A little about me
Bill Gross – Founding Investor
My name is Bill Gross, and I’m a founding investor in UpdateAI. While I was born in Tokyo (my father was a dentist in the U.S. military there) I grew up in Fort Lee, New Jersey and the San Fernando Valley in California. I went to college in Pasadena, CA, and have been there ever since, starting businesses both in college and after graduating from Caltech.
My first business was making “Solar Devices” and selling kits and plans in the back of Popular Science Magazine when I was 15 – and that endeavor ultimately helped me pay my way through college.
And then while at Caltech and after graduating, I designed and manufactured high-performance loudspeakers, which the school helped me get my first patent on.
I branded the speakers GNP for “Gross National Products” as a way to both play off of my name and also use a popular acronym.
At that point it was official – I was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, thanks to these two experiences. Since then, I’ve started more than 150 companies in many different areas. In particular, I love the way entrepreneurship can “unlock human potential” with the right structure and ideas, and I love to do that repeatedly.
Over the last 25+ years, I have written down more than 5,000 ideas (admittedly, they’re not all great) and picked the best 150 to turn into companies. We’ve had 90 successes and 60 failures – but of the 90 successes, more than 50 of those companies have successfully gone public and/or been acquired.
I founded Idealab in 1996 to systemize the process of looking for big problems in the world, brainstorming technological solutions to them, and forming companies to take them to market.
What I do at UpdateAI
I love providing advice to Josh and the team from my many lessons learned over the years of starting, running, and growing successful companies – and I especially enjoy talking to the team about the lessons I’ve learned from projects that did not work out. That’s because – even though those examples can be painful to rehash sometimes – I feel they are the most valuable because they help entrepreneurs and businesses grow.
Why I'm so excited about UpdateAI
I am always brainstorming new ideas with great people, and that’s what happened when I met fellow great entrepreneur Josh Schachter. We batted around many ideas together until we saw the power of applying AI to business in a novel way, and that led to the formation of UpdateAI.
Which core company value I align with the most
I strongly associate with all 5 of the bold stated values of the company. But if I have to narrow it down, the two that resonate with me the most are probably “Learn” and “Customer Obsession.” I love the idea of a company succeeding by learning more about its customers’ needs and challenges. That focus, coupled with diverse thinking and trust in your team, makes for a winning combination of joy, effectiveness and success. Luckily, I believe we have that combination in place here at UpdateAI.