Scott Weiss

Scott Weiss
Alma mater University of Florida (B.A.)
Harvard Business School (M.B.A.)
Occupation Venture capitalist
Known for General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz

Scott Weiss is a venture capitalist at the Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz, joining in April 2011 as the firm’s fourth general partner.[1] A native of Sarasota, Florida,[2] he founded and was CEO of IronPort Systems,[3] which Cisco acquired in 2007 for $830 million.[1] Weiss has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Florida and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.[4]

Andreessen Horowitz

While at Andreessen Horowitz, Weiss has blogged on such topics as corporate transparency for All Things D[5] and enterprise startup best practices for GigaOM.[6] He serves on the boards of Distelli, Platfora, Silver Tail Systems, Bluebox, and Jumio[4] as well as Skout,[7] App.Net,[8] and Return Path.[9]

Weiss is credited with bringing to the firm 360-degree feedback performance reviews of partners by other partners, venture firms and entrepreneurs of the companies in Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio. This type of performance review is an unusual practice for venture capital firms.[10]

In April, Scott Weiss joined the Board of Directors of Optimizely as part of Andreesen Horowitz's Series B round in the company.[11]

Early career

Before joining Andreessen Horowitz, Weiss was vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Security Technology Group, a position he assumed following Cisco’s acquisition of email appliance provider IronPort Systems.[3] Weiss co-founded IronPort Systems in 2001 with Scott Banister,[2] with whom he had worked at Idealab. Over the next six years, IronPort Systems grew from two people into a company with 450 employees and a $200 million run rate.[2]

Weiss was the managing director and entrepreneur in residence at Idealab, a business incubator.[4] Prior to Idealab, he headed MSN business development at Microsoft and was employee no. 13 at Hotmail, an email provider Microsoft acquired in 1998.[3] At Hotmail, Weiss was responsible for partnership and revenue generating business development efforts.[4] Prior to Hotmail, Weiss was an associate at McKinsey & Company and spent his first five years out of college at Electronic Data Systems.[4]

Philanthropy

In April 2012, Weiss along with Andreessen Horowitz General Partners Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Jeff Jordan, John O’Farrell and Peter Levine pledged to give half of their lifetime income from venture capital to charity.[12]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tam, Pui-Wing (1 March 2011). "Andreessen Horowitz Adds Another General Partner". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Weiss, Scott. "About". Blog. Andreesseen Horowitz. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Primack, Dan (1 March 2011). "Andreessen Horowitz names its fourth partner". CNNMoney. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Scott Weiss". Executive Profile. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  5. ↑ Weiss, Scott. "Ridiculously Transparent". Voices. All Things D. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  6. ↑ Weiss, Scott. "Project Blowfish: Look like the brand you want to be". Blog post. GigaOM. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  7. ↑ Wauters, Robin (3 April 2012). "Location-based flirting app Skout hooks up with Andreessen Horowitz, scores $22 million". TNW Insider. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  8. ↑ Isaac, Mike (2 August 2012). "Marc Andreessen Steps Down From Dalton Caldwell’s Mixed Media Labs Board". All Things D. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  9. ↑ "Board of Directors". Website. Return Path. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  10. ↑ Geron, Tomio (1 March 2011). "New Andreessen Horowitz Hire Keeps Focus On Entrepreneurs". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 10 August 2012.
  11. ↑ "Website Testing Company Optimizely Raises $57M Round Led By Andreessen Horowitz". TechCrunch. May 5, 2014. Retrieved March 17, 2015.
  12. ↑ McBride, Sarah. "Andreessen Horowitz partners pledge income to charity". Reuters. Retrieved 3 August 2012.

External links