Bill Coughran

My original plan was to be an academic. After I got my PhD in computer science, I went to Bell Labs. At the time, Bell Labs was quite academic. Some of the work I was involved with—core modeling and computer systems work—shaped my thinking about how to build large-scale systems and designs for many years, and it’s something that served me well at Google. Because there I had the opportunity to work with some of the most sophisticated systems at that time.

After my time at Bell Labs, I co-founded Entrisphere in late 2000. That company was acquired by Ericsson after I left. I joined Google in 2003. The toughest challenge at Google was managing such a wide variety of special technologists, and then a broad scope of research and development groups. What I bring, maybe, is intellectual breadth and pragmatic organizational psychology, coupled with a lot of operational experience. I’ve certainly overseen a wide range of technologies, from semiconductors up to large distributed systems, search, security, and other web and mobile services.

The companies that interest me the most are companies creating solutions to technical problems that can change markets. I’ve always been drawn to creative problems and people with a technical point of view—networking, security, machine learning, and AI, to name a few.

But over the years, I found I truly enjoy day-to-day leadership and mentoring most of all. I’d describe myself as a technologist with general-management experience.