Scott Stanford

Scott Stanford has been focused on the internet/technology sector for over 25 years as an advisor, operator, and investor. Prior to founding ACME in 2018, he was a co-founder of Sherpa Capital.

Scott co-headed Goldman Sachs’s Global Internet Investment Banking business in San Francisco for 12 years where he advised clients on $80 billion of equity and debt financings and strategic transactions and was deeply involved in investments in technology-enabled companies such as Facebook, Uber, DST/Mail.ru, Demand Media, LinkedIn, Palantir, iCrossing, and Square. His client coverage responsibility included Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Groupon, Zillow, Airbnb, Uber, and many other established and emerging technology-enabled companies.

Prior to rejoining Goldman in 2004, Scott was an early employee of LookSmart, helping build the company from a start-up in 1999 to a publicly traded NASDAQ company. From 1996 to 1998, while earning his MBA, Scott coded prototype applications for two startup ideas, one focusing on community service and the other focusing on automating and prototyping core financial analyses. He spent a summer during business school as an Associate at General Atlantic Partners focused on technology venture capital. Prior to business school, Scott was a Financial Analyst with Goldman Sachs’s Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Investment Banking Group. He began his Goldman career in the Fixed Income Group from 1993 to 1995 in New York. During this time, he developed software applications as well as structured and marketed Interest Rate Swaps and Options for the firm’s municipal clients.

Scott grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. As an early adopter of technology, he taught himself to code at age 13, built and ran a dial-up BBS, taught computer courses, started a personal computer consulting business, and developed a robotics exhibit for the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. Scott also earned his Pilot’s License at the age of 17. Scott received his A.B. with Honors from Harvard College (Social Studies) and M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.