Shantanu Narayen announced this week that he will step down after nearly two decades as CEO of Adobe. In this conversation first published in early 2025, Narayen talked with host Reid Hoffman about how he led the transformation of Adobe’s creative tools like Photoshop to cloud-based subscriptions, how that unlocked faster innovation, and why those lessons are serving the company well in the new age of AI.
Synthetic voiceover of Reid Hoffman used in this episode was produced by Respeecher with full consent and permission.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com
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Shantanu Narayen has weathered plenty of storms for Adobe, the iconic software company that earned more than $21 billion in revenue last year. The veteran tech leader talks with host Reid Hoffman about transforming Adobe’s creative tools like Photoshop to a cloud-based subscription, how that unlocked ways to innovate faster, and why those lessons are serving the company well in the new age of AI.
Synthetic voiceover of Reid Hoffman used in this episode was produced by Respeecher with full consent and permission.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com
Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Being a creator in 2025 is tough—but building for creators is even harder. Perhaps no one understands this conundrum better than Scott Belsky. As the founder of Behance, a longtime executive at Adobe, and an advisor to companies like Pinterest and Atlassian, Scott has spent his career at the intersection of technology, design, and creativity.
In this speedrun episode, recorded live in San Francisco during the fourth iteration of our a16z Games Speedrun program, we dive into:
How AI can actually enable creators—and where its toolset should end
The evolution from the "prompt era" to the "controls era" of AI
Whether people really want bespoke, personalized experiences or simply crave familiarity
What happens when creative scarcity disappears and AI-generated content becomes ubiquitous
The future of creative tooling, from generative UI to AI-native interfaces
Plus, Scott shares insights from his time building Behance, leading product strategy at Adobe, and investing in the next generation of creative tools.
If you want to learn more about A16Z Games Speedrun, visit a16z.com/games/speedrun.
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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Platform engineering will be a key focus at KubeCon this year, with a special emphasis on AI platforms. Priyanka Sharma, executive director of the Linux Foundation, highlighted the convergence of platform engineering and AI during an interview on The New Stack Makers with Adobe’s Joseph Sandoval. KubeCon will feature talks from experts like Chen Goldberg of CoreWeave and Aparna Sinha of CapitalOne, showcasing how AI workloads will transform platform operations.
Sandoval emphasized the growing maturity of platform engineering over the past two to three years, now centered on addressing user needs. He also discussed Adobe's collaboration on CNOE, an open-source initiative for internal developer platforms. The intersection of platform engineering, Kubernetes, cloud-native technologies, and AI raises questions about scaling infrastructure management with AI, potentially improving efficiency and reducing toil for roles like SRE and DevOps. Sharma noted that reference architectures, long requested by the CNCF community, will be highlighted at the event, guiding users without dictating solutions.
Learn more from The New Stack about Kubernetes:
Cloud Native Networking as Kubernetes Starts Its Second Decade
Primer: How Kubernetes Came to Be, What It Is, and Why You Should Care
How Cloud Foundry Has Evolved With Kubernetes
Join our community of newsletter subscribers to stay on top of the news and at the top of your game. game. https://thenewstack.io/newsletter/
Emery Wells is the co-founder and CEO of Frame.io, which he sold to Adobe in 2021 for nearly $1.3 billion. In our conversation, Emery shares his journey from NYC bartender to startup founder, including his agency work with Saturday Night Live that highlighted the pain points that led to Frame.io. We dive deep into his rejection of the lean startup concept, how he gets his team to obsess over design details, and the cultural reset at Frame.io that set the stage for its success.
(00:00) Intro
(01:34) Emery's Journey to Founding Frame.io
(03:23) SNL Digital Shorts and Post-Production Insights
(08:30) From Bartender to Entrepreneur
(11:45) Building Frame.io: Challenges and Philosophy
(23:14) Leadership and Decision-Making in Startups
(28:40) Cultural Crisis and Turning Points
(30:10) Understanding Company Culture
(32:57) The Big Reset: Leadership Changes
(34:16) Defining and Implementing Values
(38:09) Hiring for Cultural Fit
(39:18) The Importance of Design
(46:06) Framework for Quality Execution
(54:23) Building a B2B Brand
(58:17) Effective Launch Strategies
(01:05:36) Fundraising Lessons
(01:08:30) The Art of Storytelling in Presentations
(01:09:19) Meeting Key Industry Figures
(01:10:06) The Acquisition Dance with Aaron Levy
(01:16:04) Adobe's Acquisition Interest
(01:18:12) Navigating the Acquisition Process
(01:27:04) Lessons from Adobe's Culture
(01:29:59) The Impact of AI on Creativity
(01:34:16) Advice on Board Selection and Dynamics
(01:41:40) Final Thoughts and Reflections
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir
Producer: Leah Clapper
Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky
Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.
