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Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

Huh? I'd think that Mitch Kapor is far, far more well-known. I can go up to my parents and talk about Mitch Kapor and they'll say "Oh, the Lotus 1-2-3 guy that used to do transcendental meditation." If I mention Joel Spolsky, they'll be like "Who?"

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I know exactly who Spolsky is but I've never heard of Mitch Kapor. At all.

I think that says more about you than either Joel Spolsky or Mitch Kapor, honestly.

At the time of this posting, your post is 43 minutes old.

Do you still not know who Mitch Kapor is?

I wikipedia'd Mitch Kapor right after posting.

Upvoted for non-ignorance. ;)

I think this is very much a generational thing. Spolsky writes a trendy blog that anyone reading Hacker News will be familiar with. Kapor, like Gates, is one of the titans of the early PC world. But that also means his most relevant work (Chandler being only famous for failing in an interesting way) happened before many of the readers here were born.

Very true. Younger people don't know you unless you blog, apparrently!

I'm under twenty-five, and know who Mitch Kapor is. Lotus notes, right?

Another question, how relevant is Kapor to our daily work TODAY? I don't happen to use Lotus Notes, but I have learned a thing or two from Joel's articles. That is why I remember his name and keep reading his blog.

Do you use Microsoft Office or any other integrated office suite? Lotus 1-2-3 was the first major integrated business software to run on the IBM PC.

I don't mean to diminish it's achievement, it is just that it does not play a big role in my life. I use Open Office maybe 20 times a year to write some business letters. That's it.

You should read Jessica's book...it's really very good. She has detailed interviews with many of the people who started the technology boom. If you're going to spend a lot of time thinking about tech startups, it can't hurt to learn the history.

It is a great book. It is especially a great book if you don't have much time to read and can just pick it up and read a story in a short period of time.

Same here.

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