It took 45 years, but spreadsheet legend Mitch Kapor finally got his MIT degree
9 comments
·July 11, 2025mrbonner
I became familiar with his work through "Dreaming in Code." If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend giving it a try. The writing style is lively and engaging—definitely not your typical tech book.
lproven
That was a while ago -- I wrote about it at the end of last month:
fsckboy
replying to that register article:
>he finally finished his nominally 12-month master's degree there
A Sloan SM/MBA is 2 yrs (nominally and actually). There is also a 12 month SM/MBA for "senior executives", so that's probably what is being referred to. But in that case, it wouldn't have been him "finishing" the degree program he had left (because he would not have been taken as a senior executive then), so they probably applied the credits he did have to this other program for which he would have to write a paper anyway.
(as a side quibble, MIT only started offering "an MBA" in the '90's (purely for job-market name recognition) and prior to that time the (same) degree was called SM Management, which is what his original program would have been. the SM is technically "better" because it entails also writing a thesis)
He visited a company I worked at when I was fresh out of school, and he was brought by my office impromptu to see what I was working on. my software crashed immediately, and he laughed, in a friendly way, but didn't ask for my resume.
jama211
This is great, just what I needed to read today. There indeed is always hope!
getpokedagain
What an interesting and well polished dude. I'm really happy to see someone advocate in such a calm well reasoned way in 2025.
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Clowndown
[flagged]
His master's thesis, which focuses on socially responsible impact investing, is worth reading. Especially in this age where growth-at-all costs is de rigeur.
PDF here: https://www.d-eship.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/kapor-mdk...