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If you’ve played with Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature or worked in Nvidia’s Omniverse platform, you’ve touched tools that Patrick Hebron’s work has made possible.
A dual major in philosophy and film production, Patrick approaches creative pursuits with a deep curiosity and the belief that if a “tool gets used in exactly the way that we anticipated, then we have really failed catastrophically.” He believes that emerging digital design tools will elevate human creativity, and he aims to develop technology solutions that will empower creative end users to continue to push boundaries.
On this episode, Patrick describes some of the technical challenges in building generative AI solutions for creative pursuits, as well as their vast potential. Read the episode transcript here.
Guest bio:
Patrick Hebron is a designer, software developer, teacher, and author. His work explores the intersection of machine learning, design tools, programming languages, and operating systems. In particular, he has focused on the development of AI-driven digital design tools. He founded the Machine Intelligence Design groups at Nvidia and Adobe and was vice president of R&D at Stability AI. He is the author of Machine Learning for Designers, published by O’Reilly Media, as well as numerous articles, including Rethinking Design Tools in the Age of Machine Learning and A Unified Tool for the Education of Humans and Machines. He has also worked as an adjunct graduate professor and scientist in residence at New York University.
Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast from MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group and is hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and the coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Andy Goffin.
Stay in touch with us by joining our LinkedIn group, AI for Leaders at mitsmr.com/AIforLeaders or by following Me, Myself, and AI on LinkedIn.
We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has been at the top of my list of people I’ve wanted to talk to for the show since we first launched — he’s led Adobe for nearly 17 years now, but he doesn’t do too many wide-ranging interviews. I’ve always thought Adobe was an underappreciated company — its tools sit at the center of nearly every major creative workflow you can think of — and with generative AI poised to change the very nature of creative software, it seemed particularly important to talk with Shantanu now.
Adobe sits right at the center of the whole web of tensions, especially as the company has evolved its business and business model over time. And now, AI really changes what it means to make and distribute creative work. Not many people are seeing revenue returns on it just yet and there are the fundamental philosophical challenges of adding AI to photo and video tools. What does it mean when a company like Adobe, which makes the tools so many people use to make their art, sees the creative process as a step in a marketing chain, instead of a goal in and of itself?
Links:
How Adobe is managing the AI copyright dilemma, with general counsel Dana Rao
Adobe Launches Creative Cloud (2012)
What was Photoshop like in 1994?
Photoshop’s Generative Fill tool turns vacation photos into nightmares - The Verge
New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and others sue OpenAI and Microsoft - The Verge
The FAIR Act: A New Right to Protect Artists in the Age of AI | Adobe Blog
Adobe’s Firefly generative AI tools are now generally available - The Verge
This Wacom AI debacle has certainly taken a turn. - The Verge
Transcript:
https://www.theverge.com/e/23917997
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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Today, I'm talking to Dana Rao, who is General Counsel and Chief Trust Officer at Adobe. Now, if you're a longtime Decoder listener, you know that I have always been fascinated with Adobe, which I think the tech press largely undercovers. If you're interested in how creativity happens, you're kind of necessarily interested in what Adobe's up to. And it is fascinating to consider how Dana's job as Adobe's top lawyer is really at the center of the company's future.
The copyright issues with generative AI are so unknown and unfolding so fast that they will necessarily shape what kind of products Adobe can even make in the future, and what people can make with those products. The company also just tried and failed to buy the popular upstart design company Figma, a potentially $20 billion deal that was shut down over antitrust concerns in the European Union. So Dana and I had a lot to talk about.
