# Kevin Gibbs

> Kevin Gibbs is co-founder and CEO of Terraton, a San Francisco climate-tech startup building a 'business-in-a-box' franchise model for biochar carbon removal. Before climate, he built two pieces of internet plumbing most people use without knowing his name: Google Suggest (search autocomplete) and Google App Engine. He went on to co-found Quip with Bret Taylor, sold it to Salesforce in 2016 for roughly $750M, and ran it to north of $100M ARR. Terraton raised an $11.5M seed in August 2025 led by Lowercarbon and Gigascale.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Terraton
- **Organizations:** Terraton, Quip, Salesforce, Google, IBM, Stanford University
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS, Computer Science (with Distinction), Stanford University, MS, Computer Science (with Distinction), Stanford University
- **Known for:** Created Google Suggest / search autocomplete, Launched Google App Engine, Google's first cloud computing platform, Co-founded Quip; sold to Salesforce in 2016 for approximately $750M

## Career timeline

- **pre-2004** — Worked at IBM, then joined Google shortly before its IPO
- **2004** — Built Google Suggest (search autocomplete) on commute shuttle, launched in Google Labs
- **2008** — Google Suggest becomes default across Google's properties
- **2008** — Launched Google App Engine, Google's first cloud computing platform
- **2012** — Left Google to co-found Quip with Bret Taylor
- **2016** — Salesforce acquires Quip for ~$750M; Gibbs becomes CEO of the Quip unit
- **2024** — Co-founds Terraton with Greg D'Alesandre
- **2025-08** — Terraton announces $11.5M seed led by Lowercarbon Capital and Gigascale Capital

## Achievements

- Created Google Suggest / search autocomplete
- Launched Google App Engine, Google's first cloud computing platform
- Co-founded Quip; sold to Salesforce in 2016 for approximately $750M
- Grew Quip past $100M ARR inside Salesforce
- Raised $11.5M seed for Terraton with backers including Lowercarbon Capital, Gigascale Capital, ANA Future Frontier Fund, JR East's Takanawa Gateway fund, Jeff Dean, and Bret Taylor

## Latest updates

- **2025-08** — Terraton emerges from stealth with $11.5M seed and two African projects (Ghana cocoa waste, Kenya nut residue) expected to remove ~20,000 metric tons of CO2 per year.

## Links

- Website: http://www.kevgibbs.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevgibbs
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/kevgibbs

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/kevin-gibbs
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-30