John William Gurley (born May 10, 1966) is an American businessman. He is a general partner at Benchmark, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm in San Francisco, California. He is listed consistently on the Forbes Midas List[1][2] and is considered one of the top dealmakers in the American technology industry.[3][4]
Prior to his investment career, Gurley was a design engineer at Compaq Computer, where he worked on products such as the 486/50 and Compaq's first multi-processor server. Before Compaq, he worked in the technical marketing group of AMD's embedded processor division.[7]
Gurley was a partner at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He had also spent four years on Wall Street as a research analyst, including three years at CS First Boston. He was considered “one of Wall Street’s premier technology analysts."[8] He covered companies including Dell, Compaq and Microsoft and was the lead analyst on the Amazon.com IPO.[9]
With the economic collapse in the fall of 2008, Gurley garnered attention[17] when he sent a letter[18] to his portfolio companies, advising CEOs to exercise caution in spending but to look for and take advantage of opportunities[19] that become available during harsh economic times. In a 2015 interview Gurley said of private tech investing, "It’s my belief that Silicon Valley and the venture-backed businesses have moved into a world that is both speculative and unsustainable."[20] Gurley’s warnings, and posts on his personal blog,[21] Above the Crowd, on venture capital spending, have been widely discussed in the industry.[22][23] He also advises family offices to be careful before investing in unicorn companies.[24]
In March 2016, Gurley was named VC of the Year at TechCrunch’s annual Crunchies awards.[25]
Gurley left Uber's board of directors in June 2017. The announcement was released one day after the company announced the resignation of CEO Travis Kalanick following months of controversy over Uber's corporate culture.[26][27][28] An advisor for Uber during allegations of misconduct and sexual harassment, Gurley was reportedly instrumental in the resignation of CEO Travis Kalanick.
Gurley reportedly had a close relationship with CEO Travis Kalanick. He was Uber’s most engaged board member and the closest thing Mr. Kalanick had to a consigliere.[29] Gurley shared his support for Kalanick on Twitter, stating "There will be many pages in the history books devoted to @travisk - very few entrepreneurs have had such a lasting impact on the world."[30]
In April 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that Gurley would be stepping back from Benchmark as he was not investing in a new fund that his venture capital firm was raising.[31][32]
Gurley is known for his above-average height; he is 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m).[34] The title of his blog, Above the Crowd, and the book eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists that profiles the Benchmark team, both reference his height; the subtitle of eBoys is “The true story of the six tall men who backed eBay, Webvan, and other billion-dollar start-ups."[35]
Gurley is married with three children and currently lives in Austin, Texas.[36]
