Scott Belsky on "The Messy Middle" - Pilcrow House #1
Channel: Pilcrow House
Date: 2019-01-03

For its first event, Pilcrow House welcomes Scott Belsky, author of the newly released The Messy Middle in a one-on-one conversation with Pilcrow House founder Sean Blanda about creativity, business, entrepreneurship, and launching products that people care about.

Buy tickets to future Pilcrow House events: http://pilcrow.house
Scott's book: https://www.amazon.com/Messy-Middle-Finding-Through-Hardest/dp/0735218072
Scott's Twitter: https://twitter.com/scottbelsky

*In this conversation:* 

0:00 - Welcome + the Pilcrow House mission
1:22 - Welcoming Scott Belsky 
2:35 - Why does the “Messy Middle” matter to both entrepreneurs and people with full time jobs? 
5:45 - The danger of celebrating fake wins like financing and funding
9:58 - Resourcefulness is more important than resources. Money obfuscates problems.
13:08 - How Scott screens possible hires
13:57 - “Insecurity work” and making time for long term strategy via windows of non-stimulation.
18:17 - The importance of “manufactured goals” and conquering Beyonce
21:46 - Stopping people (and yourself) from optimizing the wrong thing 
23:35 - Process is the excretion of misalignment
26:40 - How to get people to decide and move on when progress stalls
28:09 - The most aggressive move Adobe ever made
29:45 - The mantra of “doing your fucking job” and how to make tough choices empathically
33:48 - Why eliminating friction can be a bad thing
35:35 - “disagree and commit” how to build in friction without blowing up your team. (Scott’s mic cuts out a bit here. Sorry!)

*About Scott Belsky*

Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and investor (and all-around product obsessive). He currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud.
Scott's passion is to make the creative world more productive, connected, and adaptive to new technologies. Scott co-founded Behance in 2006, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Millions of people use Behance to display their portfolios, as well as track and find top talent across the creative industries.

After Behance's acquisition, Scott helped reboot Adobe's mobile product strategy and led Behance until 2016, when he spent a few years as an investor and advisor to multiple businesses. Alongside his role at Adobe, Scott is a Venture Partner at Benchmark - a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, an early-stage investor, and is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Prefer, a referrals platform that empowers the careers of independent professionals (aka "Soloists").