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Banister is the son of Debbie and Bruce Banister (1951–2006), a civil engineer who lived in Kansas City, Missouri.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2016-08-12|title=Obituary for Bruce Banister|pages=A13|work=The Kansas City Star|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68290852/obituary-for-bruce-banister/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-01-23}}</ref> According to [[Jimmy Soni]],
Banister is the son of Debbie and Bruce Banister (1951–2006), a civil engineer who lived in Kansas City, Missouri.<ref>{{Cite news|date=2016-08-12|title=Obituary for Bruce Banister|pages=A13|work=The Kansas City Star|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/68290852/obituary-for-bruce-banister/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-01-23}}</ref> According to [[Jimmy Soni]],


{{Quote|text=Hailing from Missouri, Banister took to technology early. In high school, and then college, he kindled a passion for creating websites and came to [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign|UIUC]] because of its exceptional reputation in computer science... Banister also chafed against the confines of traditional education, and he began to treat college as a target to hack. He devised workarounds to UIUC rules, including an audacious scheme in which he created a company, hired himself as an intern, then used the internship to earn course credit.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Soni |first=Jimmy |url=https://books.google.co.in/books?id=0DZbEAAAQBAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA9&dq=%22Scott+Banister%22&hl=en&redir_esc=y |title=The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley |date=2022-02-22 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-5011-9726-0 |pages=11–12|quote=Before they met Levchin, ACM had also brought Nosek and Scott Banister together. Banister would become the first in their trio to set off to Silicon Valley, the first to sell a start-up, and an investor in the earliest iteration of PayPal, ultimately serving as a founding board member. Hailing from Missouri, Banister took to technology early. In high school, and then college, he kindled a passion for creating websites and came to UIUC because of its exceptional reputation in computer science. By the time he and Nosek first met, Banister also chafed against the confines of traditional education, and he began to treat college as a target to hack. He devised workarounds to UIUC rules, including an audacious scheme in which he created a company, hired himself as an intern, then used the internship to earn course credit. Iconoclastic, intense, soft-spoken, and with “Jesus-like hair,” Banister became a guiding light for both Nosek and Levchin, and the three became fast friends and collaborators.
{{Quote|text=Hailing from Missouri, Banister took to technology early. In high school, and then college, he kindled a passion for creating websites and came to [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign|UIUC]] because of its exceptional reputation in computer science... Banister also chafed against the confines of traditional education, and he began to treat college as a target to hack. He devised workarounds to UIUC rules, including an audacious scheme in which he created a company, hired himself as an intern, then used the internship to earn course credit.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Soni |first=Jimmy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0DZbEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Scott+Banister%22&pg=PA9 |title=The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley |date=2022-02-22 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-5011-9726-0 |pages=11–12|quote=Before they met Levchin, ACM had also brought Nosek and Scott Banister together. Banister would become the first in their trio to set off to Silicon Valley, the first to sell a start-up, and an investor in the earliest iteration of PayPal, ultimately serving as a founding board member. Hailing from Missouri, Banister took to technology early. In high school, and then college, he kindled a passion for creating websites and came to UIUC because of its exceptional reputation in computer science. By the time he and Nosek first met, Banister also chafed against the confines of traditional education, and he began to treat college as a target to hack. He devised workarounds to UIUC rules, including an audacious scheme in which he created a company, hired himself as an intern, then used the internship to earn course credit. Iconoclastic, intense, soft-spoken, and with “Jesus-like hair,” Banister became a guiding light for both Nosek and Levchin, and the three became fast friends and collaborators.
|language=en}}</ref>}}
|language=en}}</ref>}}


