Kyle Harrison
book

Above the Crowd — Bill Gurley (compiled by Kevin G.)

Bill Gurley; compiled by Kevin G. 2019 View original ↗

TL;DR — A 652-page compilation of Bill Gurley’s Above the Crowd posts from 1994 to 2019, with an introduction and a topic index by the compiler, “Kevin G.”

How much weight it carries: Primary material collected by a reader. These are Gurley’s own posts, first as a CS First Boston analyst and then as a venture capitalist; the selection, the introduction and the categories are the compiler’s (‘Kevin G.’, who publishes the series at 12mv2.com).

What is in it

  • Title page: “Above the Crowd: By Bill Gurley (Compilation, Introduction, and Categorization by Kevin G.)”, then a placeholder page headed “Quote From Bill (Hopefully)”.
  • About Bill Gurley (p. 3): his biography, from Compaq design engineer to top-ranked Wall Street analyst (lead analyst on the Amazon IPO) to Hummer Winblad and Benchmark.
  • “Welcome to Bill’s World!” (pp. 4–7): the compiler’s introduction. It frames Gurley as a value investor applied to technology, walks through Graham’s three principles, Buffett’s circle of competence, and the additions of Munger, Marks and Mauboussin, and describes how the posts move from company coverage (Intel, Microsoft, Apple) to macro trends, business models, current events and regulation. It points to “Keys to the 10X Revenue Club” and the digital-marketplaces post as the places where Gurley lays out his frameworks, and says the compiler is working on a “Blog Posts of Bill Gurley” in the style of The Essays of Warren Buffett and Poor Charlie’s Almanack.
  • “25th Anniversary Collection Selection” (p. 8): the compiler’s shortlist in chronological order, from the maiden 1994 issue through “Will You ‘Rent’ Software in the Future”, “The Most Powerful Internet Metric of All”, “How To Monetize a Social Network”, “Keys to the 10X Revenue Club”, “10 Factors to Consider for Digital Marketplaces”, the Uber pricing and market-size posts, “On the Road to Recap” and “How Internet Marketplaces Unlock Wealth”.
  • “Preliminary Categorizations” (pp. 9–14): every post sorted by category, then by year. The categories seen are Apple, Company Analysis, Current Events, Entrepreneurship, Frameworks, Google, Industry Analysis, Internet, Portfolio Companies, Product-Market Fit and Regulation; the introduction also names Venture Capital, Strategy, Business Models, IPOs, Valuation/Metrics, People, PC Industry, Uber and Microsoft/Intel.
  • Chronological contents (pp. 15–22): every post listed by year from 1994 to 2019. The 1990s are dense (the PC industry, the early commercial internet, modems, e-mail, MSN, usage-based pricing); 2005–2006 is mostly broadband policy and wifi; 2008 onward covers venture capital, marketplaces, the 10X Revenue Club, Uber, late-stage rounds, healthcare and Benchmark’s new partners. It closes with a “List of Books Mentioned” and “About Bill Gurley”.
  • The posts themselves (p. 23 onward), starting with the first issue of October 24, 1994 (“True Blue Love”, “PC Uncertainty”).

Only the front matter and the first few posts were read for this card, on 2026-10-12 (the file is view-only); the rest is described from the table of contents.

Where this came from

  • Compilations index at 12mv2.com — the compiler’s own public page, which lists this file as “Bill Gurley, Benchmark Capital” under Venture Investors and links to a view-only copy. Checked 2026-10-12.

Posts summarized in the wiki

  • Primum No Nocere — The Government Goes After Microsoft (Bill Gurley)
  • Nothing Lasts Forever — The Future of Intel and Microsoft (Bill Gurley)
  • Lowering the Barriers to Entry — Intel Makes It Easy to Be a PC Company (Bill Gurley)
  • Leveraging Your Strengths — Gateway 2000 and Packard Bell (Bill Gurley)
  • Remembering Moore’s Law — Big Brother ‘Saves’ the World from Microsoft (Bill Gurley)
  • Disclosure — There Are Costs Associated with Limited Information (Bill Gurley)
  • Strategic Envy — We Can’t All Be Intel and Microsoft (Bill Gurley)
  • New Kid on the Block — HP Decides to Be a Player in PCs (Bill Gurley)
  • Perception vs. Reality — The Increasing Complexity of Measuring PC Demand (Bill Gurley)
  • Does History Repeat Itself PCs by Phone, the All-in-One Machine, & Video Conferencing (Bill Gurley)
  • Behold the Sigmoid — The Importance of the S Curve in High Tech Product Adoption (Bill Gurley)

Connections