Links:
Adobe abandons $20 billion acquisition of Figma
Adobe explains why it abandoned the Figma deal
Why Figma is selling to Adobe for $20 billion, with CEO Dylan Field
Figma’s CEO laments demise of $20 billion deal with Adobe
Adobe proposes anti-impersonation law
Adobe’s Dana Rao doesn’t want you to get duped by A
The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft
Adobe’s Photoshop on the web launch includes its popular desktop AI tools
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23791239
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Scott Belsky is the chief strategy officer and executive vice president of design and emerging products at Adobe. He joins Big Technology Podcast to examine the impact of generative AI on creativity. In this interview, we discuss whether AI homogenizes creativity or creates more possibilities. We talk about how Adobe is baking it into its products with generative fill. We also discuss creative attribution for images used to train generative AI models and how friction is actually good. Tune in for one of the most fascinating discussions on the podcast in 2023.
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Gustav Söderström is the Co-President, CPO & CTO at Spotify. Gustav has been instrumental in taking Spotify from a 30-person operation in Sweden when he joined to being the global leader of the space.
Scott Belsky is Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott oversees all of product and engineering for Creative Cloud, as well as design for Adobe.
Tomer Cohen is the Chief Product Officer @ Linkedin where he is responsible for setting and executing the global product strategy at LinkedIn.
In Today's Episode on How AI Changes The Future of Product and Design We Discuss:
1. Why AI Is Now the Product that UI Serves:
Why does Gustav believe that AI is now the product?
How has the importance of UI changed with the rise of AI?
How did TikTok change the product paradigm over the last few years?
2. What Matters More Models or Data:
What is more important the size of the model or the amount of data a company has?
Will companies use many models at the same time?
Why will companies using many models at once create a huge opportunity for startups?
Will every company have their own model? What will be the decision-making framework of whether to have your own model or leverage another?
How does the rise of AI change how companies approach data acquisition, collection and cleaning?
3. The Workforce Needs to Change with AI:
How do product leaders and teams need to change in an AI-first world?
What do designers need to do to stay up to date in an AI-first world?
What does it mean to be good at prompting? How can people get good at prompting?
Why will AI kill companies that charge by the hour?
Why will seat pricing die in a world of AI? What will be the business model for AI?
4. Incumbents vs Startups: Who Wins:
Do incumbents win in a world of AI or do startups?
Why is AI primed for incumbents to win and move fast in a way they could not in prior technology cycles?
What are the biggest hurdles and challenges incumbents have to face that startups do not?
What are the biggest barriers that startups have to win in a world of AI that incumbents do not have?
Scott Belsky, CSO, and EVP at Adobe, does a deep dive on the profound transformations taking place in the creative world. As technology continues to reshape the landscape, Cloud and SaaS Founders, VCs, and Executives must adapt and evolve to stay ahead. Discover the playbook to thrive in this dynamic environment and unlock unprecedented opportunities. Belsky will share his deep insights into the rapidly changing creative industry, drawing from his vast experience at the forefront of innovation.
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This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent
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—
Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and currently Adobe’s Chief Strategy Officer and EVP of Design and Emerging Products. He founded Behance, an online platform for creative professionals to showcase and discover work, and served as CEO until its acquisition by Adobe. Scott is an early advisor and investor in several businesses at the intersection of technology and design, including Pinterest, Uber, Warby Parker, Airtable, and Flexport. He is also the author of two nationally bestselling books and founded 99U, a publication and conference focused on productivity in the creative world. In today’s episode, we discuss:
* How to strengthen your product sense
* Why you should only do half the things you want
* What it takes to build a successful consumer product
* Why you are probably underinvesting in onboarding
* The future of AI and how to prepare for it
* Advice for founders and PMs who are feeling stuck
* Why resourcefulness will take you further than resources
* Adobe’s current priorities and their exciting path ahead
—
Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-on-building-product-sense
—
Where to find Scott Belsky:
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottbelsky
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottbelsky/
• Blog: https://www.implications.com/
• Website: www.scottbelsky.com/
—
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
—
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Scott’s background
(04:50) Why Scott shifted roles at Adobe
(08:29) Advice for PMs looking to build product sense
(10:43) The first mile
(13:18) How to develop more empathy
(16:33) How to build consumer products that work
(20:42) Scott’s philosophy that you should “only do half the things you want to do”
(26:15) Scott’s optimism about how the world will look in five years with AI
(29:44) How AI will impact product teams
(32:55) How the PM role will change as a result of AI
(35:09) How Adobe is leveraging AI tools
(36:59) What the term “golden gut” means
(38:15) Advice for PMs to stay ahead of the new AI trends
(41:02) How to start writing more
(41:49) The messy middle
(47:03) What Scott looks for as an angel investor
(50:16) Why resourcefulness will take you further than resources
(52:41) Adobe’s current priorities and the path ahead
(54:58) Lightning round
—
Referenced:
• Adobe: https://www.adobe.com/
• Behance: https://www.behance.net/
• Casey Winters on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/thinking-beyond-frameworks-casey-winters-pinterest-eventbrite-airbnb-tinder-canva-reddit-grubhub/
• Crafting The First Mile Of Product: https://medium.com/positiveslope/crafting-the-first-mile-of-product-7ed25e8f1027
• Shishir Mehrotra on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/
• Scott’s tweet on only doing half the things you want to do: https://twitter.com/scottbelsky/status/1441469886975279109?s=20
• Matt Mochary on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-fire-people-with-grace-work-through-fear-and-nurture-innovation-matt-mochary-ceo-coach/
• Adobe Firefly: https://www.adobe.com/sensei/generative-ai/firefly
• Howie Liu (CEO at Airtable): https://www.linkedin.com/in/howieliu/
• ChatGPT: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt
• The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture by Scott Belsky: https://www.amazon.com/Messy-Middle-Finding-Through-Hardest/dp/0735218072
• Adobe Express: https://www.adobe.com/express
• Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell: https://www.amazon.com/Build-Unorthodox-Guide-Making-Things/dp/0063046067
• Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey on Netflix: https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Cosmos-A-Spacetime-Odyssey/80004448
• Vinod Khosla’s prediction: https://futurism.com/80-of-it-jobs-can-be-replaced-by-automation-and-its-exciting
• Queue: https://www.queue.co/
• Tome: https://tome.app/
• Kevin Kelly on The Tim Ferriss Show: https://tim.blog/2014/08/29/kevin-kelly/
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
—
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Today on the flagship podcast of the difference between CMYK and RGB colors:
02:19 - David talks about the future of Photoshop with Adobe's Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky.
13:37 - Verge senior reporter James Vincent joins the show to discuss generative AI art and all its possibilities and complications.
43:05 - The Verge's Kristen Radtke and Jess Weatherbed chat with David about Pantone's new subscription service and what it means for artists and designers.
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we'd love to hear from you.
We are conducting a short audience survey to help plan for our future and hear from you. To participate, head to vox.com/podsurvey, and thank you!
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VALENCIA, Spain — WebAssembly (Wasm) is among the more hot topics under the CNCF project umbrella. In this episode of The New Stack Makers podcast, recorded on the show floor of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2022, Liam Randall, CEO and co-founder, Cosmonic, and Colin Murphy, senior software engineer, Adobe, discuss why Wasm’s future looks bright.
A quintessential feature of Wasm is that it functions on a CPU level, not unlike Java or Flash. This means, Randall said, that Wasm “can run anywhere.” “Everybody can start using Wasm, which functionally works like a tiny CPU. You can even put WebAssembly inside other applications.”
The fact that Wasm has a binary format (with .wasm file format) and can be used to run on a CPU level like C or C++ does means it is highly portable. “WebAssembly really is exciting because it gives us two fundamental things that are truly amazing: One is portability across a diverse set of CPUs and architectures, and even portability into other places, like into a web browser,” said Randall. “It also gives us a security model that's portable, and works the same across all of those different landscape settings.”
This portability makes wasm an excellent candidate for edge applications. Its inference capabilities for machine learning (ML) at the edge are particularly promising for applications distributed across many different applications, Murphy described. Wasm is also particularly apt for collaboration for ML edge and other applications. “Collaborative experiences are what WebAssembly is really perfectly in position for," he continued.
In many ways, the name “WebAssembly” is not intuitively reflective of its meaning. “WebAssembly is neither web nor assembly — so, it's a somewhat awkwardly named technology, but a technology that is worth looking into,” Randall said. “There are incredible opportunities for your internal teams to transform the way they do business to save costs and be more secure by adopting this new standard.”
Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, master of product reviews, author, investor, and currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud.
