Elad Gil is one of the most prolific independent investors in technology, backing pre-IPO companies including Airbnb, Stripe, Coinbase, Instacart, Pinterest, and Roblox. He holds a BA from Harvard and a PhD from MIT, joined Google as a product manager in 2004, then co-founded Mixer Labs - acquired by Twitter in 2009 - before serving as a Twitter VP. He later co-founded Color Genomics and authored the High Growth Handbook. He moved to full-time investing around 2012.