Scott Banister

Banister is the son of Debbie and Bruce Banister (1951–2006), a civil engineer who lived in Kansas City, Missouri.{{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/|access-date=2021-01-23}} According to Jimmy Soni,

{{Blockquote|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 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.{{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}}}}

Banister's original intent in attending UIUC was to become a professor of computer science. Michael Ellsberg wrote that like other entrepreneurs, Scott Banister relentlessly looked at the outcome he wanted to produce in the world and relentlessly focused on how to achieve that outcome.{{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 |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.
..."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.}} 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."

Computerworld reported that Banister got his first idea to capitalize on existing search engine workhorses to help retailers advertise their presence on the Web.{{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}} He and friends posted a free registry service, ListServe, the precursor of Submit It!.

In the summer of 1995, while still attending University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Banister cofounded SponsorNet New Media, Inc., with friends, fellow students Max Levchin and Luke Nosek.{{cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=SponsorNet New Media|url=http://www.freebase.com/view/en/sponsornet_new_media|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}} 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".

Outside the classroom, Banister had taught himself HTML, got a job as a webmaster working with faculty member Burks Oakley, and according to UIUC's Department of Computer Science, Alumni News, started three web companies: SponsorNet, the first advertising network and the first online auction for advertising space, Permalink.com, a provider of lifetime URLs and lifetime e-mail addresses, and Submit lt!, an advertising tool for websites.{{Cite journal |date=January 2001 |title=Scott Banister and Jonathan Stark: ACMers reunited at idealab! |url=https://ws.engr.illinois.edu/sitemanager/getfile.asp?id=542 |journal=Department of Computer Science, Alumni News |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=14–15}}

Banister was the first of the three friends to leave for Silicon Valley and the first to sell a start-up. He left college during his sophomore year in 1996 to cofound Submit It!, the free, automated resource to advertise on multiple search engines.{{Cite news |last=Gleick |first=James |author-link=James Gleick |date=1996-05-05 |title=FAST FORWARD; Hall of Mirrors |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/05/magazine/fast-forward-hall-of-mirrors.html |access-date=2021-01-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210129053122/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/05/magazine/fast-forward-hall-of-mirrors.html |archive-date=January 29, 2021 |issn=0362-4331}} Ali Partovi called it "a simple but elegant concept that turned out to be one of the best business ideas in history".{{Cite web |last=Partovi |first=Ali |author-link=Ali Partovi |date=August 29, 2010 |title=Bubble Blinders: The Untold Story of the Search Business Model |url=https://techcrunch.com/2010/08/29/bubble-blinders-the-untold-story-of-the-search-business-model/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160325172233/http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/29/bubble-blinders-the-untold-story-of-the-search-business-model/ |archive-date=March 25, 2016 |access-date=2020-12-01 |website=TechCrunch |language=en-US |quote=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...}} Submit It! was acquired by LinkExchange in June 1998,{{cite web|date=June 24, 1998|title=LinkExchange Acquires Submit It!|url=http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/1704870/linkexchange-acquires-submit-it|access-date=January 22, 2021|website=ClickZ}} and Microsoft acquired LinkExchange in December 1998.{{cite news |last=Wingfield |first=Nick |date=November 5, 1998 |title=Microsoft Buys LinkExchange For About $250 Million in Stock |work=The Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB910216110299783500 |url-access=subscription |access-date=April 13, 2022 |quote=LinkExchange and its 100 employees will be integrated into the Redmond, Wash., software giant's MSN network.}} Submit lt!, ListBot, and Banister's ClickTrade then became a part of MSN's LinkExchange.

In December 2000, with Scott Weiss, Banister cofounded IronPort to stop porn from flooding corporate in-boxes.{{Cite web |last=Barret |first=Victoria |date=January 25, 2008 |title=You Get What You Pay For |url=https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0211/060.html |access-date=2021-01-23 |website=Forbes}} The anti-spam company was acquired in 2007 by Cisco for US$830 million.{{Cite news |author=Keith Regan |date=January 4, 2007 |title=Cisco buys IronPort for $830 Million |work=E-Commerce Times |url=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/54992.html |access-date=May 21, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301164237/https://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/54992.html |archive-date=March 1, 2021}}

