Executive Spotlight: Bret Taylor, Co-Founder and CEO of Sierra (2027)
Bret Taylor is the co-founder and CEO of Sierra, an AI company that builds customer-facing agents for large businesses, and he is also chairman of the board at OpenAI. A Sierra podcast page dated November 13, 2025 lists him as "Co-Founder & CEO of Sierra, and Chairman of the Board at OpenAI." Sierra's own About page, which gives a shorter description, says he serves on the board of OpenAI.
He matters because of the unusual range of his record: he co-created Google Maps, was CTO of Facebook, founded Quip, and became co-CEO of Salesforce before starting Sierra with Clay Bavor. In a blog post dated October 30, 2026, he and Bavor reported that Sierra had reached $400M+ in annual recurring revenue.
This page uses public professional information only.
Current role and company
Taylor co-founded Sierra with Clay Bavor, whom he first met while they worked together at Google. Sierra describes its mission as helping businesses build better, more human customer experiences with AI. Alongside Sierra, he holds the OpenAI chair. In a February 2024 Fortune interview he described that job as "really not around day-to-day operations but governance," and said he would step back from decisions whenever the two companies could overlap.
- Title (Sierra podcast page, Nov 13, 2025)Co-Founder & CEO of Sierra.
- OpenAI role (same page)Chairman of the Board.
- Co-founder (Sierra About page)Clay Bavor.
- Sierra offices (About page)San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, London, Singapore, Tokyo, Paris, Madrid and Toronto.
Career path
- Google. Sierra's About page says he started his career at Google, where he co-created Google Maps.
- FriendFeed and Facebook. Per a conference speaker page, he later became Chief Technology Officer at Facebook after it acquired his social networking startup, FriendFeed.
- Quip. He founded the collaborative productivity company Quip, which Salesforce acquired in 2016, according to the same speaker page.
- Salesforce. After the acquisition he rose to co-CEO of Salesforce. Sierra's About page calls this his most recent role before Sierra.
- Sierra and OpenAI. He co-founded Sierra, and per news and speaker pages he chairs OpenAI's board.
What he is known for
- Google Maps. Sierra describes him as a co-creator of the product.
- A run through big platforms. Facebook CTO, Quip founder and Salesforce co-CEO are all listed on Sierra's About page.
- Enterprise AI agents. Sierra builds agents that talk directly with a company's customers. Its February 2026 post names customers including ADT, Cigna, DIRECTV, Gap, Rivian and Sutter Health.
- Fast growth at Sierra. The company says it went from $100M to $200M ARR in six months and from $200M to $400M in five.
Leadership style and philosophy
These points come from Taylor's own posts and interviews.
- Pay for outcomes. In the October 2026 post he and Bavor wrote that customers pay for outcomes, not tokens used, such as a loan refinanced or an insurance claim paid.
- Start from a job to be done. In the February 2026 post they contrasted "AI tourism," which starts with the technology, with teams that start from a clear business process where success can be measured.
- Governance at OpenAI. He told Fortune in February 2024 that his OpenAI job is governance rather than day-to-day operations.
- Light regulation. In an October 2024 CNBC interview he argued that well-intentioned rules often add complexity that favors established companies over startups.
Key numbers (company-reported)
All of these figures come from Sierra's own blog posts, written by Taylor and Bavor. They are company-reported and not independently verified.
- Annual recurring revenue (Sierra blog, Oct 30, 2026)$400M+.
- ARR added in Q3 (Sierra blog, Oct 30, 2026)$150M+.
- Share of the Fortune 50 served (Sierra blog, Oct 30, 2026)Almost 50%.
- Customers with revenue over $1 billion (Sierra blog, Feb 6, 2026)50%.
What to watch next
Worth tracking: whether Sierra's growth keeps accelerating, how its open standard Poppy for personal agents develops (the October 2026 post says over 50 enterprises are involved), and Taylor's dual role at Sierra and OpenAI.
Questions people ask
Who is Bret Taylor?
He is the co-founder and CEO of Sierra and chairman of the board at OpenAI, and a former Salesforce co-CEO, Facebook CTO and Google Maps co-creator.
What is Bret Taylor's current title?
A Sierra podcast page dated November 13, 2025 lists him as Co-Founder & CEO of Sierra and Chairman of the Board at OpenAI.
What does Sierra do?
Sierra says it helps businesses build better, more human customer experiences with AI.
Who founded Sierra with Bret Taylor?
Clay Bavor. Sierra's About page says they first met while working together at Google.
What did Bret Taylor do before Sierra?
He was co-CEO of Salesforce, founded Quip, was CTO of Facebook and began at Google, where he co-created Google Maps.
How big is Sierra?
Sierra reported $400M+ in ARR in its October 30, 2026 blog post. The figure is company-reported.
Sources
- Sierra: About · Founders, bio, offices, mission
- Sierra blog: Our customers' ambition is accelerating our growth (Oct 30, 2026) · ARR, Fortune 50 reach, philosophy
- Sierra blog: Year two in review (Feb 6, 2026) · Customer mix, jobs-to-be-done view
- Sierra podcast: AI Bubbles, Software's Future, & Why Sierra Wins (Nov 13, 2025) · CEO and OpenAI chair titles
- Skift: Bret Taylor speaker page · Career summary
- Fortune: OpenAI chair interview (Feb 13, 2024) · Governance role, recusal
- CNBC via NBC Chicago (Oct 10, 2024) · Views on regulation
- Wikimedia Commons: TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 photo · Hero photo, CC BY 2.0
Facts were read from the linked pages on October 31, 2026. Some pages were read through a fetch tool that returns summaries, so confirm details on the original page. OpenAI's own pages could not be fetched, so the chair title rests on Sierra, Skift, Fortune and CNBC pages. Company figures are labelled company-reported. This page covers public professional information only.
Top photo: TechCrunch / CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons