Scott Belsky
Partner, A24. On 6 shows, 9 appearances, plus 5 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestorauthor@scottbelsky ↗LinkedIn ↗scottbelsky.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Scott Belsky co-founded the creative platform Behance, which was acquired by Adobe in 2012, and spent years as an executive leading Adobe's Creative Cloud and product initiatives. He is an active early-stage investor and the author of Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle.
6shows
9appearances
169statements
8resolved
2supported
1contradicted
25%fully supported
129said about them ↓ Everything Scott Belsky said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Belsky: AI-generated fake media is helpful because it inoculates society
“But I also think we're all gonna be gradually inoculated, and I think, honestly, like, fake stuff is really helpful for society right now because it inoculates us and makes us realize we can't trust what we see anymore.”
Belsky: AI productivity gains will increase creative hiring, not decrease it
“And I believe that actually, when you get more ingenuity per person that you employ, the people on your creative team, when you get more possibility from each of them, you're gonna actually want to hire more of them. Look no further than engineers. Engineers h…”
Scott Belsky: Early-stage users of any product are lazy, vain, and selfish
“Every customer of any type of product, I would argue, even in the enterprise, in their early stage of using the product is lazy, vain, and selfish.”
Belsky: Design will increasingly commoditize tech in the AI era
“And then in the age of AI, more and more of our choices in every industry are being made at the surface, right? And I think that's another opportunity, another argument that design will increasingly commoditize tech to some degree, and that having this designe…”
Belsky: AI future will not be dominated by a few mega models
“I think it's actually common belief that there are going to be a few mega models in the future that are going to do everything for every company in the cloud. What we're saying is actually it will probably be the opposite.”
Belsky: AI hallucination is a feature, not a bug, in creative tools
“In, in some ways, listen, for some practices hallucination, hallucination is a bug, but in some areas it's also a feature, right? So if I'm trying to discover some cool new music, I mean, I can imagine that might be a feature as opposed to a bug. You know, whe…”
Belsky: Companies should only build AI models they can lead globally
“Actually, I think that's sort of the right answer is you should build models if you're the best company in the world to build them.”
Belsky: AI platform shift uniquely favors incumbent tech giants over startups
“I do think we executed well, but I also think that there's some nuances of this platform shift in particular that do favor those companies that know their customer well and already reach them.”
Belsky: Per-seat pricing for enterprise SaaS is obsolete in the AI era
“The idea of selling seats function by function, like how many people in procurement, how many people in financial planning? I mean, it's such an old antiquated way of Building a business to some degree in the age of AI.”
Scott Belsky: Contextual UI prompts matter as much as underlying AI models
“One of the most important insights was, and maybe as important as building a great family of models. And I can talk more about Firefly and the underlying models and how we trained it and how we didn't train it and everything else, but was simply the insight of…”
Belsky: AI detection algorithms will never catch media manipulators
“We're never going to catch the bad actors because anyone can, you know, make anything and it's a cat and mouse game to have algorithms that tell whether something was edited or not.”
Belsky: Adobe data shows AI is increasing creative hiring, not reducing it
“So in our data, we're still seeing this revolution drive hiring more as opposed to reducing the hiring.”
Scott Belsky predicts local LLMs on personal devices will suffice for most
“I think that verticals will be important. I think the LMs will be abundant. And I actually think at some point, maybe relatively soon, we'll realize that some LMs, even locally running LMs on our machines are enough for a lot of the actions that we want to do …”
Belsky: AI favors incumbents by embedding superpowers directly into existing workflows
“If you can just surface some of these superpowers in the workflows that customers have, so that tomorrow when they log in, suddenly they have it, then they don't have to, Necessarily go to an entirely new place and abs, you know, go through the friction of doi…”
Belsky: Many AI Applications Will Run Locally on Smaller Models
“I happen to believe by the way that a lot of AI powered things are going to be able to be run locally. And that, you know, and also with less powerful models that, you know, for good enough outcomes.”
Consumer apps serve as VC-funded R&D for tech incumbents
“I think that a lot of these other more recent consumer products are just kind of clever momentary interfaces. And they are in effect at the expense of venture capitalists R and D for the platforms that already have the network effects and already have the dist…”
AI will collapse organizational hierarchies and eliminate specialized intermediaries
“We're entering the era where we collapse the stack in every organization, where instead of having to go to someone for anything, you can kind of do more things yourself. It's very empowering to get the answer from data as opposed to having to go to a data scie…”
Creative professionals will not be replaced by generative AI
“And some people are like, oh my gosh, creative pros are going to be replaced. No, no, no, no, they're not. They're just going to find 10 X better solutions. They're going to have that capability to explore more possibilities.”
