Entrepreneurship Speaker Series + Annual General Georges F. Doriot Lecture: Mitch Kapor

​Join the Trust Center for the spring semester speaker series featuring top entrepreneurial thought leaders!

​Mitch Kapor is the Founding Partner of Kapor Capital. He is a pioneer of the personal computing industry and long-time startup investor. He founded Lotus Development Corporation and designed Lotus 1-2-3, the “killer application” which made the personal computer ubiquitous in the business world in the 1980s.

​Mitch is the co-founder of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which protects freedom and privacy on the Internet, and served as the founding Chair of Mozilla, creator of the Firefox web browser.

​His successful early investments in the Internet sector, and in streaming media and virtual reality earned him a reputation for seeing around corners. For over a decade at Kapor Capital he and his team have developed a vision and practice of investing in tech startups which close gaps of access, opportunity, or outcome for low-income communities and communities of color and on founders from underrepresented groups.

​The Kapor Center takes a comprehensive approach to removing barriers in education and the workplace for all, fixing the leaks at every stage of the tech pipeline. Mitch serves on the board of SMASH, a non-profit founded by his wife to help underrepresented scholars hone their STEM knowledge while building the networks and skills for careers in tech and the sciences.

​This annual event honors General Georges F. Doriot, the visionary who founded American Research and Development Corporation (ARD), the first publicly owned venture capital firm in 1946. General Doriot taught at Harvard Business School from 1926 to 1966 and served as a critical mentor and teacher to the first generation of venture capitalists. MIT is honored to host this endowed lectureship, which highlights topics related to venture creation, innovation, and venture capital.