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.{{Cite news |last=Guth |first=Robert A. |date=2009-01-17 |title=Microsoft Bid to Beat Google Builds on a History of Misses |language=en-US |work=Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123207131111388507 |url-access=subscription |access-date=2020-12-01 |issn=0099-9660 |quote=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.}}

He was an early investor in Powerset, a startup building a natural language search engine. His other angel investments include Uber, Zappos.com, LiveOps, Facebook, Hi5.com, Tagged.com, iLike, Causes.com, Topsy Labs, Teleport, Inc.{{Cite web|url=https://angel.co/cyantist|title=Scott and Cyan Banister|website=angel.co|access-date=2016-08-05}} and TekTrak.{{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}} Banister also cofounded Zivity, an adult-themed social networking site, with his wife, Cyan Banister, and Jeffrey Wescott.

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".{{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 |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}} He invested in PayPal's earliest version, and he served as a founding board member. In a 2019 VentureBeat article, Andrew Ganato and Scy Yoon wrote that Peter Thiel and Scott Banister had been the most prolific investors, each responsible for investing in more than 100 companies.{{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}} In that article, Ganato and Yoon provide a net graph showing the interconnections among PayPal Mafia members' investments.{{Cite web |date=January 13, 2019 |title=PayPal Mafia network graph |url=https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/PayPal-Mafia-Map.jpg?resize=805%2C607&strip=all?strip=all |access-date=April 17, 2022 |website=VentureBeat}}

Banister met his wife Cyan when she was managing IronPort's blacklist of spammers, and they married two years later.

Banister is a marijuana rights activist, supporting legalization in Arizona and other states.{{Cite journal |last=Sunnucks |first=Mike |date=Oct 23, 2016 |title=Techie investor who backed Facebook, Uber, PayPal pumps $200K into Arizona marijuana legalization |url=https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2016/10/23/techie-investor-who-backed-facebook-uber-paypal.html |journal=Phoenix Business Journal}} At UIUC, he served as president of the College Libertarians, and co-founded Campus Atheists & Agnostics.

He was a supporter of Republican Senator Rand Paul.{{cite news|title=Silicon Valley's Libertarian revolution |url=http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/silicon-valley-libertarian-revolution-109143.html?hp=f3|access-date=20 July 2014|work=Politico}} In 2015, Banister donated $3 million to a Super PAC supporting Paul's presidential bid.{{cite news |date=25 August 2015 |title=Million-Dollar Donors in the 2016 Presidential Race |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/top-presidential-donors-campaign-money.html |access-date=14 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210205144350/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/top-presidential-donors-campaign-money.html |archive-date=February 5, 2021}} He later switched his endorsement to Ted Cruz after Paul suspended his campaign.{{Cite news |date=2016-02-03 |title=This top Rand Paul donor just made a big endorsement in the presidential race |language=en-US |work=Rare |url=http://rare.us/story/this-top-rand-paul-donor-just-made-a-big-endorsement-in-the-presidential-race/ |access-date=2018-11-03}}

Banister lives in Half Moon Bay, California.{{Cite web |title=Scott Banister - $2,274,206 in Political Contributions for 2016 |url=https://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/scott-banister.asp?cycle=16 |access-date=2022-04-03 |website=www.campaignmoney.com}}

Cyan and Scott Banister won the Angel of the Year Crunchie award at the 2016 TechCrunch ceremonies.{{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}} 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".{{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}}

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".{{Cite news |last=Volokh |first=Eugene |date=18 February 2015 |title=The Scott & Cyan Banister First Amendment Clinic |language=en |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/02/18/the-scott-cyan-banister-first-amendment-clinic/ |access-date=12 November 2018 |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}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{LinkedIn URL|https://www.linkedin.com/in/banister}}
• {{YouTube|id=MknX12bXQv4|title=What Scott Banister looks for as an angel}} (video, 4:43 minutes)
• {{YouTube|id=fM_hm8AGd9g|title=Scott Banister, Chairman, talks about Zivity on Fox Business}} (video, 3:44 minutes)

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Category:1975 births

Category:American computer businesspeople

Category:American libertarians

Category:Businesspeople from Kansas City, Missouri

Category:IronPort people

Category:Living people

Category:PayPal people

Category:People from Half Moon Bay, California

Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni