GV estimated returns: ~4.1x
Bill Maris estimated Google Ventures' returns at approximately 4.1x using publicly available data over the 2009–2018 period.
Snapshot · All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Bill Maris: How Google Could Crush AI Competitors, Why Small Funds Win, and AI's Atari Stage
Explore episode
Jun 9, 2026
Where this was said
Why small VC funds beat big ones on average
At 11:20 · chapter starts 9:51
In 2007, Google handed Maris a challenge: build a coherent venture fund from scratch. He partnered with Rich Miner, co-founder of Android, trekked up and down Sand Hill Road, and devised a plan to collect every piece of historical venture data they could find. Then they applied machine learning — Google wouldn't allow the word 'AI,' insisting it was '100 years away' and would 'freak people out' — to design the ideal portfolio construction through millions of simulations. [1] — Bill Maris "When tasked with creating Google Ventures in 2007, Maris gathered every piece of venture data he could find and ran millions of portfolio s…" 09:30 Executives thought the plan was crazy. But between 2009 and 2018, Google Ventures is estimated to have returned approximately 4.1x, with the investments Maris personally led performing even better. His third lesson distils into one rule: don't bet against computer science applied to the right problem at the right time.
Climate Corp: $1B exit to Monsanto
Google Ventures' investment in Climate Corp — David Friedberg's company — resulted in a $1 billion exit to Monsanto.
Similar snapshots
$14K/month in 6 months
Sam built Algrow from zero to $14,000 in monthly revenue within just six months of shipping his first MVP.
10,000 users in 6 months
Algrow reached over 10,000 users in roughly six months, driven almost entirely by organic Discord community growth.
First 400 users from Discord
Sam acquired his first 400 users entirely through Discord communities, without paid advertising or traditional outreach.
480 new customers in one month
Algrow added exactly 480 new paying customers in its most recent month, demonstrating strong ongoing growth.
£10K revenue in last 4 weeks
Sam's Stripe dashboard showed over £10,000 in revenue in the last four weeks, equivalent to roughly $13,000–$14,000 USD.
Free access for early users as growth hack
Sam gave all early users free access so they could show the tool to friends, turning them into live demos and advocates who helped the product spread virally.
No self-promo rule exploit: screen sharing
By silently screen-sharing his tool in Discord voice chats rather than posting links, Sam attracted curiosity without violating no-self-promo server rules.
$10K+ from affiliate marketing first
Before building Algrow, Sam and two friends made over $10,000 in revenue through affiliate marketing for RizzApp by posting faceless texting story content.
$13K MRR with $0 marketing spend
Bhanu grew SiteGPT to $13,000 monthly recurring revenue entirely through organic channels, spending nothing on paid marketing.