Banister's original intent in attending UIUC was to become a professor of computer science.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Ellsberg |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.co.in/books?id=6fJvDwAAQBAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&hl=en&redir_esc=y |title=The Education of Millionaires: Everything You Won't Learn in College About How to Be Successful |date=2012-09-25 |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |isbn=978-1-59184-561-4 |pages=203–204 |language=en |quote=Self-educated serial entrepreneur Scott Banister, who sold his IronPort Web security appliance company to Cisco in 2007 for $830 million, is a living example of focusing on outcome instead of output. Scott was studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the late nineties, with the intention of becoming a professor of computer science. On the side of his studies, he began teaching himself HTML (hypertext markup language). He soon applied for and got a job as a webmaster, and then started various Web companies, including a banner ad company with college buddy Max Levchin.<br />..."I found quickly that, by day I was going to class, learning a bunch of abstract, theoretical stuff, whereas by night, I was working on a business. I could see that business is how things actually get done in the world, and how people make money in the world: you build stuff, things that consumers want."<br />...But very quickly it became clear, business is where I'm learning all the real skills that are going to help me for the rest of my life. And this stuff in class, I didn't even know when it is going to help me or anyone else, ever. I realized, getting involved with business sooner rather than later, as opposed to being off in this education bubble, which is very different from the way the world works, was incredibly important for me...<br />...Scott Banister, and other self-educated success stories featured in this book, relentlessly look at the outcome they want to produce in the world and in their lives, and relentlessly focus on how to achieve that, cutting out all extraneous crap not relevant to that outcome. It's one of the key factors that distinguishes those with the entrepreneurial mind-set from those with the employee mind-set.}}</ref> Author Michael Ellsberg writes, "Scott Banister, and other self-educated success stories featured in this book, relentlessly look at the outcome they want to produce in the world and in their lives, and relentlessly focus on how to achieve that..."<ref name=":2" /> Outside the classroom, Banister taught himself [[HTML]], got a job as a [[webmaster]], and started web companies.<ref name=":2" /> Characterizing Banister as a "Self-educated serial entrepreneur", Ellsberg quotes Banister: "I found quickly that, by day I was going to class, learning a bunch of abstract, theoretical stuff, whereas by night, I was working on a business. I could see that business is how things actually get done in the world, and how people make money in the world: you build stuff, things that consumers want."<ref name=":2" />
Banister's original intent in attending UIUC was to become a professor of computer science.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Ellsberg |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6fJvDwAAQBAJ |title=The Education of Millionaires: Everything You Won't Learn in College About How to Be Successful |date=2012-09-25 |publisher=Penguin Publishing Group |isbn=978-1-59184-561-4 |pages=203–204 |language=en |quote=Self-educated serial entrepreneur Scott Banister, who sold his IronPort Web security appliance company to Cisco in 2007 for $830 million, is a living example of focusing on outcome instead of output. Scott was studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the late nineties, with the intention of becoming a professor of computer science. On the side of his studies, he began teaching himself HTML (hypertext markup language). He soon applied for and got a job as a webmaster, and then started various Web companies, including a banner ad company with college buddy Max Levchin.<br />..."I found quickly that, by day I was going to class, learning a bunch of abstract, theoretical stuff, whereas by night, I was working on a business. I could see that business is how things actually get done in the world, and how people make money in the world: you build stuff, things that consumers want."<br />...But very quickly it became clear, business is where I'm learning all the real skills that are going to help me for the rest of my life. And this stuff in class, I didn't even know when it is going to help me or anyone else, ever. I realized, getting involved with business sooner rather than later, as opposed to being off in this education bubble, which is very different from the way the world works, was incredibly important for me...<br />...Scott Banister, and other self-educated success stories featured in this book, relentlessly look at the outcome they want to produce in the world and in their lives, and relentlessly focus on how to achieve that, cutting out all extraneous crap not relevant to that outcome. It's one of the key factors that distinguishes those with the entrepreneurial mind-set from those with the employee mind-set.}}</ref> Author Michael Ellsberg writes, "Scott Banister, and other self-educated success stories featured in this book, relentlessly look at the outcome they want to produce in the world and in their lives, and relentlessly focus on how to achieve that..."<ref name=":2" /> Outside the classroom, Banister taught himself [[HTML]], got a job as a [[webmaster]], and started web companies.<ref name=":2" /> Characterizing Banister as a "Self-educated serial entrepreneur", Ellsberg quotes Banister: "I found quickly that, by day I was going to class, learning a bunch of abstract, theoretical stuff, whereas by night, I was working on a business. I could see that business is how things actually get done in the world, and how people make money in the world: you build stuff, things that consumers want."<ref name=":2" />


[[Computerworld]] reported, "As dozens of search engines popped up on the Web, Banister got his first idea. How could retailers easily capitalize on these search engine workhorses to make their presence known on the Web?"<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Radcliff |first=Deborah |date=May 8, 2000 |title=E-strategists: They are the brains behind successful e-commerce projects, the ultimate pitchmen. Consider the experiences of Scott Banister |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9k0S8eMa-xwC&lpg=RA1-PA92&dq=%22Scott%20Banister%22%20-wikipedia&pg=RA1-PA92#v=onepage&q=%22Scott%20Banister%22%20-wikipedia&f=false |journal=Computerworld |volume=34 |pages=92 |via=Google Books}}</ref> He and friends posted a free registry service, ListServe, the precursor of [[Submit It!]]<ref name=":4" />
[[Computerworld]] reported, "As dozens of search engines popped up on the Web, Banister got his first idea. How could retailers easily capitalize on these search engine workhorses to make their presence known on the Web?"<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Radcliff |first=Deborah |date=May 8, 2000 |title=E-strategists: They are the brains behind successful e-commerce projects, the ultimate pitchmen. Consider the experiences of Scott Banister |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9k0S8eMa-xwC&dq=%22Scott+Banister%22+-wikipedia&pg=RA1-PA92 |journal=Computerworld |volume=34 |pages=92 |via=Google Books}}</ref> He and friends posted a free registry service, ListServe, the precursor of [[Submit It!]]<ref name=":4" />


