Episode 01: Scott Belsky and Navigating the Messy Middle
We often celebrate the finish line of ambitious endeavors. But what about the volatile moments along the path to success? In 2005, Scott Belsky founded a company called Behance. Over a million users later, he sold to Adobe, where he now serves as the company’s Chief Product Officer.
Scott is the author of the bestseller Making Ideas Happen and his newest book, The Messy Middle. In this episode, we talk to Scott about creating a “fully utilized” career, and how to navigate the most crucial and challenging phase of anything worth doing.
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Links:
www.scottbelsky.com
www.themessymiddle.com
www.behance.net
About Scott:
Scott Belsky’s primary focus is making Creative Cloud a creativity platform for all. As chief product officer and executive vice president, Creative Cloud, Scott leads product management and engineering for Creative Cloud products and services, Adobe Spark, and Behance, Adobe’s community of 10 million creatives. Scott also oversees Adobe’s Design team, which is responsible for experience design across all Adobe products.
Prior to joining Adobe in December 2017, Scott was a venture investor at Benchmark in San Francisco. This is Scott's second tenure at Adobe. He originally joined the company after it acquired Behance in 2012. At that time, he led Adobe’s mobile strategy for Creative Cloud. Scott co-founded Behance in 2006 and served as its CEO for six years.
Over the years, Scott has pursued other projects to help organize and empower creative people. These projects include 99U, Behance’s creative think tank and conference, and his best-selling book, Making Ideas Happen.
Scott has been an advisor on design and product management for leading companies and institutions, including Adidas, Pentagram, Pinterest, Proctor & Gamble, Facebook, and the United States Government. In 2010, Fast Company included Scott on its list of "100 Most Creative People in Business."
Scott holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He serves on the Advisory Board of Cornell University’s Entrepreneurship Program, is President of the Board of Trustees for Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and serves on the boards of Prefer, a referral network for independent professionals, and Cheddar, a next-generation live and on-demand video news network.