Tony Fadell, often referred to as the father of the iPod is one of the leading product thinkers of the last 30 years as one of the makers of some of the most game-changing products in society from the iPhone and iPod to more recently founding Nest.
Lenny Rachitsky is one of the OGs of product, having spent over 7 years at Airbnb as a product lead he left to start his newsletter, find it here.
Kayvon Beykpour is one of the most prominent product leaders of the last decade. For the last 7 years, Kayvon has been at Twitter where he led all of the teams across Product, Engineering, Design, Research and Customer Service & Operations.
Aparna Chennapragada is Chief Product Officer @ Robinhood, the company revolutionising consumer finance with commission-free investing.
In Today's Episode Breaking Down Product Reviews We Discuss:
1.) What makes a truly great product review?
2.) What are the biggest mistakes that product leaders make when leading product reviews?
3.) Who should be invited to the product review? How does this change with scale? How does this change in a world of remote work and Zoom?
4.) Who should set the agenda for the product review?
5.) How can leaders assign accountability and ensure that the follow-ups from product reviews are executed on?
6.) How can leaders ensure that they do not dominate product reviews with the weight of their words? How can they give designers and devs the space to share their thoughts without being judged?
Organizations need livable values that drive the business and employees. If appropriately discussed and embedded, a values playbook can be the hallmark of your organization and one of the most strategic tools founders and managers have.
Emery Wells, co-founder of Frame.io, discusses how to set results-driven company values and why it's essential to embed those values into every part of the employee lifecycle.
Full video: https://youtu.be/CwoHIZ16ess
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(00:00) Introducing Josh Wolfe
(02:41) Elon Musk Buys Twitter Because No One Told Him He Can Buy Other Stuff
(39:58) Bolt, Katara, and the World’s Greatest Time to be a Law Firm
(56:53) Introducing Scott Belsky
(57:18) Trying to Explain Twitter
(67:55) Algorithms and Free Speech
Follow the show:
https://twitter.com/cartoonavatars
https://www.instagram.com/cartoonavatars/
https://www.tiktok.com/@cartoonavatars
Follow the hosts:
https://twitter.com/loganbartlett
https://twitter.com/wolfejosh
https://twitter.com/scottbelsky
Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky
Produced: Andrew Nadeau and Rashad Assir
Executive Producer: Josh Machiz
Music: Griff Lawson
Musk buys Twitter: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/technology/twitter-employees-elon-musk.html
Sam Lessin article: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/elon-musk-is-silicon-valleys-new-hero-for-better-or-worse
Jack Dorsey’s tweet on Musk’s purchase: https://twitter.com/jack/status/1518772753460998145?s=20&t=njyqUGHJChL4oAQdEkkTCw
Bolt Sued by Forever 21: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/forever-21-parent-authentic-brands-sues-bolt-startup
Katera sues ex-CEO: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/bankrupt-startup-that-blew-2-billion-from-softbank-sues-ex-ceo-board-directors-over-self-dealing
Softbank cuts spending: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-25/softbank-cuts-back-spending-leaving-startups-desperate-for-cash
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir
Producer: Leah Clapper
Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky
Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA
🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1
Follow on Socials
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow
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🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow
About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.
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Scott Belsky is an entrepreneur, author, investor, and currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott oversees all of product and engineering for Creative Cloud, as well as design for Adobe. In 2006, Scott founded Behance, the leading online platform for the creative industry, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Behance now has over 25M members. Scott is also an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, Sweetgreen, Carta, Flexport, Airtable, and several others. Finally, if that was not enough, Scott is the author of two national bestselling books - Making Ideas Happen and The Messy Middle.
In Today's Episode with Scott Belsky You Will Learn:
1.) Narrow the Focus, Increase the Quality:
What does Scott believe is the core challenge in product?
What was the single biggest product challenge Scott faced at Behance? How did they overcome it?
When should product teams listen to customer feedback vs ignore it?
What are the core questions product teams should ask user groups to extract the most feedback and value?
2.) The Importance of the First Mile:
What does Scott believe makes a great first mile when it comes to the product experience?
Where do so many companies go wrong in creating the first mile user experience?
Which company at scale has retained this simplicity of the first mile? How did they do it?
What does Scott mean when he says, "the devil is in the defaults"? What can product teams learn from this?
