Bill Gross

CEO of Heliogen and Idealab

Bill Gross is the founder of more than 150 companies in the last 30 years with more than 50 successful IPOs and acquisitions, and 7 exits at over $1 billion each. He currently serves as the CEO of Heliogen, a renewable energy technology company he founded to replace fossil fuels with sunlight and decarbonize heavy industry. In July 2021, Heliogen announced its $2B SPAC combination with Athena. Bill also founded and serves as the chairman of Idealab, the longest-running technology startup incubator. He is considered the inventor of paid search and the cost-per-click business model. The company he founded, GoTo.com was acquired by Yahoo for $1.6 billion and later became the foundation of Google’s search advertising business. Bill has a mechanical engineering degree from the California Institute of Technology, and has served on the Caltech Board of Trustees for more than 20 years.