I am delighted to share with you the rare treat of a conversation with famed entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist Mitch Kapor. Probably best known as the founder of the Lotus Corporation and designer of Lotus 1-2-3, the man is consistently so far ahead of the curve it is not funny. He told me that the major he created for himself in “cybernetics” at Yale in the late 1960s was his attempt to create a cognitive science major before the field was invented. When I was an undergraduate in the late 1980s and wanted to create my own major in cognitive science, my advisor told me, “We don’t know enough about cognitive science yet to make an undergraduate major in it feasible.”
The reason I wanted to talk with Mr. Kapor was to get his take on having educational impact as a guy who is both invested in ed tech startups like Inkling and Piazza as well as an active participant (and founder) of educational foundations. He was kind enough to carve an hour out of his schedule for a delightful, honest, and wide-ranging interview: