Gil Elbaz

Gil joined Foursquare as Co-Executive Chairman following the company's merger with Factual. As Founder and CEO, Gil drove Factual to fulfill its mission of making high-quality data accessible, and it became a leader in location-based marketing. At Foursquare, he brings his lifelong passion for data, and is thrilled to work with a talented exec team developing the independent location technology company that will power the next wave of digital innovation.

Prior to founding Factual, Gil co-founded Applied Semantics which pioneered the use of natural language technologies and invented contextual advertising through the development and launch of AdSense. In 2003, Google acquired Applied Semantics and Gil stayed on through 2007 as the Director of Engineering for the Santa Monica office.

Gil serves as a Director for the X Prize Foundation, Founder and Chairman of the Common Crawl Foundation, and a partner at TenOneTen Ventures. Gil earned his bachelor's degree from Caltech with a double major in Engineering and Applied Science, and Economics. He lives in Los Angeles with his family and loves all things basketball, but especially playing with his children.