Bill Maris
Bill Maris
Bill Maris is a venture capitalist and the CEO at GV, a venture capital firm established by Maris and funded through Alphabet. With approximately $2.4 billion under management and investments in Uber and Nest, the six-year-old fund is described as one of the hottest in Silicon Valley. Maris oversees all of GV’s funding activity and has a particular interest in next generation life sciences and artificial intelligence. He was instrumental in the formation of Google’s Calico project...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryUnited States of America
To create exponential growth in health care, we need to put tremendous resources and focus behind the best human minds working in this field.
You make a great investment in the consumer Internet, maybe you make a lot of money and create something useful, interesting, or fun. But in life sciences, you have a chance to be part of something that lets people live longer and healthier and not lose the people they care about. That is really profound.
I'm interested in the ideas that sound a little crazy, such as radical life extension, curing cancer, being able to create a simulation of the human brain and map every neuron.
There are a number of start-ups in Europe that are able to reach beyond their own country. Take Spotify - Spotify just in Sweden isn't that interesting compared to Spotify all over the world.
With a regular venture fund, you raise, let's say, a billion dollars, and then over the next three or four years, you've got to invest that money; otherwise, the people who invested with you will say, 'What are you doing? You're just collecting fees on our money.'
We're looking for people who are working on things that seem out of reach, uncomfortably difficult.
We make a series of investments, some will pan out and some won't.
VC firms are... responsible for the full life cycle of a company: they find it, help it grow, open up a Rolodex, and sell it.
Time is the one thing I can't get back and can't give back to you.
The reality is regulation often lags behind innovation.
The reality is if you were going to die tomorrow, and someone offered you another 10 years, most people would take those 10 years.
Silicon Valley has been a technology capital like New York is a financial capital.
Organizing healthcare information is a daunting task, but it is not an impossible task. We've had people walk on the moon. This is a lot more doable.
If I'm an entrepreneur, and I have a term sheet from Sequoia and Kleiner, that's the safe choice. Google Ventures is the brave choice.