Mitch Kapor

Mitchell David Kapor, born in 1950, is an American software entrepreneur best known as the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the co-developer of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet, widely regarded as the first killer application of the IBM personal computer. He studied at Yale and began a graduate degree at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and he worked on early personal computer software, including programs sold through VisiCorp, before founding Lotus in 1982 with the programmer Jonathan Sachs. As chief executive he took the company public in 1983, then in 1986 stepped aside in favour of Jim Manzi and left to pursue other ventures. In 1990 he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation with John Perry Barlow and John Gilmore, and in 2003 he became founding chair of the Mozilla Foundation. He has since invested in technology startups through Kapor Capital and supported social causes through the Kapor Center.