In the summer of 1995, while Banister still attended University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, he cofounded [[SponsorNet New Media]], Inc., with fellow students [[Max Levchin]] and [[Luke Nosek]].<ref>{{cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=SponsorNet New Media|url=http://www.freebase.com/view/en/sponsornet_new_media|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118185134/http://www.freebase.com/view/en/sponsornet_new_media|archive-date=January 18, 2012|access-date=2011-02-17|website=|publisher=[[Freebase (database)|Freebase]]}}</ref> The three had set up office at the University's chapter of the [[Association for Computing Machinery]] (ACM), and the Department of Computer Science newsletter reported they had "installed a microcontroller on a vintage Dr Pepper vending machine and hooked it up to the internet so that students could buy soda by swiping their student ID cards."<ref name=":2" />
In the summer of 1995, while Banister still attended University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, he cofounded [[SponsorNet New Media]], Inc., with fellow students [[Max Levchin]] and [[Luke Nosek]].<ref>{{cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=SponsorNet New Media|url=http://www.freebase.com/view/en/sponsornet_new_media|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120118185134/http://www.freebase.com/view/en/sponsornet_new_media|archive-date=January 18, 2012|access-date=2011-02-17|website=|publisher=[[Freebase (database)|Freebase]]}}</ref> The three had set up office at the University's chapter of the [[Association for Computing Machinery]] (ACM), and the Department of Computer Science newsletter reported they had "installed a microcontroller on a vintage Dr Pepper vending machine and hooked it up to the internet so that students could buy soda by swiping their student ID cards."<ref name=":2" />
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He was an early investor in [[Powerset (company)|Powerset]], a startup building a [[natural language]] [[search engine]]. His other private equity investments include [[Uber]], [[Zappos.com]], [[LiveOps]], Facebook, [[Hi5.com]], [[Tagged.com]], [[iLike]], [[Causes (company)|Causes.com]], [[Topsy Labs]], Teleport, Inc.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://angel.co/cyantist|title=Scott and Cyan Banister|website=angel.co|access-date=2016-08-05}}</ref> and [[TekTrak]].<ref name="TECHCRUNCH">{{cite web|title=iPhone Tracking Service Provider TekTrak Locates Seed Funding|date=December 14, 2010|publisher=[[TechCrunch]] |url=https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/14/tektrak-seed-funding/|access-date=March 1, 2011}}</ref> Banister also cofounded Zivity, an adult themed social networking site, with his wife, [[Cyan Banister]], and Jeffrey Wescott.<ref name=":1" />
He was an early investor in [[Powerset (company)|Powerset]], a startup building a [[natural language]] [[search engine]]. His other private equity investments include [[Uber]], [[Zappos.com]], [[LiveOps]], Facebook, [[Hi5.com]], [[Tagged.com]], [[iLike]], [[Causes (company)|Causes.com]], [[Topsy Labs]], Teleport, Inc.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://angel.co/cyantist|title=Scott and Cyan Banister|website=angel.co|access-date=2016-08-05}}</ref> and [[TekTrak]].<ref name="TECHCRUNCH">{{cite web|title=iPhone Tracking Service Provider TekTrak Locates Seed Funding|date=December 14, 2010|publisher=[[TechCrunch]] |url=https://techcrunch.com/2010/12/14/tektrak-seed-funding/|access-date=March 1, 2011}}</ref> Banister also cofounded Zivity, an adult themed social networking site, with his wife, [[Cyan Banister]], and Jeffrey Wescott.<ref name=":1" />


