Forbes
“Well, biggest mistake I made in my career is when I was three years into the venture capital business, I met Larry and Sergey at their office with 25 employees.”
Gurley reveals he met Larry and Sergey when Google had 25 employees but Benchmark failed to invest.
“I met Larry and Sergey at their office with 25 employees. They pitched Benchmark, and we failed to invest”
Gurley says he brought Larry and Sergei to his partnership but failed to chase the Google investment.
“I met Larry and Sergei, was very early in my career, I brought them into the partnership and they presented and we failed to lay chase.”
Afford Anything Podcast
“They had 25 employees at the time, to tell you how early it was. And they presented and we failed to chase that.”
Gurley clarifies Google presented to Benchmark at 25 employees shortly after he joined the firm.
“I had Larry and Sergei present to the Benchmark partnership shortly after I joined Benchmark with the company had 25 employees, Google.”
Gurley brought Larry and Sergey to Benchmark at 25 employees but the firm failed to invest in Google.
“I had the, both the fortune and now the, the kind of weight of having brought Larry and Sergey in to present to our partnership when they were 25 employees.”
Gurley says his biggest career mistake was not pursuing Google when Larry and Sergei presented at 25 employees.
“The there's a there's a notion in venture capital about asymmetric risks. So if you if you you know, the biggest mistake of my career is I had Larry and Sergei present to the partnership when there were 25 employees at Google and we failed to chase the deal.”
Gurley says missing Google at 25 employees was his biggest career mistake, not failed investments.
“I had Larry and Sergei present to the partnership when there were 25 employees at Google and we failed to chase the deal.”
Gurley explains missing Google despite negative signs including Yahoo's collapse and Larry and Sergey both wanting to be CEO.
“These were other search companies, right, at the time. Right. Larry and Sergey both wanted to be CEO and they were PhD students at Stanford.”
Gurley explains Google's revenue per visit will fall with completed transactions because advertisers pay less for white-label rails.
“Because someone is spending marketing dollars to take that customer to their website and run the transaction with the hopes that they'll come directly back to that website.”
Gurley argues Google lacks the internal culture to partner in win-win ways due to their cage-match business model.
“In addition to everything I brought up, because their core business model is to throw their customers in a cage match, they don't they don't have the culture internally to partner in a friendly win win way.”
Gurley argues OpenAI wouldn't exist if Google's attention mechanism paper had been patented instead of open-sourced.
“This concept was done inside of Google as an open source concept, immediately copied by all the other players. So OpenAI doesn't exist today if that's patented and controlled.”
Gurley notes the two best VCs at the time, Doerr and Moritz, invested in Google when he passed.
“I'd like to highlight, and I always do, the two best venture capitalists in the world at the time, John Doerr and Mike Maritz, kinda locked hands and said yes.”
Gurley traces Silicon Valley's criticism of IPO unfairness through eBay, Hambrick and Quist, and Google's Dutch auction.
“Pierro Midiard had at eBay calling it undemocratic. You know, Hambrick and Quist, Bill Hambrick, twenty years ago called the IPO an insider's game.”