Idealab’s Bill Gross is building infrastructure for AI-assisted startups

For decades, the entrepreneur and investor Bill Gross has been celebrated for shaping the way tech businesses get off the ground. Idealab, which he founded in 1996, is considered the industry’s longest-running tech incubator; the directory of companies it’s backed—including CitySearch, Coinbase, Picasa, and Twilio—doubles as a museum of ever-shifting trends in logo design. Over the years, he’s also founded businesses in fields ranging from internet advertising to clean energy. “My whole...