3.) The Makings of a Great Product Leader:
What are the 3 core questions every great product leader should ask on every screen?
How do the best product leaders structure product reviews?
Who is invited to product reviews? How often are they? Who sets the agenda? When is it sent?
What do the best product leaders do to retain direction and productivity in reviews when there are many people and many ideas? How do they stay on track?
4.) The Hirings of a Great Product Team:
How can founders know whether to hire the product leader or retain the role? When is the right time?
What are the single biggest mistakes founders make when hiring their first product hires?
How should founders structure the hiring process for product hires? What should they look to gain from each interview?
What are the must ask questions in those interviews? How do the best respond?
What case studies or physical tests can be done to determine the quality of a candidate?
Adobe is one of those companies that I don’t think we pay enough attention to — it’s been around since 1982, and the entire creative economy runs through its software. You don’t just edit a photo, you Photoshop it. We spend a lot of time on Decoder talking about the creator economy, but creators themselves spend all their time working in Adobe’s tools. On this episode, I’m talking to Scott Belsky, chief product officer at Adobe, about the new features coming to their products, many of which focus on collaboration, and about creativity broadly — who gets to be a creative, where they might work, and how they get paid.
Transcript
Links:
NFTs Explained
Adobe brings a simplified Photoshop to the web
Adobe is adding a collaborative mood board to Creative Cloud
Soon you can use Photoshop to prepare your art as an NFT
The Dog Ramps Tweet
The Furry Lisa, CryptoArt, & The New Economy Of Digital Creativity
A $120,000 Banana Is Peeled From an Art Exhibition and Eaten
Adobe and Twitter are designing a system for permanently attaching artists’ names to pictures
"I still own you" clip
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today’s episode was produced by Creighton DeSimone, Alexander Charles Adams, and Andrew Marino and we are edited by Callie Wright. Our music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.
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Adobe's head of research, Gavin Miller, talks about AI-enhanced creativity, guarding against manipulation of visual media and his own AI-enabled robot snakes.
For the next four Tuesdays, Verge senior reporter Ashley Carman will explore how artificial intelligence and machine learning are shaping the future of a variety of industries.
In this episode, Ashley explores how AI is being used to streamline video creation.
Guests include VP of Adobe Sensei Scott Prevost, co-founder and co-CEO of Flawless Scott Mann, and Verge senior reporter James Vincent.
This podcast was made by producer Liam James, senior audio director Andru Marino, senior reporter James Vincent, and senior reporter Ashley Carman.
Read more here
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NFTs have gotten a bad rap for being involved in crazy prices for questionable artwork but is there more to NFTs outside making digital art collectible? Christian Cantrell to give us what possibilities there are for the blockchain based token.
Starring Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Christian Cantrell , Roger Chang, Joe.
Link to the Show Notes.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
My guest today is Scott Belsky. Scott was the co-founder and CEO of Behance, the world's largest creative network, and a prolific angel investor, having made early-stage investments in Pinterest, Uber, Carta, and Airtable. His company was acquired by Adobe in 2012, where he is currently the chief product officer. In this conversation, we cover the importance of focusing on the first mile of a customer's experience with your product, why every user is (at first) either lazy, vain or selfish, and what the rise of creativity tools means for creators and investors in the future. We also cover the major trends that Scott thinks will dominate for the next decade. This was one of those conversations where I was left with 10 great lessons that will stick with me for a long time. Please enjoy my conversation with Scott Belsky.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
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Show Notes
[00:03:24] - [First question] - Philosophy for building great products
[00:04:52] - Starting the journey of building a great product
[00:06:08] - Making the first mile better
[00:08:12] - Understanding user progress in product building
[00:10:25] - Getting to awareness and attention and interest in a product
[00:12:41] - The concept of window dressing
[00:14:24] - Taking an idea and turning it into a high-value product
[00:14:42] - The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture and Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality
[00:16:49] - Keeping rewards structure in place for teams to stay engaged
[00:19:56] - Using his knowledge in product building to invest in other companies
[00:24:00] - The concept of object model
[00:25:52] - User psychology concepts they keep in mind when designing a product
[00:27:51] - Implementing all of these strategies into a product
[00:29:25] - The era of eduployment
[00:31:05] - How this will impact colleges
[00:33:27] - The evolution of the talent/audience relationship
[00:35:32] - Decentralization and the companies of 1
[00:37:44] - How that decentralization will impact his investment thesis
[00:39:21] - How increased productivity tools could help with more creativity in the workplace
[00:42:04] - Training people to be more creative in the workplace
[00:44:33] - Future of user interfaces
[00:44:58] - The Interface Layer: Where Design Commoditizes Tech
[00:48:10] - Good design principles
[00:49:51] - The future coming out of Covid
[00:52:09] - Kindest thing anyone has done for him
The Verge's Nilay Patel talks with former Google engineer Marc Levoy about his move to Adobe, the state of the smartphone camera, and the future of computational photography.
