Bill Coughran

Bill Coughran is a Partner on the early-stage team at Sequoia Capital, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Before joining the venture firm in 2011, he served as Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google from 2003 to 2011. During his tenure, he oversaw core infrastructure development and successfully scaled the engineering organization to more than 10,000 employees. His earlier career includes serving as the chief executive officer and co-founder of Entrisphere, alongside holding senior research and leadership roles at Bell Labs. As an investor, Coughran has backed prominent enterprise software and data infrastructure startups, including leading early funding rounds for platforms like GitHub. Holding a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University, his current focus remains on guiding technical founders through building and scaling early-stage cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and distributed systems ventures.