but, to be the recipient of that . . . I wasn’t particularly prepared for, nor did
I want most of that. I mean, I liked attention, but it’s a lot to get used to and a
lot of it made me profoundly uncomfortable.
And there was a series of values challenges that came up with running a
business that I was unprepared for that were very painful.
Livingston: Can you describe one?
Kapor: Lotus as a company wound up suing some other companies that
were copying our look and feel. Now, that was not done on my watch. I was
transitioning out. But I was actually still on the board at the point when we
voted to bring the first two suits, and I voted in favor of the suit out of company
loyalty—a decision that I regretted the next day and have regretted since then,
because I felt that it was an inappropriate use of copyright law to try to prevent
someone from making a product that looks and works the same if they develop
it independently.
I was really torn about how to handle this, and all my net worth was tied up
in Lotus, so it was kind of a mess. There was too much, too soon, and not a lot
of time to grow up in and not a lot of mentoring. There weren’t elders or people
to learn from who had been through it whose values I shared.
Livingston: Who were your mentors?
Kapor: Ben Rosen for a while in some respects, but then he made his money,
cashed out, stepped off the board and went on to other things. And plus, he was
not a business guy, he was an investment analyst. So there were some people
that were somewhat helpful, but nothing like what I would have liked or what
exists today.
I try to give back now and help other people try to sort through stuff. I’m
also much clearer about my values, and have been for quite a while now. I think
business at all costs is just wrong. I think there are certain things that you just
don’t do, and that acting with integrity and decency in business to me is just a
given. I simply don’t compromise on those things. When a person has those
types of values, you have to be careful what type of project you undertake,
because as soon as you undertake a project and you have those values, you’re
just going to be so conflicted you won’t know what to do.
Livingston: What advice do you give to people who want to start startups?
Kapor: It depends on what type of advice they want. You can’t tell people what
they don’t want to hear because they won’t care and it’s just a waste of breath.
And everyone comes in with some kind of agenda.
I like working with entrepreneurs who have a compatible set of values and