David Gelles has identified Banister as one of the [[PayPal Mafia]], former board members of PayPal, influential investors in "a collection of some of the most valuable technology start-ups ever seen".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gelles |first=David |date=2015-04-01 |title=The PayPal Mafia's Golden Touch |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/business/dealbook/the-paypal-mafias-golden-touch.html |url-status=dead |access-date=2021-01-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211102044354/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/business/dealbook/the-paypal-mafias-golden-touch.html |archive-date=November 2, 2021 |issn=0362-4331 |quote="We have a very good collective résumé," said Scott Banister, a former PayPal board member, explaining the sustained influence of the group. "It's not just that you're associated with the company, it's that you're associated with the other people associated with the company."<br />After leaving PayPal, Mr. Banister co-founded an email service, IronPort, which he sold to Cisco Systems for $830 million.}}</ref> In a 2019 [[VentureBeat]] article, Andrew Ganato and Scy Yoon wrote, "[[Peter Thiel]] and Scott Banister, the most prolific investors, are each responsible for investments in over 100 companies. Another half dozen Mafia members have invested in several dozen companies each."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ganato |first=Andrew |last2=Yoon |first2=Scy |date=2019-01-13 |title=A look at the PayPal Mafia’s continued impact on Silicon Valley |url=https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/13/a-look-at-the-paypal-mafias-continued-impact-on-silicon-valley/ |access-date=2022-04-13 |website=VentureBeat}}</ref>
David Gelles has identified Banister as one of the [[PayPal Mafia]], former board members of PayPal, influential investors in "a collection of some of the most valuable technology start-ups ever seen".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gelles |first=David |date=2015-04-01 |title=The PayPal Mafia's Golden Touch |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/business/dealbook/the-paypal-mafias-golden-touch.html |url-status=dead |access-date=2021-01-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211102044354/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/business/dealbook/the-paypal-mafias-golden-touch.html |archive-date=November 2, 2021 |issn=0362-4331 |quote="We have a very good collective résumé," said Scott Banister, a former PayPal board member, explaining the sustained influence of the group. "It's not just that you're associated with the company, it's that you're associated with the other people associated with the company."<br />After leaving PayPal, Mr. Banister co-founded an email service, IronPort, which he sold to Cisco Systems for $830 million.}}</ref> In a 2019 [[VentureBeat]] article, Andrew Ganato and Scy Yoon wrote, "[[Peter Thiel]] and Scott Banister, the most prolific investors, are each responsible for investments in over 100 companies. Another half dozen Mafia members have invested in several dozen companies each."<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Ganato |first1=Andrew |last2=Yoon |first2=Scy |date=2019-01-13 |title=A look at the PayPal Mafia's continued impact on Silicon Valley |url=https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/13/a-look-at-the-paypal-mafias-continued-impact-on-silicon-valley/ |access-date=2022-04-13 |website=VentureBeat}}</ref>


== Personal life ==
== Personal life ==
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== Awards and honors ==
== Awards and honors ==
Cyan and Scott Banister won the Angel of the Year [[Crunchies|Crunchie]] award at the 2016 [[TechCrunch]] ceremonies.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Shivakumar|first=Felicia|date=2016|title=Scott and Cyan Banister Win Angel Investor of the Year at the 9th Annual Crunchies|url=https://techcrunch.com/video/scott-and-cyan-banister-win-angel-investor-of-the-year-at-the-9th-annual-crunchies/|access-date=2018-09-08|website=TechCrunch|language=en-US}}</ref> Jessi Hempel of [[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] wrote that they "won TechCrunch's Angel of the Year award last spring for prescient bets on [[SpaceX]], [[Uber]], and [[DeepMind Technologies]]."<ref name="Hempel 2017">{{cite web|last=Hempel|first=Jessi|date=11 October 2016|title=The Venture Capitalist Who Is Both a Man and a Woman|url=https://www.wired.com/2016/10/the-venture-capitalist-who-is-both-a-man-and-a-woman/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171209071905/https://www.wired.com/2016/10/the-venture-capitalist-who-is-both-a-man-and-a-woman/|archive-date=9 December 2017|access-date=September 7, 2018|website=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]}}</ref>
Cyan and Scott Banister won the Angel of the Year [[Crunchies|Crunchie]] award at the 2016 [[TechCrunch]] ceremonies.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Shivakumar|first=Felicia|date=2016|title=Scott and Cyan Banister Win Angel Investor of the Year at the 9th Annual Crunchies|url=https://techcrunch.com/video/scott-and-cyan-banister-win-angel-investor-of-the-year-at-the-9th-annual-crunchies/|access-date=2018-09-08|website=TechCrunch|language=en-US}}</ref> Jessi Hempel of [[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] wrote that they "won TechCrunch's Angel of the Year award last spring for prescient bets on [[SpaceX]], [[Uber]], and [[DeepMind Technologies]]."<ref name="Hempel 2017">{{cite magazine|last=Hempel|first=Jessi|date=11 October 2016|title=The Venture Capitalist Who Is Both a Man and a Woman|url=https://www.wired.com/2016/10/the-venture-capitalist-who-is-both-a-man-and-a-woman/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171209071905/https://www.wired.com/2016/10/the-venture-capitalist-who-is-both-a-man-and-a-woman/|archive-date=9 December 2017|access-date=September 7, 2018|magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]}}</ref>


In 2015, [[Eugene Volokh]] announced that the UCLA First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic would be renamed the ''Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic'', "in recognition of the Banisters' very generous gift in support of the clinic."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Volokh |first=Eugene |date=18 February 2015 |title=The Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/02/18/the-scott-cyan-banister-first-amendment-clinic/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150219201515/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/02/18/the-scott-cyan-banister-first-amendment-clinic/ |archive-date=19 February 2015 |access-date=12 November 2018 |website=The Washington Post |language=en |quote=I'm delighted to report that the UCLA First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic that I run has changed its name, to the Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic, in recognition of the Banisters' very generous gift in support of the clinic.<br />Scott and Cyan Banister are angel investors, mostly in technology (Scott Banister is best known as a co-founder of IronPort, an e-mail appliance provider that was bought by Cisco in 2007, and as an early adviser and board member at PayPal, where he co-invented the "e-mail payments" feature) but now also in First Amendment litigation. Many, many thanks to Scott & Cyan for supporting our work!}}</ref>
In 2015, [[Eugene Volokh]] announced that the UCLA First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic would be renamed the ''Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic'', "in recognition of the Banisters' very generous gift in support of the clinic."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Volokh |first=Eugene |date=18 February 2015 |title=The Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/02/18/the-scott-cyan-banister-first-amendment-clinic/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150219201515/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/02/18/the-scott-cyan-banister-first-amendment-clinic/ |archive-date=19 February 2015 |access-date=12 November 2018 |newspaper=The Washington Post |language=en |quote=I'm delighted to report that the UCLA First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic that I run has changed its name, to the Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic, in recognition of the Banisters' very generous gift in support of the clinic.<br />Scott and Cyan Banister are angel investors, mostly in technology (Scott Banister is best known as a co-founder of IronPort, an e-mail appliance provider that was bought by Cisco in 2007, and as an early adviser and board member at PayPal, where he co-invented the "e-mail payments" feature) but now also in First Amendment litigation. Many, many thanks to Scott & Cyan for supporting our work!}}</ref>


== References ==
== References ==

Revision as of 14:21, 15 April 2022

Scott Banister
Born1975 (age 49–50)
Kansas City, Missouri
Alma materUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, investor
Known forCo-founder of IronPort
SpouseCyan Banister

Scott Banister (born 1975) is an American entrepreneur, startup founder, and angel investor. He cofounded the anti-spam company IronPort, and he was an early advisor and board member at PayPal. He invented paid search advertising via keyword auction, the core business model for internet advertising companies like Google and Facebook.

Early life and career

Banister is the son of Debbie and Bruce Banister (1951–2006), a civil engineer who lived in Kansas City, Missouri.[1] According to Jimmy Soni,

Hailing from Missouri, Banister took to technology early. In high school, and then college, he kindled a passion for creating websites and came to UIUC because of its exceptional reputation in computer science... Banister also chafed against the confines of traditional education, and he began to treat college as a target to hack. He devised workarounds to UIUC rules, including an audacious scheme in which he created a company, hired himself as an intern, then used the internship to earn course credit.[2]

Banister's original intent in attending UIUC was to become a professor of computer science.[3] Author Michael Ellsberg writes, "Scott Banister, and other self-educated success stories featured in this book, relentlessly look at the outcome they want to produce in the world and in their lives, and relentlessly focus on how to achieve that..."[3] Outside the classroom, Banister taught himself HTML, got a job as a webmaster, and started web companies.[3] Characterizing Banister as a "Self-educated serial entrepreneur", Ellsberg quotes Banister: "I found quickly that, by day I was going to class, learning a bunch of abstract, theoretical stuff, whereas by night, I was working on a business. I could see that business is how things actually get done in the world, and how people make money in the world: you build stuff, things that consumers want."[3]

Computerworld reported, "As dozens of search engines popped up on the Web, Banister got his first idea. How could retailers easily capitalize on these search engine workhorses to make their presence known on the Web?"[4] He and friends posted a free registry service, ListServe, the precursor of Submit It![4]

