Bret Taylor’s Journey Leading Salesforce, Sierra & OpenAI

Over the past two decades, Bret Taylor has quietly helped shape the arc of Silicon Valley. From co-creating Google Maps to steering Facebook, Salesforce, and OpenAI, he’s been behind some of the most consequential products in tech. Now, with his new company Sierra, he’s starting from zero—again. In this conversation, Bret opens up about how founders navigate identity, why the best ideas often come from everyday friction, and how staying relentlessly focused can unlock real momentum in AI. Guest: Bret Taylor, Co-Founder of Sierra Chapters: 00:00 Trailer 00:49 Introduction 01:57 Saving OpenAI 09:15 Overwhelming yet capable of a lot 13:36 Father and founder 16:49 History is written by the victors 22:13 How you price matters 35:58 Stickiest piece of software 49:48 The first realtime social network 55:34 Facebook CTO who rewrote Google Maps 1:02:10 Least known, most impressive 1:11:39 The best way to predict the future 1:16:22 Most personally passionate 1:21:22 Currency of reputation 1:27:17 Away from work 1:28:35 Who Sierra is hiring 1:28:58 What “grit” means to Bret 1:29:18 Outro Mentioned in this episode: Google Maps, Salesforce, OpenAI ChatGPT, Meta Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Google, Marissa Mayer, Excite, MSN, AltaVista, Amazon, Harvey, Airbnb, Coinbase, Apple, John Doerr, Cursor, Codeium Windsurf, Perplexity, xAI, Kleenex, Amazon Web Services (AWS), FriendFeed, Tumblr, Kevin Gibbs, Google Maps, Yelp, Trulia, iOS App Store, Blackberry, Facebook Messenger, Marvel Avengers, Slack, Quip, Leonardo da Vinci, Clay Bavor, Microsoft, Eric Schmidt, Alan Kay, Brian Armstrong, Brian Chesky, Shopify, SiriusXM, Patrick Collison Links: Connect with Bret TaylorXLinkedIn Connect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins