Bill Maris

Bill Maris founded Google Ventures in 2009, which later became GV (now part of Alphabet). Under his leadership, GV grew to become the most active corporate venture capital fund in the United States by number of investments. GV invested in Uber (one of its most successful investments), Nest (later acquired by Google), Flatiron Health, Foundation Medicine, and hundreds of other companies. Maris had a particular passion for life sciences and longevity research, which he channeled through Calico (a Google moonshot on aging). He popularized the "Design Sprint" methodology — a structured five-day process for validating product ideas — through GV's portfolio operations team. He left GV in 2016 to found Section 32, his own fund, continuing to focus on transformative healthcare and technology companies.