My guest today is Bill Gross, founder and CEO of ProRata.ai.

Bill also founded Idealab, incubating over 170 startups over 30 years. His keyword-auction technology powered Overture, which Yahoo bought for $1.63 billion. And Google paid Bill $360 million for the patents, which helped shape Google’s legendary ad business.

Now Bill wants AI to pay creators. His starting point: 1,650 publishers. And 65 million documents.

And he predicts that OpenAI, Anthropic et al will start sharing revenue with creators for their content within a year.

If you run a content company, we get specific. We explore how ProRata would split those payments. Think Spotify royalties, but for AI answers.

Bill ranks which AI companies will share answer revenue first—from OpenAI to Anthropic and beyond. And who’ll come “kicking and screaming” last.

Plus, I ask Bill which content businesses he’d build today. And which ones he’d avoid.

If you’re a startup founder, Bill grades ProRata against his five success factors—including the most important factor based on all the startups he’s experienced.

Bill also explains why Z.com failed even thouugh Steven Spielberg, Adam Sandler and Chris Rock were involved.

Plus, Bill is giving away 1.2 million business ideas—including one AI idea that blew him away.

Finally, we talk about our kids and AI. Bill shares advice he just gave to 400 Pasadena high school students.

My thanks to Josh Freeman—the consummate connector—and Peter Sloterdyk for bringing us together.

Now please enjoy my conversation with Bill Gross.

Thx!
Rob Kelly