In the summer of 1995, while Banister still attended University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, he cofounded SponsorNet New Media, Inc., with fellow students Max Levchin and Luke Nosek.[5] The three had set up office at the University's chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and the Department of Computer Science newsletter reported they had "installed a microcontroller on a vintage Dr Pepper vending machine and hooked it up to the internet so that students could buy soda by swiping their student ID cards."[3]

Banister was the first of the three friends to leave for Silicon Valley and the first to sell a start-up.[2] He left college during his sophomore year in 1996 to cofound Submit It!, "a free, automated resource for bringing your page to the attention of many Web-searching outfits at once", according to The New York Times.[6] Ali Partovi called it "a simple but elegant concept that turned out to be one of the best business ideas in history".[7] Submit It! was acquired by LinkExchange in June 1998.[8]

In December 2000, with Scott Weiss, Banister "cofounded spam-blocking firm IronPort to stop porn from flooding corporate in-boxes".[9] It was acquired in 2007 by Cisco for US$830 million.[10]

Banister has worked with other start-ups as a board member and investor, including eVoice, the first email-enabled home voicemail service acquired by AOL in 2001. He served as VP of Ideas at idealab!, where he contributed the unique bid-for-placement search engine model that powers Overture.[7][11]

He was an early investor in Powerset, a startup building a natural language search engine. His other private equity investments include Uber, Zappos.com, LiveOps, Facebook, Hi5.com, Tagged.com, iLike, Causes.com, Topsy Labs, Teleport, Inc.[12] and TekTrak.[13] Banister also cofounded Zivity, an adult themed social networking site, with his wife, Cyan Banister, and Jeffrey Wescott.[9]

David Gelles has identified Banister as one of the PayPal Mafia, former board members of PayPal, influential investors in "a collection of some of the most valuable technology start-ups ever seen".[14] In a 2019 VentureBeat article, Andrew Ganato and Scy Yoon wrote, "Peter Thiel and Scott Banister, the most prolific investors, are each responsible for investments in over 100 companies. Another half dozen Mafia members have invested in several dozen companies each."[15]

Personal life

Banner met his wife Cyan when she was managing IronPort's blacklist of spammers, and they married in two years later.[9]

Banister is a marijuana rights activist, supporting legalization in Arizona and other states.[16]

Banister was a supporter of Republican Senator Rand Paul.[17] In 2015, Banister donated $3 million to a Super PAC supporting Paul's presidential bid.[18] He later switched his endorsement to Ted Cruz after Paul suspended his campaign.[19]

Banister lives in Half Moon Bay, California.[20]

Awards and honors

Cyan and Scott Banister won the Angel of the Year Crunchie award at the 2016 TechCrunch ceremonies.[21] Jessi Hempel of Wired wrote that they "won TechCrunch's Angel of the Year award last spring for prescient bets on SpaceX, Uber, and DeepMind Technologies."[22]

In 2015, Eugene Volokh announced that the UCLA First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic would be renamed the Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic, "in recognition of the Banisters' very generous gift in support of the clinic."[23]

