About Elad Gil
Elad Gil is an American technology entrepreneur, operating executive and investor, and the author of High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People. He writes a long-running blog about startups, company building and, more recently, artificial intelligence, and hosts the AI podcast No Priors.
Gil holds degrees in mathematics and biology, including a PhD from MIT. He spent years at Google, where, by his own account, he ran AI-focused product organizations. He co-founded Mixer Labs, where he was CEO, and became a vice president at Twitter after Twitter acquired it. He also co-founded Color Genomics, now Color Health, and has been involved with the longevity biotech companies BioAge and NewLimit.
As an investor and adviser, Gil has backed many companies at early and late stages. His site lists past investments including Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe, Instacart, Pinterest, Figma and Notion, and AI companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Perplexity and Harvey. He runs Gil&Co, which he describes as a multi-stage investment firm.
High Growth Handbook was published by Stripe Press in 2018. It grew out of his blog writing and is aimed at companies that have already found product-market fit and now face the problems of rapid growth: the CEO's changing role, managing a board, hiring executives, late-stage fundraising, mergers and acquisitions, and going public. It includes interviews with founders and investors such as Reid Hoffman, Marc Andreessen and Sam Altman. His blog, now on Substack as Elad Blog, ranges from career advice in "Career Decisions" to market analysis such as "Things I Don't Know About AI" and "Defensibility & Competition."
What Elad Gil is known for
- High Growth Handbook (Stripe Press)
- Early investments in companies such as Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe and leading AI labs
- Co-founding Mixer Labs and Color Genomics
- Elad Blog on startups and AI
- Hosting the No Priors podcast
Works by Elad Gil
1 essay to practice
More notable works
A tactical playbook for post-product-market-fit companies, with interviews with leading founders and investors.
A list of open questions about AI models, infrastructure and applications, written to admit uncertainty.
Career Decisions (opens in a new tab)
Essay · 2015
Argues that early in a career, network, market growth, optionality and brand matter more than the exact role or salary.
Defensibility & Competition (opens in a new tab)
Essay · 2023
Argues that most early SaaS and AI startups are easy to copy and must build moats over years, so speed and customer focus matter most at first.
AI Market Clarity (opens in a new tab)
Essay · 2025
Surveys which AI markets had settled on likely leaders and which remained open, and how agents change software pricing.
His long-running blog on startups, scaling and technology, now published on Substack.
Elad Gil’s writing style
Gil's writing combines operational experience with strategic insight. He excels at breaking down complex business challenges into actionable frameworks. His style is direct and focused on practical implementation.
- Organized as questions and lists
- Posts like "Things I Don't Know About AI" are built from headed sections, bolded open questions and nested bullet points that can be scanned quickly.
- Calibrated hedging
- He qualifies predictions with words like "seems," "likely" and "may," and openly says what he does not understand, as in "The more time passes, the less I think I actually understand."
- Tactical over theoretical
- High Growth Handbook focuses on concrete problems such as hiring executives, running a board and late-stage fundraising, with specific steps rather than abstract principles.
- Short, blunt closers
- Long analytical passages full of asides often end with a brief line that states the takeaway.
- Conversational and curious
- He uses casual asides and invites readers to respond, which makes posts read like notes from an operator thinking aloud.
How to write like Elad Gil
Write from operating experience and keep it usable. Choose a problem founders actually face, such as hiring a first executive or deciding whether a market is defensible, and break it into a list of sub-questions. Answer each one with specific advice, examples and trade-offs, and let headings and bullet points carry the structure so a busy reader can skim to the part they need.
Be precise about uncertainty. Gil's posts are useful partly because he separates what he believes from what he is unsure of, so mark your confidence level as you go and list your open questions alongside your conclusions. End sections with a one-line takeaway, keep the tone conversational, and invite readers to tell you what you have missed.
The quickest way to absorb these habits is to retype one of Elad Gil’s essays above, word for word, then write a paragraph of your own in the same voice. New to this? Read what copywork is and how to do it.
Frequently asked questions about Elad Gil
- Who is Elad Gil?
- Elad Gil is a technology entrepreneur and investor. He holds a PhD from MIT, worked on products at Google, co-founded Mixer Labs (acquired by Twitter) and became a vice president at Twitter, then co-founded Color Genomics. He has invested in companies including Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe and major AI labs, runs the firm Gil&Co, hosts the No Priors podcast and wrote High Growth Handbook.
- What is the High Growth Handbook?
- High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People is Gil's 2018 book from Stripe Press. It gives tactical advice to companies that have found product-market fit, covering the CEO's role, boards, executive hiring, late-stage fundraising, M&A and IPOs. It draws on his blog and includes interviews with figures such as Reid Hoffman, Marc Andreessen and Sam Altman. A version is free on his site.
- Where does Elad Gil write?
- Gil writes Elad Blog, which is published on Substack at blog.eladgil.com. Well-known posts include "Things I Don't Know About AI," "Career Decisions" and "Defensibility & Competition." He also posts on X as @eladgil and discusses AI on his podcast, No Priors.
- What is Elad Gil's writing style?
- Gil writes practical, list-driven posts for founders and investors. He organizes ideas as headed sections, bolded questions and bullets, mixes long analytical sentences with short blunt conclusions, and hedges carefully, often admitting what he does not know. The tone is curious and conversational, like an experienced operator thinking aloud rather than lecturing.