Init Intelligence Atlas

David Schellhase

3 min read

David Schellhase

Veteran enterprise general counsel and operator — Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Ballistic Ventures (since Jul 2025) and an Okta board member, after a 25-year run as GC at six companies (Salesforce, Groupon, Slack).

Identity guard: This is David SCHELLHASE (ex-GC of Slack/Groupon/Salesforce, the actual Operator Network “David”). Do not conflate with David Schneider (ex-President of ServiceNow, now GP at Coatue) — a separate person and separate page.

Snapshot

  • Now: Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Ballistic Ventures (cybersecurity VC; since Jul 2025) + Board member, Okta. Also advisor to Airtable and Webflow.
  • Archetype (for init): Strategic / Operator — legal + operator validator (enterprise general counsel through multiple IPOs and a $28B exit).
  • Warm path: Ryan Carlson — both are partners in The Operator Network, so a clean operator-to-operator intro path (the real OpNet “David”).

Why an init.inc angel target

  • Enterprise legal/operator validator. 6x GC (Salesforce, Groupon, Slack) who took companies through IPOs and the $28B Slack→Salesforce sale — a credibility signal to later enterprise buyers and counsel evaluating an AI-employee vendor handling back-office workflows.
  • Compliance / privacy / regulatory depth. At Slack he ran legal, privacy, corp dev, biz dev, public affairs, the Slack Fund + Slack for Good — directly relevant to an AI-MSP product touching governance, data handling, and access controls.
  • Operator-network reach. Partner in The Operator Network (alongside Ryan Carlson, Frederic Kerrest, Brad Armstrong) — an operator-led angel + advisory collective that compounds GTM and follow-on credibility.

Conflict screen

  • Clean. No angel/advisor/board role in any init competitor. Ballistic Ventures (cybersecurity-only VC), the Okta board, and his Airtable/Webflow advisory roles are not init ITSM / AI-MSP competitors. Being ex-GC at Salesforce / Slack / Groupon is career history, not an angel-investment conflict.

Background

  • Ballistic Ventures (Jul 2025–present): Entrepreneur-in-Residence, advising founders on privacy/compliance/regulatory shifts in security.
  • Okta: sits on the board of directors.
  • Sullivan & Cromwell LLP (Nov 2022–Jan 2025): Of Counsel (technology-focused corporate matters).
  • Slack Technologies (Dec 2016–Aug 2021): General Counsel; led the IPO and the $28B sale to Salesforce.
  • Groupon (Jun 2011–Jan 2014): General Counsel (through IPO).
  • Salesforce (Jul 2002–May 2011): General Counsel (through IPO).
  • Honest Work Corporation (a/k/a Peer): COO (Feb 2015) until its Apr 2016 acquisition by Twitter ^[single-source].
  • The Operator Network: Partner (since ~2022).
  • Adjunct lecturer, Stanford School of Management Science & Engineering; J.D. Cornell ^[single-source]. Advisor to Airtable and Webflow.

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