Bill Maris

Bill Maris is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist whose career spans technology, life sciences, and frontier innovation. Maris graduated with highest honors with a degree in neuroscience from Middlebury College and conducted research at Duke University Medical Center's Department of Neurobiology, focusing on the molecular and cellular biology of the brain. He began his career as a biotechnology and healthcare portfolio manager for Swedish investment firm Investor AB, establishing a foundation in both science and finance.

Maris is the founder and first CEO of Google Ventures (GV). He established Google Ventures as a platform for the company to invest in the start-up ecosystem. Maris built GV into a leading corporate venture fund and led all private investing for Alphabet. He oversaw the growth of the team from one to more than 70 professionals, across seven offices on two continents, and managed over 400 investments, including Nest, Uber, Flatiron Health, Impossible Foods, Editas, Grail, Orbital Insights, Cloudera, Slack, DocuSign, The Climate Corporation, and 23andMe. In addition to expanding GV to 300 investments and $2.4 billion under management, Maris developed it into a full-service firm within Alphabet, staffed with engineers, recruiters, and marketing experts.

Beyond venture investing, Maris contributed to several of Alphabet's major initiatives. Working closely with Google's founders, he helped incubate and launch projects such as Google X, Waymo, and Verily, while leading global investment activities for Alphabet. During his tenure at Google, Maris also founded Calico, a company focused on understanding the biology of aging and lifespan, co-founding it with former Genentech CEO Arthur D. Levinson. In Google's Founders Letter, Larry Page described Calico as a company focused on health, well-being, and longevity. Maris also collaborated with MacArthur Fellow David Green to transfer hydrophobic acrylic lens technology to Aurolab, which has contributed to preventing or curing cataract blindness in millions of underserved people worldwide.

Maris later founded S32, a California-based venture fund with approximately $2 billion under management. His investment track record includes companies such as Uber, Nest, Slack, CrowdStrike, Coinbase, and Flatiron Health, which have collectively grown to significant market value and generated substantial returns. Over his career, Maris has overseen more than 500 investments, over 30 IPOs, and more than 50 companies that have become category leaders. He has been recognized as a futurist and expert on the intersection of technology and business, and has been named one of the "Most Creative People in Business" by Fast Company magazine and included in the Vanity Fair New Establishment list.