Scott Belsky

Founded Behance (acquired by Adobe for $150M+), then served as Adobe's Chief Product Officer overseeing design, product, and engineering -- a rare founder-to-CPO arc that spans bootstrapped startup to 25,000-person creative software company. Their core argument: Product sense is built through deep empathy and understanding human psychology -- it starts with the customer's suffering, not your solution. The evidence is specific: Adobe Photoshop's evolution from a $500+ product to a $10/month subscription, requiring complete reimagination of the first-mile experience for less technical users. Furthermore, tesla as a company that generates word-of-mouth by doing unexpected things rather than expected things well. In Scott Belsky's own words: "First of all, I think the biggest mistakes that teams make is they become very passionate about a solution to a problem they're trying to solve as opposed to do everything they can to develop empathy for the customer that's suffering the problem. And oftentimes, the empathy gives you the solution, whereas the passion you have for whatever you think the solution is might be 30 degrees off." (Answering Lenny's question about how he built his product sense, immediately redirecting from solutions to empathy.)

As the founder of Behance and former CPO/CSO of Adobe overseeing design, product, and engineering, Belsky has applied empathy-driven product development at both startup and Fortune 500 scale, including reimagining first-mile experiences for products like Photoshop used by millions. Their core argument: Build product sense through empathy and curiosity, not just formal research. The evidence is specific: Photoshop at $10/month attracts fundamentally different users than at hundreds of dollars -- requiring first-mile reinvention. Furthermore, at Adobe, Belsky broke down boundaries between design, product, and engineering to ship better experiences. Tesla's Autopilot is cited as an example of a product feature people talk about because it exceeds expectations. In Scott Belsky's own words: "First of all, I think the biggest mistakes that teams make is they become very passionate about a solution to a problem they're trying to solve before they even fully understand the problem." (On why empathy-based understanding matters more than solution-focused research.)