References

  1. ^ "Obituary for Bruce Banister". The Kansas City Star. August 12, 2016. pp. A13. Retrieved January 23, 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ a b Soni, Jimmy (February 22, 2022). The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley. Simon and Schuster. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-1-5011-9726-0. Before they met Levchin, ACM had also brought Nosek and Scott Banister together. Banister would become the first in their trio to set off to Silicon Valley, the first to sell a start-up, and an investor in the earliest iteration of PayPal, ultimately serving as a founding board member. Hailing from Missouri, Banister took to technology early. In high school, and then college, he kindled a passion for creating websites and came to UIUC because of its exceptional reputation in computer science. By the time he and Nosek first met, Banister also chafed against the confines of traditional education, and he began to treat college as a target to hack. He devised workarounds to UIUC rules, including an audacious scheme in which he created a company, hired himself as an intern, then used the internship to earn course credit. Iconoclastic, intense, soft-spoken, and with "Jesus-like hair," Banister became a guiding light for both Nosek and Levchin, and the three became fast friends and collaborators.
  3. ^ a b c d e Ellsberg, Michael (September 25, 2012). The Education of Millionaires: Everything You Won't Learn in College About How to Be Successful. Penguin Publishing Group. pp. 203–204. ISBN 978-1-59184-561-4. Self-educated serial entrepreneur Scott Banister, who sold his IronPort Web security appliance company to Cisco in 2007 for $830 million, is a living example of focusing on outcome instead of output. Scott was studying at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the late nineties, with the intention of becoming a professor of computer science. On the side of his studies, he began teaching himself HTML (hypertext markup language). He soon applied for and got a job as a webmaster, and then started various Web companies, including a banner ad company with college buddy Max Levchin.
    ..."I found quickly that, by day I was going to class, learning a bunch of abstract, theoretical stuff, whereas by night, I was working on a business. I could see that business is how things actually get done in the world, and how people make money in the world: you build stuff, things that consumers want."
    ...But very quickly it became clear, business is where I'm learning all the real skills that are going to help me for the rest of my life. And this stuff in class, I didn't even know when it is going to help me or anyone else, ever. I realized, getting involved with business sooner rather than later, as opposed to being off in this education bubble, which is very different from the way the world works, was incredibly important for me...
    ...Scott Banister, and other self-educated success stories featured in this book, relentlessly look at the outcome they want to produce in the world and in their lives, and relentlessly focus on how to achieve that, cutting out all extraneous crap not relevant to that outcome. It's one of the key factors that distinguishes those with the entrepreneurial mind-set from those with the employee mind-set.
  4. ^ a b Radcliff, Deborah (May 8, 2000). "E-strategists: They are the brains behind successful e-commerce projects, the ultimate pitchmen. Consider the experiences of Scott Banister". Computerworld. 34: 92 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ "SponsorNet New Media". Freebase. Archived from the original on January 18, 2012. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
  6. ^ Gleick, James (May 5, 1996). "FAST FORWARD; Hall of Mirrors". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on January 29, 2021. Retrieved January 23, 2021. In ancient times, it was enough to post photographs of your pet gecko. Now that the novelty has worn off, some Web sites are thriving by inventing services -- catering, for example, to people who want to publicize their Web sites. Scott Banister started Submit It, a free, automated resource for bringing your page to the attention of many Web-searching outfits at once.
    "A lot of people mail me -- they're depressed because they don't show up until the third page of the search results," says Banister. "They're tremendously worried about this kind of thing." So some people cheat. Some of the robots that compile Web indexes can be fooled by brute force: "If you're selling surfboards," Banister says, "you put the word 'surfboard' down at the bottom of your page 500 times."
    Like so many Web innovators, Banister began his service because he needed it himself and because "it seemed like a cool thing to do." Now, of course, he's selling advertising.
  7. ^ a b Partovi, Ali (August 29, 2010). "Bubble Blinders: The Untold Story of the Search Business Model". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 1, 2020. The story begins in 1996 with an 18-year-old college dropout named Scott Banister, who came up with a simple but elegant concept that turned out to be one of the best business ideas in history.
    While the big guys were collectively ignoring search, a few startups were acutely aware of its strategic importance: those who catered to small businesses. These were Viaweb (Paul Graham's startup), Submit-It (Scott Banister's startup), and LinkExchange (where I worked).
    ...Submit-It, founded a few years earlier in a dorm room by Scott Banister, helped website owners submit their URLs to multiple search engines and directories. Banister saw how badly his customers wanted to secure placement on search results. In 1996, he brilliantly conceived an idea he called "Keywords": to sell search listings based on pay-for-placement bidding – more or less the same as today's AdWords. Banister began pitching the idea to anybody who would listen to him, including, among others, Bill Gross of IdeaLab, and the principals of LinkExchange: Tony Hsieh, Sanjay Madan, and me.
    ... I became obsessed with the idea of realizing Banister's vision via deals with the world's top search drivers, starting with the big gorilla, Yahoo.
