Photo: Stephen Lam / REUTERS
Profiles
Master class:
T
Dan Scheinman ’87
intelligence” — EQ — and the compatibility he Covid-19 pandemic has roiled Scheinman, an angel of the two teams as being a key to the success financial markets, but one company in of mergers and acquisitions; and as head of an angel investor Dan Scheinman’s portfolio has investor and Zoom’s internal start-up, he learned a critical lesson: “I seen stratospheric growth during the global first investor, spoke with learned that what differentiates early success Covid-19 shutdown: Zoom. “We had planned students in Duke’s Law from failure is actually not the technology side. that video would run the world at some point. and Entrepreneurship Software you can change — it’s malleable. We didn’t plan for it to happen over a few Program, sharing insights It’s really can you figure out how to price and months in 2020,” said Scheinman, who nine on advising, investing in, distribute your product to reach your customers years ago wrote a check to Zoom founder Eric and growing emerging in a cost-effective way?” Yuan before even hearing his pitch for the companies, and taking Scheinman spoke with students in Duke’s videoconferencing platform. their questions relating to Law and Entrepreneurship Program on April 17, Scheinman, a Silicon Valley native, became an career development and sharing insights on advising, investing in, and investor in technology companies and a soughtsatisfaction. growing emerging companies and taking their after start-up advisor after practicing law and then questions relating to career development and serving in a range of leadership positions over satisfaction. Clinical Professor Erika Buell, the program’s director, 18 years at Cisco Systems. As general counsel, he pioneered the use led the conversation that was held — naturally — via Zoom. of technology to reduce legal costs for the fast-growing company; Excerpts follow. as head of corporate development, he zeroed in on “emotional Duke Law Magazine • Summer 2020
51