Belsky: Founders should delegate everything except their core superpower
“I think you should abstract yourself out of almost every function. Except for the one that is your superpower, that you are the unique person in the world to do, and you should keep doing that as long as humanly possible.”
Belsky predicts centralized and hybrid services will ultimately win in Web3
“In, in many cases, centralized services will win or hybrid, you know, decentralized by ethos, but centralized to some extent by like certain aspects of the user experience, you know, I think are maybe going to ultimately win”
Belsky: AI recommendations will cause consumers to abandon the concept of favorites
“And so, you know, that for music, that for travel, that for restaurants, that for whatever, like, maybe we're all gonna vastly increase the surface area of our exposure to stuff we like, and in some ways, like, abandon the concept of favorites altogether.”
Belsky: Creativity is the new productivity as automation commoditizes mere speed
“Creativity is the new productivity. You know, we're going to stand out increasingly in our work. And on social media and on any other thing that's, you know, amplifying our opportunity stream through our creativity, you know, it's not about doing things faster…”
Belsky predicts 3D creation will democratize and go mainstream like mobile photography
“Same exact thing's gonna happen for three D. I'm like wholly convinced that that's the case.”
Belsky: Celebrating financing rounds and press drives non-productive startup behavior
“We can't celebrate fake wins. You know, I see some teams celebrate financing, celebrate getting an award that frankly they paid for, or getting some press coverage that they clearly paid for, and that is dangerous because what you're doing is you're getting th…”
The other half of the tape: Scott Belsky's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 122 times in 51 episodes across the shows. 7 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 59Greg Isenberg 12Jason Lemkin 9Lenny Rachitsky 8Kayvon Beykpour 6Alistair Croll 4Sahil Bloom 3Semil Shah 2
Statements about Scott Belsky, by other people (7)
Balfour: AI Tooling Will Enable Much Smaller Teams and Empower Super ICs
“All of this AI tooling is going to give these like super ICs, these captain level ICs, even more leverage in solving problems and their creation abilities as part of that. And so I think in the future, what we're going to see, and I'm not the first one to say …”
Isenberg: Orchestration is the new interface layer and key value capture
“The orchestration layer is the new interface layer. As we spend our day coordinating agent workflows in a model agnostic fashion, local and cloud, and validating outputs, human in the loop and resolving issues, the ultimate layer To own is where coordination t…”
Products must win over users who are selfish, vain, and lazy
“I think one approach is you think about new users as you almost have like a cynical view of them. You have to think about them being selfish, vain, and lazy, right? Like they're coming in, they have no desire to learn a new tool. And so what can you give them …”
Scott Belsky seeded Behance by interviewing top designers who refused invites
“He said that for the launch of Behance, he reached out and asked all these influential designers to join his platform. And they said, no. And then he said, oh, okay, pivot. Hey, I'd like to do an interview about you for my platform. And they said, oh sure. And…”
Elad Gil and Scott Belsky drive strong Series A signaling
“Investors like a lot Gil, Scott Belsky, the entire collective of hashtag angels, angels who are both helpful, but I think most importantly, they've established this track record in the ecosystem where they have the ears of series A investors.”
Beykpour: Musk Held Two-Hour Transition Meeting at Twitter HQ with Isaacson Present
“And in that massive conference room, it was me, Scott, Elon, and then at the very, very end of the room, Walter Isaacson, who, by the way, like, I had a hard time I knew I recognized, I never met Walter in person, but I was like, is that Walter Isaacson? But h…”
Scott Belsky wrote a substantial early seed check for Periscope
“Scott was like, I mean, I want to support you guys. He wrote us, I don't want to share how much the check was, but he wrote us a substantially sized check and was like, I want to be on the team and help you guys make this come to life.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 88
Lenny's Podcast 18
the Startup Ideas Podcast 16
2026 7 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
2025 14 mentions in 7 episodes 2 per episode
- Opendoor CEO, Kaz Nejatian: OpenAI and Oracle, How Can Either Afford to Do This · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Figma’s IPO: The Full Breakdown & Why Melio’s $2.5BN Acquisition is “Discouraging” · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Inside OpenAI: 2026 is the year of agents, AI’s biggest bottleneck, and why compute isn’t the issue
- “Dumbest idea I’ve heard” to $100M ARR: Inside the rise of Gamma | Grant Lee (co-founder)
- Why Apple Needs a Management Overhaul & Why Google is Catching Up with Hyperscalers · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO @Snowflake: Deepseek is Not a Threat to OpenAI & OpenAI Beats Anthropic|E1258 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Mikey Shulman, CEO @Suno: The Future of Music, What is Gonna Happen? | E1244 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2025, scene by scene →