    ...when Microsoft bought LinkExchange, they acquired a team with quite a few talented young individuals, including Scott Banister (subsequent founder of IronPort), Tony Hsieh (subsequent CEO of Zappos), Alfred Lin (subsequent COO of Zappos), and a contractor named Max Levchin (subsequent founder of PayPal and Slide). All were under 25 years old, and not one received a meaningful role at Microsoft. Not one stayed at Microsoft more than a few months. They walked away from (collectively) tens of millions of dollars of unvested stock, and went on to create (collectively) several billion dollars of value in their new ventures.
  8. ^ "LinkExchange Acquires Submit It!". ClickZ. June 24, 1998. Retrieved January 22, 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. ^ a b c Barret, Victoria (January 25, 2008). "You Get What You Pay For". Forbes. Retrieved January 23, 2021. There are thousands of free Web sites devoted to fleshly fare. Scott Banister knows this. He cofounded spam-blocking firm IronPort to stop porn from flooding corporate in-boxes. In June Cisco Systems bought IronPort for $830 million, netting Banister $45 million. This makes his current endeavor a curious one: He and his wife, Cyan, are launching a social network aimed at getting people to pay $10 a month for access to "tasteful" pictures of scantily clad women.
    Cyan was managing IronPort's blacklist of spammers when they met four years ago at a friend's poker night. The Banisters have been married for two years and live in a generator-powered home on the Pacific coast.
  10. ^ Keith Regan (January 4, 2007). "Cisco buys IronPort for $830 Million". E-Commerce Times. Archived from the original on March 1, 2021. Retrieved May 21, 2013.
  11. ^ Guth, Robert A. (January 17, 2009). "Microsoft Bid to Beat Google Builds on a History of Misses". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved December 1, 2020.
    Birth of Keywords
    The roots of Microsoft's first paid-search foray trace back to 1995. The World Wide Web was just becoming popular. Small companies like Yahoo allowed users to punch in search terms to find content across the expanding Internet. That year, a University of Illinois student named Scott Banister hit upon adding ads to these search results. He quit college in 1996 and drove his Geo hatchback to California to start a company around his idea, which he called Keywords.
    In 1998, Mr. Banister joined Ali Partovi, a 26-year-old San Francisco entrepreneur who ran an online-ad company called LinkExchange. That November, Microsoft bought LinkExchange for $265 million.
    Microsoft wanted LinkExchange for its core business of distributing online ads to Web sites. But Mr. Partovi spent 1999 making monthly trips to company headquarters near Seattle to persuade his new bosses at Microsoft's online group to develop Mr. Banister's idea.
  12. ^ "Scott and Cyan Banister". angel.co. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
  13. ^ "iPhone Tracking Service Provider TekTrak Locates Seed Funding". TechCrunch. December 14, 2010. Retrieved March 1, 2011.
  14. ^ Gelles, David (April 1, 2015). "The PayPal Mafia's Golden Touch". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on November 2, 2021. Retrieved January 23, 2021. "We have a very good collective résumé," said Scott Banister, a former PayPal board member, explaining the sustained influence of the group. "It's not just that you're associated with the company, it's that you're associated with the other people associated with the company."
    After leaving PayPal, Mr. Banister co-founded an email service, IronPort, which he sold to Cisco Systems for $830 million.
  15. ^ Ganato, Andrew; Yoon, Scy (January 13, 2019). "A look at the PayPal Mafia's continued impact on Silicon Valley". VentureBeat. Retrieved April 13, 2022.
  16. ^ Sunnucks, Mike (October 23, 2016). "Techie investor who backed Facebook, Uber, PayPal pumps $200K into Arizona marijuana legalization". Phoenix Business Journal.
  17. ^ "Silicon Valley's Libertarian revolution". Politico. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
  18. ^ "Million-Dollar Donors in the 2016 Presidential Race". New York Times. August 25, 2015. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved October 14, 2015. 34. Scott Banister: $2.0 million [donation to Rand Paul 2016 presidential campaign] — Technology entrepreneur and investor; a founder of IronPort, a provider of online security products.
  19. ^ "This top Rand Paul donor just made a big endorsement in the presidential race". Rare. February 3, 2016. Retrieved November 3, 2018. Tech entrepreneur Scott Banister has long been an ally to the liberty movement. The angel investor, IronPort founder, and PayPal board member donated $3 million to a Rand Paul supporting Super PAC, and has been a vocal supporter of the libertarian Republican.
    Now that Rand Paul is out of the presidential race, Banister has thrown his support behind Ted Cruz.
    ...Will Banister's #LibertariansForCruz movement take off? Time will tell as Paul's supporters realign.
  20. ^ "Scott Banister - $2,274,206 in Political Contributions for 2016". www.campaignmoney.com. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  21. ^ Shivakumar, Felicia (2016). "Scott and Cyan Banister Win Angel Investor of the Year at the 9th Annual Crunchies". TechCrunch. Retrieved September 8, 2018.
  22. ^ Hempel, Jessi (October 11, 2016). "The Venture Capitalist Who Is Both a Man and a Woman". Wired. Archived from the original on December 9, 2017. Retrieved September 7, 2018.
  23. ^ Volokh, Eugene (February 18, 2015). "The Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on February 19, 2015. Retrieved November 12, 2018. I'm delighted to report that the UCLA First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic that I run has changed its name, to the Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic, in recognition of the Banisters' very generous gift in support of the clinic.
    Scott and Cyan Banister are angel investors, mostly in technology (Scott Banister is best known as a co-founder of IronPort, an e-mail appliance provider that was bought by Cisco in 2007, and as an early adviser and board member at PayPal, where he co-invented the "e-mail payments" feature) but now also in First Amendment litigation. Many, many thanks to Scott & Cyan for supporting our work!
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