Elad Gil

Elad Gil is a Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur, technology advisor, and author. He is best known for his roles as the former Vice President of Strategy at Twitter and adviser to some of the biggest companies in the world, including Google, Airbnb, Stripe, and Theranos. He is also the author of two books: High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People and Moon shot: The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon.

Elad Gil was born in Michigan and spent his formative years in Houston, Texas, before attending Stanford University. After graduation, he went to work for Google, where he worked on the enterprise search team, later called “Google Search”, before becoming a Product Manager. During his time at Google, Elad was credited with launching Google Maps and Google News, and he eventually became the Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at the company.

In August 2008, Elad left Google to become the Vice President of Strategy at Twitter. During his time at Twitter, he was responsible for developing the company’s product strategy, leading its corporate and business development initiatives, and managing deals with partners. During his four-year tenure, he was able to help Twitter grow from one million to over one hundred million users.

After leaving Twitter in 2011, Elad has become a sought-after technology adviser and investor in Silicon Valley. He is currently an advisor to companies including Stripe, Airbnb, Theranos, CircleCI, and Instacart, among others. In addition, he has advised and invested in dozens of early-stage companies, including Lyft, UpCounsel, Wikia, and PagerDuty.

In 2017, Elad published his book High-Growth Handbook: Scaling Startups from 10 to 10,000 People, which provides strategies, tactics and tools that entrepreneurs and leaders can use to build and grow their companies in a scalable way. The book covers topics such as customer acquisition, sales, product development, hiring and much more. The book was praised by investors Paul Graham and Marc Andreessen, and has become a staple in any early-stage startup’s bookshelf.

In 2019, Elad followed up High-Growth Handbook with Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon. This book tells the incredible story of the space race, from the United States’ earliest efforts to gain relevance in forays into near-earth space, all the way to the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. The book shines a light on the tension between President Kennedy and the USSR’s competing visions of space exploration and provides a fascinating, often forgotten, account of the Space Race.

Elad Gil is a prominent figure in the tech and entrepreneurial world, and an inspiring author. His books are must-reads for entrepreneurs, business leaders and anyone interested in building and scaling successful companies. No matter what stage of business development you’re at, High-Growth Handbook and Moon Shot are invaluable reads that offer valuable advice for entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses.