Scott Belsky

Scott Belsky
Scott Belsky
Born	4/18/1980
Occupation	Entrepreneur, author, investor
Employer	A24 Films
Known for	Behance, seed investments in Uber and Pinterest
Alma mater	Cornell University (B.A.) Harvard Business School (M.B.A.)
Website	scottbelsky.com

Scott Belsky (born April 18, 1980) is an American entrepreneur, author, and early-stage investor who founded the online portfolio platform Behance, which became one of the largest creative communities on the internet before its acquisition by Adobe in 2012. He is also known for making early seed investments in companies including Uber and Pinterest, and for writing two nationally bestselling books on creativity and entrepreneurship: Making Ideas Happen (2010) and The Messy Middle (2018). Belsky held several senior executive roles at Adobe over a decade-long tenure, serving as Chief Product Officer and later as Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President of Design & Emerging Products. In January 2025, he departed Adobe to join the entertainment studio A24 as a partner, where he leads technology and innovation initiatives and founded A24 Labs. A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Business School, Belsky has served on the boards of Cornell University's Entrepreneurship Program, the Museum of Modern Art, and Coop Careers. He is a relative of the educational testing pioneer Stanley Kaplan.

Early Life

Scott Belsky was born on April 18, 1980. Limited publicly documented information is available about his childhood and family background, though it is known that he is a relative of Stanley Kaplan, the founder of Kaplan Test Prep.

Belsky attended Cornell University, where he graduated in 2002. He subsequently attended Harvard Business School, where he earned his M.B.A. His time at Cornell would prove to be a lasting connection; decades later, he joined the Cornell Tech Council and maintained ties to the university's entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Education

Belsky received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University in 2002. He then pursued graduate studies at Harvard Business School, earning a Master of Business Administration. His academic background combined business education with an interest in the creative industries, themes that would later define his career trajectory at Behance and Adobe.

Career

Early Career and Founding of Behance

After completing his M.B.A. at Harvard Business School, Belsky worked at Goldman Sachs before turning his attention to the creative industry. He founded Behance, an online platform designed to help creative professionals showcase and discover creative work. The platform grew into one of the largest online communities for creatives, attracting millions of users who used it to build portfolios, share projects, and connect with other professionals and potential employers.

Behance's core product was a portfolio hosting service that allowed designers, illustrators, photographers, and other creative professionals to present their work in a visually rich format. The platform also included features for networking and community engagement. Belsky's vision for Behance was rooted in his belief that the creative industry lacked adequate tools for organizing and executing creative ideas — a theme he would later explore in his first book.

By 2012, Behance had grown into a community of millions of users and had established itself as a significant platform within the creative industry.

Adobe Acquisition and Executive Roles

In December 2012, Adobe acquired Behance. The acquisition was reported by TechCrunch, which noted that the deal was valued at more than $150 million in cash and stock. The acquisition was part of Adobe's broader strategy to expand its Creative Cloud ecosystem with community and social features. Analysts noted that the deal positioned Adobe to better engage with the creative professional community through Behance's established user base.

Following the acquisition, Belsky joined Adobe and took on increasingly senior leadership roles. He was instrumental in the development of Adobe's CreativeSync technology, which was described as more than a simple file-syncing service for designers and was positioned as a core component of Adobe's creative platform strategy.

Belsky served as Adobe's first Chief Product Officer, overseeing the company's product strategy across its creative and design tools. He later held the title of Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President of Design & Emerging Products at Adobe, a role in which he was responsible for the company's strategic direction and emerging technology initiatives. In a 2023 interview with Stratechery, Belsky discussed Adobe's approach to product strategy, artificial intelligence, and the evolving landscape of creative tools.

During his time at Adobe, Belsky was also an advocate for content authentication and attribution technologies. In a January 2025 article for Fortune, he wrote about the importance of ensuring artists receive credit for their digital work, particularly in an era of expanding AI-generated content. He discussed Adobe's Content Credentials initiative as a mechanism for creative professionals to maintain attribution and protect their work.

Investing Career

In addition to his roles as a founder and executive, Belsky established a career as an early-stage investor. He made seed investments in a number of technology companies that later became prominent, including Uber and Pinterest. He also invested in Sweetgreen, the salad restaurant chain, which raised $18.5 million in a funding round that also included investments from Danny Meyer and Daniel Boulud.

In February 2016, Belsky joined Benchmark, one of Silicon Valley's most prominent venture capital firms, as a sixth general partner. His addition to the Benchmark partnership reflected his reputation as an investor with a track record in identifying early-stage companies with significant growth potential, particularly those at the intersection of technology and creative industries.

A24

In January 2025, Variety reported that Belsky was departing Adobe to join A24, the independent entertainment studio known for its critically acclaimed films and television productions, as a full-time partner. In this role, he was tasked with leading technology and innovation projects at the studio. Belsky also founded A24 Labs, an initiative within the studio focused on technology and innovation.

In an October 2025 interview with Fast Company, Belsky discussed his approach to creativity in his role at A24, describing creativity in terms of "output" and "production" while emphasizing the importance of cultivating fresh sources of surprise.

Belsky has also been vocal about the impact of artificial intelligence on creative professions. In commentary reported by The Verge, he stated that people "must cultivate our sources of" creativity in the face of AI's growing capabilities, reflecting his ongoing engagement with questions about the future of human creativity in an AI-driven world.

Writing

Belsky is the author of two nationally bestselling books. His first book, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, was published in 2010. The book explored the organizational and execution challenges that creative professionals face in bringing their ideas to fruition. It drew on Belsky's experiences founding Behance and his research into the habits of productive creative individuals and teams. Belsky discussed the book's themes in a 2009 interview with NPR.

His second book, The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture, was published in 2018. The book focused on the challenges entrepreneurs and leaders face during the middle stages of building a venture — the period after the initial excitement of starting and before the resolution of a successful outcome or failure. Both books became national bestsellers.

Personal Life

Belsky is a relative of Stanley Kaplan, the founder of Kaplan Test Prep, the standardized test preparation company. He has been involved in various civic and cultural organizations. He has served on the board of Cornell University's Entrepreneurship Program and on the board of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He has also served on the board of Coop Careers, a nonprofit organization.

In September 2025, Belsky joined the Cornell Tech Council, further strengthening his ties to his alma mater and its technology-focused graduate campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City.

Recognition

In 2010, Fast Company named Belsky one of its "Most Creative People in Business," recognizing his work in founding Behance and his contributions to empowering creative professionals through technology and organizational tools.

His two books, Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle, both achieved national bestseller status, establishing him as a notable voice on topics related to creativity, entrepreneurship, and product development. The success of Making Ideas Happen led to media appearances and speaking engagements, including an interview with NPR in 2009.

Belsky's early-stage investments in companies such as Uber and Pinterest, both of which became multi-billion-dollar enterprises, contributed to his reputation as an investor with an eye for identifying transformative technology companies at early stages of development. His appointment as a general partner at Benchmark in 2016 reflected the venture capital industry's recognition of his investing acumen.

His board memberships at the Museum of Modern Art and Cornell University's Entrepreneurship Program indicate recognition of his contributions to both the arts and entrepreneurship communities.

Legacy

Belsky's founding of Behance created a platform that fundamentally changed how creative professionals present and discover work online. The platform's acquisition by Adobe for more than $150 million in 2012 reflected the value that Behance had generated for the creative community, and the platform's subsequent integration into Adobe's Creative Cloud ecosystem extended its reach to millions of additional users worldwide.

As an executive at Adobe, Belsky played a significant role in shaping the company's product strategy during a period of rapid transformation in the creative software industry. His advocacy for technologies such as CreativeSync and Content Credentials reflected a sustained focus on empowering creative professionals through technology.

Belsky's books have contributed to the broader discourse on creativity and entrepreneurship. Making Ideas Happen addressed a gap in the literature by focusing not on the generation of ideas but on the organizational and execution challenges involved in bringing creative ideas to completion. The Messy Middle similarly addressed an underexplored topic — the difficult middle stages of entrepreneurial ventures — and has been cited by entrepreneurs and business leaders as a useful resource for navigating the challenges of building organizations.

His transition to A24 in 2025, where he founded A24 Labs and oversees technology and innovation, represents a continuation of his career-long focus on the intersection of technology and creative industries, applied to the entertainment sector.