Bret Taylor

Early life and education

Taylor was born in Oakland, California, in 1980, primarily growing up in the East Bay. He graduated from Acalanes High School in Lafayette, California, in 1998. He attended Stanford University, where he earned his bachelor's and master's degree in computer science in 2002 and 2003.

Career

In 2003, Taylor was hired by Google as an associate product manager. He led the team working on features such as Search by Location and Google Local, which were predecessors to Google Maps.

Taylor left Google in June 2007 to join venture capital firm Benchmark Capital as an entrepreneur-in-residence, where he and several other former Google employees founded the social network web site FriendFeed.{{cite web |access-date= 2009-09-19 |author-link= Jessica Lessin |access-date=2009-09-19

In 2012, Taylor left Facebook to found Quip, a competitor to Google Docs. Quip was acquired by Salesforce in 2016. That year, Twitter, Inc. announced Taylor's appointment to their board of directors. In 2021, he became chairman of Twitter. He remained in the position until the entire board of directors was dissolved following the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk in October 2022.

In 2017, Taylor was named chief product officer at Salesforce. He was named president and chief operating officer at Salesforce two years later. As COO, Taylor led Salesforce's acquisition of Slack Technologies, which closed in 2021. He also led the creation of a system dubbed Customer 360 at Salesforce and started an associate product manager program at the company. In November 2021, Taylor was named vice chair and co-CEO at Salesforce. On November 30, 2022, it was announced that Taylor would be stepping down as co-CEO and vice chair at Salesforce at the end of January 2023. In February 2023, he co-founded an enterprise-focused artificial intelligence (AI) startup, Sierra, along with former Google executive Clay Bavor.

In November 2023, Taylor replaced Greg Brockman as the chairman of OpenAI when Sam Altman was briefly ousted and reinstated as CEO of the company by its board. He has been on the board of Shopify since 2023.

Taylor acquired an approximately 1% non‑controlling minority ownership stake in the San Francisco 49ers in December 2025.

Personal life

Taylor married Karen Padham in 2006, whom he met while working at Google. The couple has three children. His father, mother, and older sister also attended Stanford.

References

References

1. (18 December 2021). "At Twitter and Salesforce, Bret Taylor Steps Into the Limelight". Wall Street Journal.
2. Thomas, Owen. (2020-12-20). "Salesforce's Marc Benioff is betting $28 billion on Bret Taylor. So who is he?".
3. Levy, Ari. (2018-09-22). "How Bret Taylor, a former Facebook and Google engineer, earned Marc Benioff's trust to become one of the most important execs at Salesforce".
4. (2016-01-22). "Take On Your Competition With These Lessons From Google Maps".
5. Gannes, Liz. (2015-02-08). "Ten Years of Google Maps, From Slashdot to Ground Truth".
6. (2021-12-18). "At Twitter and Salesforce, Bret Taylor Steps Into the Limelight". Wall Street Journal.
7. McCarthy, Caroline. (2010-06-02). "Facebook promotes Bret Taylor to CTO". [[CNET News]].
8. Stewart, Paayal Zaveri, Ashley. "Bret Taylor is officially Salesforce's co-CEO with Marc Benioff, ending over a year of speculation. Over a dozen insiders explain his meteoric rise to the top.".
9. (July 5, 2016). "Twitter adds Bret Taylor, former CTO at Facebook, to its board". MarketWatch.
10. Melillo, Gianna. (2022-10-28). "Here are the executives that have exited Twitter". [[The Hill (newspaper).
11. Conger, Kate. (October 28, 2022). "How Twitter Will Change as a Private Company". [[The New York Times]].
12. (13 December 2019). "Salesforce promotes Bret Taylor to president and COO".
13. "Bret Taylor Faces His Biggest Test at Salesforce".
14. (2021-03-09). "Exclusive: Salesforce's Taylor emerges as CEO candidate - sources". Reuters.
15. (2022-11-30). "Bret Taylor steps down as co-CEO of Salesforce, Marc Benioff stays on as CEO - sources". CNBC.
16. Duffy, Clare. (2022-11-30). "Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor steps down, leaving Marc Benioff alone at the top". CNN.
17. Bobrowsky, Meghan. (February 8, 2023). "Bret Taylor, Former Co-CEO of Salesforce, to Create AI Startup With Google Veteran". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
18. Roof, Katie. (January 26, 2024). "Ex-Salesforce Co-CEO to Win Funding for AI Startup at Near-$1 Billion Value, Sources Say". [[Bloomberg News]].
19. Hawkins, Eleanor. (2025-03-04). "Exclusive: Former Netflix CCO Rachel Whetstone joins Bret Taylor's AI startup".
20. Teo, Kai Xiang. "Larry Summers and Bret Taylor are joining OpenAI's board as Sam Altman returns".
21. "We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board of Bret Taylor (Chair), Larry Summers, and Adam D'Angelo. We are collaborating to figure out the details. Thank you so much for your patience through this".
22. Gehan, Ann. (May 26, 2023). "Shopify Nominates Bret Taylor For Board Seat".
23. (November 23, 2023). "Who are OpenAI's new board members as Sam Altman returns?". Reuters.
24. Fernandez, Gabe. (December 10, 2025). "OpenAI chairman acquires minority interest in 49ers".
25. Thomas, Owen. "5 more things you should know about Bret Taylor". San Francisco Chronicle.