Lessons learned from Bill Gross
As the founder of Idealab, Bill Gross has advised and
helped fund more than 100 companies, been involved with 300 rounds of financing
of more than $3.5 billion and 35 successful IPOs/acquisitions – and that’s just
since 1996. However, it’s the 40 companies that failed that Bill has learned
the most from. From giving credit and sharing equity, to seeking out opposite
skills and recruiting A+ talent, Bill shares the patterns to success for
startups in this First Round CEO Summit talk. View Full Text at firstround.com
Bio
Bill Gross founded Idealab in March 1996 and serves as
the company's Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. Bill founded
Idealab to create and build successful businesses that capitalize on
innovations in areas with significant growth opportunities, including the
Internet. A lifelong entrepreneur, Bill started several companies prior to
Idealab. In high school, he founded Solar Devices, a firm that sold plans and
kits for solar energy products. In college at the California Institute of
Technology, he patented a new loudspeaker design and formed GNP Loudspeakers,
Inc. After graduating from college, Bill and his brother Larry started GNP
Development, Inc., which made a natural language product for Lotus 1-2-3 called
HAL. In 1985, Lotus Development Corporation acquired GNP and Bill became a
software entrepreneur at Lotus Development.
In 1991, Bill started Knowledge
Adventure, an educational software publisher that grew to be the third largest
educational software publisher in the world and was eventually sold to Cendant
Software and is now a division of Havas Interactive, which is owned by Vivendi.
Bill serves on the boards of directors of numerous companies. He is also a
member of the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology and
of the Art Center College of Design. Bill received his B.S. in Mechanical
Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.
