carcass: Wall Street Ate AT&T and Left America Behind For seventy years, AT&T was not merely a company—it ...

    Watch on YouTube ↗

  • America Is Building a Cage Around Its Own AI Industry - Bill Gurley

    May 25, 2026 · 📺 Tom Bilyeu Clips and Tom Bilyeu

    Welcome to Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu. In today's episode, Tom sits down with legendary venture capitalist Bill Gurley to dissect the most uncomfortable truths about the American innovation engine and the regulatory capture quietly choking it. Together they unpack why Silicon Valley has become more "rooted in Washington" than ever, why Anthropic's lobbying footprint rivals SBF's pre-collapse FTX, and what that pattern reveals about the AI industry's real motives. From stablecoins outperforming the traditional banking system, to Austin's housing breakthrough that no other city wants to repli…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

  • Bill Gurley & Malcolm Gladwell on Building a Career You Love

    May 15, 2026 · 📺 Bill Gurley

    In a world where we’ll spend nearly 80,000 hours at work, how do you choose a career you won’t regret? That question was at the center of a recent fireside chat hosted by the NYU Stern Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship featuring Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark, in conversation with bestselling author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell. Inspired by Gurley’s new book Runnin’ Down a Dream, the discussion explored why so many people end up dissatisfied with their careers, and what it actually takes to build one rooted in curiosity, purpose, and long-term fulfillment. The conversation ra…

    Read the verified transcript → Watch on YouTube ↗

Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“I can't tell you that I speak for science like Anthony Fauci did, but I can tell you I speak for scientific inquiry. There's no one that should be telling you you can't search. That makes no sense whatsoever. You're not a bad person if you search. You're a good person if you search. You have to move through and around the blockers. I don't think you want to attack the blockers. I think Rand Paul's making a mistake ma”

“For all the other catastrophes, I told you what root cause is. 6 years later, we don't know. So, forgive me if I'm unafraid of what some AI guy's chatbot is going to do to humanity when you can't tell me what this thing already did. My psecond co is way higher than my pdoom. And if their models are so smart, tell me what happened here. Let's get them working on this problem. I want to put this in perspective. I've ad”

“I have to tell you that that anthropic is a mystery to me. I've never ever seen a company that is both leading their field and the most negatively outspoken commenter on what they do. I I've just never seen it. And my initial theory was the regulatory capture theory that they just want to ensure there's regulation. And quite frankly, I think they're, you know, very close to achieving that. like they have stirred up, ”

“I very much agree with the Pope that the biggest risk of AI is a centralization of power and then its misuse against us in some Orwellian way. I think it's government that's going to do that. Not necessarily an individual actor because it's governments that ultimately have the power. So, I do worry about the potential for AI to be used to surveil us, censor us, control us as Orwell described in 1984. So, if that's wh”

“Two things come with taking lots of money you don't need. One, you're naturally going to take your burn rate up, which I think of as risk, and it becomes harder and harder to truly understand your unit economics the bigger that burn gets.”

“Right now, most venture capitalists are so focused on AI that they won't pay attention. So you really have this massive black-white have-have-not situation where the AI companies are raising money at crazy valuations and the non-AI companies can't raise money at any valuation.”

Other executives at Benchmark

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →