Founders at Work.pdf

C H A P T E R
6
Mitchell Kapor
Cofounder, Lotus Development
Mitch Kapor founded Lotus Development with
Jonathan Sachs in 1982. Their spreadsheet
software, Lotus 1-2-3, quickly surpassed
VisiCalc to become the new industry standard.
VisiCalc had been the original “killer app”
for personal computers. Kapor was a VisiCalc
product manager at Personal Software when
he wrote VisiPlot and VisiTrend, companion
products to VisiCalc. He left to found Lotus
just as legal conflicts were distracting
VisiCalc’s developers, and the arrival of the
IBM PC opened a window of opportunity for a
better spreadsheet. Lotus 1-2-3 could handle
larger spreadsheets and added integrated charting, plotting, and database
capabilities. It became the killer app killer.
Lotus went public in 1983. Kapor served as president and CEO from 1982 to
1986, and as a director until 1987. IBM acquired Lotus in 1995 for $3.5 billion.
Kapor cofounded the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in 1990 and
now leads the Open Source Applications Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes
the development and adoption of open source software.
Livingston: How did Lotus get started?
Kapor: I bought an Apple II in the summer of 1978 because I had become
obsessed with personal computers and just had to have one. I didn’t know what
I wanted to do. I very quickly and fortunately started generating some consulting
income, writing programs for individuals who had bought them, like an
ophthalmologist who wanted to use it in his practice and an investment analyst
who wanted to look at stock market data. And I met other people in those days
that had Apple IIs, because it was very much a hobby phenomenon. Several of
us started an Apple II user group called New England Apple Tree.
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