2024 12 mentions in 6 episodes 2 per episode
- Just evil enough: Subversive marketing strategies for startups | Alistair Croll
- The framework for building AI startups from a product design genius
- David Luan: Why Nvidia Will Enter the Model Space & Models Will Enter the Chip Space | E1169 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jean-Michel Lemieux: Three Product Decisions Every Team Needs to Make | E1129 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Creator tools you can build that will print money
- Jason Lemkin: PluralSight S*** the Bed & The Next IPO Candidates | E1160 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 15 mentions in 8 episodes 2 per episode
- Competing with giants: An inside look at how The Browser Company builds product | Josh Miller (CEO)
- An inside look at how Figma builds product | Yuhki Yamashita (CPO of Figma)
- The full-stack PM | Anuj Rathi (Swiggy, Jupiter Money, Flipkart)
- Des Traynor: How to Survive and Thrive in a World of OpenAI | E1082 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Brian Balfour: 10 lessons on career, growth, and life
- Snap's VP of Product Jack Brody: The Future of AR; Snap Glasses; Evan Spiegel's Product Mind | E1006 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- The Ultimate Guide for Building a Two-Sided Marketplace | a16z's Jeff Jordan · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- a16z GP Jeff Jordan: The Ultimate Guide to Two-Sided Marketplaces | 20VC #966 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 57 mentions in 19 episodes 3 per episode
- Kayvon Beykpour: How to Structure and Manage the Best Product Reviews | 20VC #894 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Julio Vasconcellos: Scaling to $100M and 1,200 Employees and then Cratering | 20VC #928 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Money, Wealth, and Personal Holding Companies with Michael Karnjanaprakorn
- Tony Fadell: Product Marketing Lessons I Learned from Steve Jobs | 20VC #884 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Luc Levesque: The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring for Growth | 20VC #906 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Semil Shah: Lessons Learned Scaling from a $1M to a $50M Fund | 20VC #951 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Marty Cagan: Product Lessons from Steve Jobs and Elon Musk; Why do we idolize engineers? | 20VC #957 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Spotify CTO Gustav Söderström: TikTok's Music; How Olivia Rodrigo Gamed the Algo | 20VC #936 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 11 more episodes that year, every mention in 2022 →
2020 2 mentions in 1 episode
2019 7 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Figma Founder Dylan Field on The Biggest Mistakes Young Founders Most Often Make, How To Go Slow To Go Fast With Venture Dollars & How The Design Process Will Fundamentally Change Over The Next 5-10 Years
- 20VC: Why The Current VC Financing Mechanism For Consumer Brands Is Broken, Why The Infrastructure To Power Emerging Brands Is Broken and What The Re-Platforming of Retail Means For The Next Decade in Consumer with Adam Pritzker, Chairman & CEO @ Assemble
- 20VC: Worklife Ventures' Brianne Kimmel on Why More Operators Should Start Their Own Fund, How To Structure Your Round for the Highest Signal Round & What The Multi-Stage Funds Playing At Seed Means For The Rest of The Asset Class
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: Lessons Learned Scaling PillPack from Seed to Amazon Acquisition, Why Investors Should Spend More Time Assessing Human Capital Risk Taken by Founders & The Right Way To Think About Capital Efficiency in Scaling with David Frankel, Managing Partner @
- 20VC: Why Serial Entrepreneurship is Overrated, Why You Will Get Fired If You Listen To Your Board & How To Construct Investor Update Emails The Right Way with Joe Fernandez, Founder & CEO @ Joymode
- 20VC: The Core Lessons From Building a 150 Startup Angel Portfolio, Why Founders Who Angel Invest Have Such Strong Advantages and Why The Lean Startup Makes Less and Less Sense Today with Adrian Aoun, Founder & CEO @ Forward
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Why Venture Is A Service Product? Why There Is No Such Thing As Product Market Fit & Why Startups Need To Be More Design Orientated with Ben Blumenfeld, Co-Founder & General Partner @ Designer Fund
- 20VC: Why Cheque Size & Follow On Decision-Making Does Not Matter, Why Intelligence Is Overrated & Why You Should Do Everything You Can To Make Other People Successful with Anthony Pompliano, Founding Partner @ Full Tilt Capital
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Scott's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Partner, A24 | 4 +2 | 86 | 40% 2/5 | full record on 20VC → |
| LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Partner, A24 | 1 +2 | 46 | — | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |
 MADLEDGER | Partner, A24 | 1 | 12 | 0% 0/2 | full record on the MAD Podcast → |
 MORE OR LESSLEDGER | Partner, A24 | 2 | 9 | 0% 0/1 | full record on More or Less → |
| STARTUP IDEASLEDGER | Partner, A24 | 1 | 7 | — | full record on the Startup Ideas Podcast → |
 SAASTRLEDGER | Partner, A24 | 0 +1 | 9 | — | full record on the Official SaaStr Podcast → |