Editing Mitch Kapor (section)

==Career==
===Lotus===
Kapor and his business partner [[Jonathan Sachs]] founded Lotus in 1982 with backing from [[Benjamin M. Rosen|Ben Rosen]]. Lotus' first product was presentation software for the [[Apple II]] known as Lotus Executive Briefing System. Kapor founded Lotus after leaving his post as head of development at [[VisiCorp]], the distributors of the [[VisiCalc]] [[spreadsheet]], and selling all his rights to VisiPlot and VisiTrend to VisiCorp.

Shortly after Kapor left VisiCorp, he and Sachs produced an integrated spreadsheet and graphics program. Even though IBM and VisiCorp had a collaboration agreement whereby VisiCalc was being shipped simultaneously with the PC, Lotus had a clearly superior product. Lotus released [[Lotus 1-2-3]] on January 26, 1983. Its name referred to the three ways the product could be used: as a spreadsheet, graphics package, and [[database manager]]. In practice, the latter two functions were less often used, but 1-2-3 was the most powerful spreadsheet program available.

Lotus was almost immediately successful, becoming the world's third-largest microcomputer software company in 1983 with $53 million in sales in its first year,<ref name="caruso 19840402">{{cite news | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kC4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA80 | title=Company Strategies Boomerang | work=InfoWorld | date=1984-04-02 | last=Caruso | first=Denise | pages=80–83}}</ref> compared to its business plan forecast of $1 million. Jerome Want says:

<blockquote>Under founder and CEO Mitch Kapor, Lotus was a company with few rules and fewer internal bureaucratic barriers... Kapor decided that he was no longer suited to running a company, and [in 1986] he replaced himself with [[Jim Manzi]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Jerome H. Want|title=Corporate Culture: Illuminating the Black Hole|publisher=Macmillan|url=https://archive.org/details/corporateculture0000want|url-access=registration|year=2007|page=[https://archive.org/details/corporateculture0000want/page/55 55]|isbn=9780312354848}}</ref></blockquote>

===Digital rights activism===
Kapor co-founded the [[Electronic Frontier Foundation]] in 1990 and was its chairman until 1994. EFF defends civil liberties in the digital world and works to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as the use of technology grows.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=Where Is the Digital Highway Really Heading? |url=https://www.wired.com/1993/03/kapor-on-nii/ |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]] |date=March 1, 1993}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine |title=Mitch Kapor: Civilizing Cyberspace |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/civilizing-cyberspace-19930610 |first=Jeff |last=Goodall | magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] |date=June 10, 1993}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | title=Defending liberties in high-tech world | url=http://www.nbcnews.com/id/13718446/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/defending-liberties-high-tech-world/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130712204149/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/13718446/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/defending-liberties-high-tech-world/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=July 12, 2013 |first=ANICK |last=JESDANUN |agency=[[Associated Press]] |publisher=[[MSNBC]] |date=July 5, 2006}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |title=Mitch Kapor Backs Open Source Software For Simplifying Internet TV | url=https://www.informationweek.com/mitch-kapor-backs-open-source-software-for-simplifying-internet-tv/d/d-id/1035796 |first=Antone |last=Gonsalves |work=[[InformationWeek]] |date=September 6, 2005}}</ref>

Kapor attended the first [[Wikimania]] in 2005.<ref name="thewikipediarevolution8">{{cite book | last1=Lih | first1=Andrew | author-link=Andrew Lih | title=[[The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia]] | date=2009 | publisher=Aurum | location=London | isbn=9781845134730 | oclc=280430641 | page=8 | quote=Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation, made the trip on his own time.}}</ref>

===Investments===
Kapor was the founding investor in [[UUNET]], one of the first, and the largest among, early Internet service providers; in [[RealNetworks]], the Internet's first streaming media company; and in [[Linden Lab]], maker of the first successful virtual world, ''[[Second Life]]''. He was also founding chair of the [[Commercial Internet eXchange]] (CIX).

In 2003, he became the founding chair of the [[Mozilla Foundation]], creator of the open source web browser [[Firefox]].

He serves on the advisory board of the [[Sunlight Foundation]].<ref>{{cite web | url=https://sunlightfoundation.com/about/board/  | title=Board and Advisory Board | publisher=[[Sunlight Foundation]]}}</ref> In May 2009, after founder [[Susan P. Crawford]] joined the Obama administration, Kapor took over chairmanship of [[OneWebDay]]—the "Earth Day for the internet". In 1996, the [[Computer History Museum]] named him a Museum Fellow "for his development of Lotus 1-2-3, the first major software application for the IBM PC".<ref>{{cite web | title=Mitch Kapor 1996 Fellow | date=18 April 2024 | url=http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/mitch-kapor/ | publisher=[[Computer History Museum]]}}</ref> He founded the Mitchell Kapor Foundation to support his philanthropic interests in environmental health.

As an active [[angel investor]], Kapor participated in the initial rounds of [[Dropcam]], [[Twilio]], [[Asana (software)|Asana]], Cleanify and [[Uber]].

===Kapor Center and Kapor Capital===
Kapor founded the Kapor Center in 2000 as an institution focused on tech inclusion and social impact.<ref>{{cite web | title=Mitchell Kapor Foundation | url=https://www.guidestar.org/profile/94-3330604 | publisher=GuideStar}}</ref> The institution's mission is to invest in social and financial capital in vital non-profit organizations.<ref>{{cite news | title=Kapors pledge $40 million investment in tech diversity | url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/08/04/mitch-kapor-freada-kapor-klein-tech-diversity-40-million-investment-pledge-white-house-demo-day/31069481/ | work=[[USA TODAY]] | date=August 4, 2015}}</ref>

A part of the Kapor Center, Kapor Capital is its venture capital arm,<ref>{{cite web | title=Company Overview of Kapor Capital | date=22 May 2023 | url=https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=112164205 | publisher=[[Bloomberg L.P.]]}}</ref> and has operated since 2011.<ref>{{cite report |author=Kapor Capital |date=2019-05-08 |title= Kapor Capital Impact Report |page= 1}}</ref> As of 2018, it has made over 160 investments, primarily in information technology seed-stage startups, with a particular focus on diversity.<ref>{{cite web | title=Who We Are - Kapor Capital | url=http://www.kaporcapital.com/who-we-are/ | website=Kapor Capital}}</ref>

Since 2016, the Kapor Center for Social Impact, Kapor Capital, and ''SMASH'' have been located in the Uptown neighborhood of Oakland, CA.<ref>{{cite web | title=Kapor Center seeks to diversify tech while promoting Oakland Uptown Neighborhood | url=http://www.ktvu.com/news/kapor-center-seeks-to-diversify-tech-while-promoting-oakland-uptown-neighborhood | website=Fox 2 KTVU | date=July 20, 2016}}</ref>

===Diversity in technology===
In August 2015, Mitch and Freada Kapor announced they would invest $40 million over three years to accelerate their work to make the tech ecosystem more inclusive.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/08/04/mitch-kapor-freada-kapor-klein-tech-diversity-40-million-investment-pledge-white-house-demo-day/31069481/ | title=Kapors pledge $40 million investment in tech diversity | first=Jessica | last=Guynn | work=[[USA TODAY]] | date=August 4, 2015}}</ref><ref name=diversify/><ref name=power/><ref>{{cite news | title=40 Diverse People In Tech Who Made Big Moves In 2015 | url=https://techcrunch.com/gallery/40-diverse-people-in-tech-2015/slide/16/ | work=[[TechCrunch]]}}</ref>

In addition to his roles at Kapor Capital and Kapor Center, Mitch currently serves on the board of [http://www.smashprogram.org/ SMASH], whose mission is to enhance equal opportunity in education and the workplace, and sits on the advisory board of Generation Investment Management, a firm whose vision is to embed sustainability into the mainstream capital markets.<ref>{{cite news | title=Let's Celebrate 2015 as a Year of Progress in Tech Inclusion | url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/12/29/_2015_was_a_year_of_progress_in_tech_inclusion.html | first=Brooke | last=Hunter | work=[[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] | date=December 29, 2015 | issn=1091-2339}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | title=The (Planet-Saving, Capitalism-Subverting, Surprisingly Lucrative) Investment Secrets of Al Gore | url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/11/the-planet-saving-capitalism-subverting-surprisingly-lucrative-investment-secrets-of-al-gore/407857/ | first=JAMES | last=FALLOWS | work=[[The Atlantic]] | date=November 2015}}</ref>