The Minutes of Bill Gurley on private markets https://minutesof.com/bill-gurley/on/private-markets/ Everything Bill Gurley has said on private markets: 11 verbatim quotes between October 2010 and July 2026, each with a timestamp and a link to the… en Sun, 30 Aug 2026 16:21:59 +0000 Gurley explains private cap tables are structured to only go up, unlike public stocks. https://minutesof.com/q/0a06511c-242c-42de-b348-ed2d247f9a88/ https://minutesof.com/q/0a06511c-242c-42de-b348-ed2d247f9a88/ “private one last thing. Yeah. Sorry. Private cap tables are not structured very well to go down.” — Forbes Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:00:14 +0000 private markets Gurley states there are approximately a thousand private companies valued over a billion dollars pre-LLM. https://minutesof.com/q/7c0a8737-7bf4-4c82-aa47-ba37240db72e/ https://minutesof.com/q/7c0a8737-7bf4-4c82-aa47-ba37240db72e/ “There's somewhere around a thousand. So these are a thousand private companies that have raised money over a billion dollars.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 10 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000 private markets Gurley identifies approximately 1,000 private companies valued over $1 billion pre-LLM era. https://minutesof.com/q/e1996f61-7794-4698-9ecb-e5cc2c369d40/ https://minutesof.com/q/e1996f61-7794-4698-9ecb-e5cc2c369d40/ “So these are a thousand private companies that have raised money over a billion dollars. And Chad GBD told me it was $12.50. NBCA says 900. Let's just say it's near a thousand.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 10 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000 private markets Gurley estimates zombie unicorns have collectively raised $300 billion in capital. https://minutesof.com/q/03d9400e-4b6c-4621-8ae6-5af743b2d3fa/ https://minutesof.com/q/03d9400e-4b6c-4621-8ae6-5af743b2d3fa/ “Yeah. Seems like they've raised somewhere between 2 and 300,000,000 each. And so you roll all that up, it's 300,000,000,000.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 10 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000 private markets Gurley states over a thousand private unicorns have average growth rates below 10 percent. https://minutesof.com/q/399cf522-fca6-4b43-85de-6ce4999e68f9/ https://minutesof.com/q/399cf522-fca6-4b43-85de-6ce4999e68f9/ “There's over a thousand private unicorns. Some people estimate that the average growth rate, which we should talk about because it ties into unit economics and pragmatism, is below 10%.” — McCombs School of Business Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:57:51 +0000 private markets Gurley says private companies with weak metrics aren't better off than public ones; staying private is self-de https://minutesof.com/q/9a1f0cc4-ed1c-4f16-b81d-d9460343414c/ https://minutesof.com/q/9a1f0cc4-ed1c-4f16-b81d-d9460343414c/ “If you're private at a 100,000,000 revenue with a 10% growth rate, it's not like you're better off. Like like, you're just fooling yourself.” — Bg2 Pod Mon, 06 Jan 2025 21:47:42 +0000 private markets Gurley argues it is easier to survive downturns as a public company than as a late-stage private company. https://minutesof.com/q/7560c377-c112-4f22-983f-c9ccc8fc3d73/ https://minutesof.com/q/7560c377-c112-4f22-983f-c9ccc8fc3d73/ “And so oddly, it's easier as a public company than a late stage private company to go through these types of periods.” — Invest Like the Best Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:30:00 +0000 private markets Gurley argues staying private forever is unhealthy and going public is advantageous for companies. https://minutesof.com/q/816a792e-58cd-478b-9851-1f34ea3f4309/ https://minutesof.com/q/816a792e-58cd-478b-9851-1f34ea3f4309/ “But I don't think it's healthy for companies to stay private forever. I think it's super advantageous to companies to pass through and become public.” — Bloomberg Tech Wed, 02 Oct 2019 18:47:29 +0000 private markets Gurley criticizes SoftBank's strategy of deploying hundreds of millions, which forces companies into massive l https://minutesof.com/q/09a728b9-c504-4c7f-b274-57c792a13177/ https://minutesof.com/q/09a728b9-c504-4c7f-b274-57c792a13177/ “I've I've been quoted publicly, like, they've, you know, played a strategy where you hand hundreds of millions of dollars to a company and say, here, go win in the market with this.” — Bloomberg Tech Wed, 02 Oct 2019 18:47:29 +0000 private markets Gurley claims late-stage private market investments have less information than pink sheet stocks and may be hi https://minutesof.com/q/b8da8232-6ed3-4096-995a-a207b098d14c/ https://minutesof.com/q/b8da8232-6ed3-4096-995a-a207b098d14c/ “I mean, you you could have more financial information on a thinly traded pink sheet Canadian public company than you have.” — Bloomberg Originals Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:15:50 +0000 private markets Gurley argues late-stage private investments may be the least informed in history and shouldn't be equated to https://minutesof.com/q/618aafb5-890f-4d28-83f1-d1c2c9249819/ https://minutesof.com/q/618aafb5-890f-4d28-83f1-d1c2c9249819/ “These these might be these might be the least informed investment actions in in our history. And so I don't know that you can pay too much attention to the price because they're very uninformed.” — Bloomberg Originals Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:15:50 +0000 private markets