We are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here: voxmedia.com/podsurvey.
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Success in the Enterprise means ensuring consumerization is a part of your strategy. Scott Belsky, CPO, EVP of Creative Cloud at Adobe will explore key tactics to focus on the user experience.
This episode is an excerpt from a session at SaaStr Summit: Enterprise.
Full video: https://youtu.be/FPMKXanghWM
Podcast transcript: https://www.saastr.com/saastr-podcasts-for-the-week-with-scott-belsky-robin-choy-and-jason-lemkin/
Chief Product Officer of Adobe Scott Belsky chats with Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel and reporter Dami Lee about what he learned from putting Photoshop on the iPad, adapting products to new creators and platforms, Creative Cloud for the Mac Pro, and the goals of the Content Authenticity Initiative.
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We've got a different flavor today for you. We sat down with Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky) join us today and instead of hearing his backstory, we bounced around a bunch of topics. Scott has done it all. He's been a founder (Behance), angel investor (Uber, Pinterest), VC (Benchmark), Tech Executive (CPO of Adobe currently), and Author (The Messy Middle). So sit back, grab a salad (cause we're healthy in 2020) and enjoy this conversation.
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Gavin Miller is the Head of Adobe Research. Adobe have empowered artists, designers, and creative minds from all professions working in the digital medium for over 30 years with software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects, InDesign, Audition that work with images, video, and audio. Adobe Research is working to define the future evolution of these products in a way that makes the life of creatives easier, automates the tedious tasks, and gives more & more time to operate in the idea space instead of pixel space. This is where the cutting-edge deep learning methods of the past decade can shine more than perhaps any other application. Gavin is the embodiment of combing tech and creativity. Outside of Adobe Research, he writes poetry & builds robots. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations.
Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and investor. He currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Before Adobe, Scott co-founded Behance in 2006 and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Alongside his role at Adobe, Scott is a Venture Partner at one of the world's leading venture firms, Benchmark. Scott also actively advises and invests in startups personally having one of the most incredible angel portfolios with early checks in Pinterest, Uber, Periscope, Warby Parker, Carta, Flexport and more. Scott is also the author of Harry's favourite book of 2018, The Messy Middle.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Scott made his way into the world of startups with Behance, how that translated to the world of angel investing and being Chief Product Officer @ Adobe? WHat does Scott mean when he discusses the correlation between utilisation and happiness?
2.) What does Scott mean when he says he looks for people whereby 'conversations improve by step function?" What are the best examples of this? How have they shown this? How does Scott think startups founders can manufacture motivation? How has Scott seen the best founders hire the very best team? How do the best founders determine between a stretch and a stretch too far?
3.) In terms of product, what does Scott mean when he refers to the "value of slow cooking"? How does that relate to product creation? Why does Scott often have issues with the MVP approach seen today? How does Scott think about the importance of product simplicity? How can one maintain that over time? Why does Scott believe more founders should spend more time crafting the last mile user experience than they do?
4.) Simplicity is great but VCs often suggest, non-defensible, how does Scott think about building defensibility with simplicity? Simplicity often also narrows market size, how does Scott think about and analyse market size today when investing? Where does Scott think many investors go wrong today when trying to measure market size?
5.) What does Scott mean when he says "resources are like carbs, resourcefulness is muscle"? Why does Scott believe we need to challenge our faith in the strength of resources? What advice does Scott given when founders ask, "when is the right time to raise big"? How has Scott's writing of the book influenced his mindset when engaging with founders today and investing?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Scott's Fave Book: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage to the Antarctic
Scott's Most Recent Investment: Assembled Brands
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Scott on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
