Dan Scholnick

About Dan Scholnick

My entrepreneurs like to call me because they can say whatever is on their minds and know I won’t freak out or judge. I help them bring structure to their thoughts and get to the bottom of whatever problem they need to solve.

What is your investment focus and why?

I am interested in macro trends in the enterprise and infrastructure software, especially the transition towards cloud computing and away from legacy architectures. I fully believe that the future of data center and application architecture look like cloud computing architecture. It will be scaled out, utility-based, and globally-distributed. The entire IT ecosystem is going to transform to cloud architecture over time. This shift will be of the order of magnitude of the shift from mainframe to client-server that we saw in the 90’s. This is the type of change we only see every couple of decades, and it offers a big opportunity for startups.

How do you form relationships with entrepreneurs?

I build deep relationships with our CEOs. Ensuring that they feel comfortable around me is incredibly important. My entrepreneurs like to call me because they can say whatever is on their minds and know I won’t freak out or judge. Instead, I help them bring structure to their thoughts and get to the bottom of whatever problems they need to solve.

What unique contributions do you make to a company as a VC?

I make great coffee! On a more serious note, I have a unique lens. I was the second employee of Wily, the company that invented application performance management. There I built the first version of the company’s product alongside founder Lew Cirne -- who later went on to found Trinity portfolio company New Relic (NEWR). I was also one of the co-founders of Flurry, the leading mobile analytics and advertising network. I’ve seen three complete “rounds” of transformation (the first devops revolution, the rise of mobile, and the cloud/devops transition), all as a developer, technologist and product-oriented entrepreneur. With this background and perspective, I am able to help entrepreneurs marry product and business strategy while keeping an eye on broad, macro trends.