Mitch Kapor and his wife, Freada Kapor Klein, are bringing their mission and technology-driven investing and philanthropy operations to Oakland.

Blanca Torres
Reporter- San Francisco Business Times

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One might describe Mitch Kapor and Freada Kapor Klein as a power couple. He made a fortune from his software firm, Lotus Development Corp., during the early days of the personal technology boom in the 1980s. She has channeled her activist roots into launching philanthropic programs that integrate technology, education and empowerment.

The pair recently decided to move the operations of their for profit and non-profit organizations from San Francisco to Oakland — a city they see at the frontlines of fostering a new wave of technological and social justice and innovation. For more on that, check out the full story in the Oct. 12 edition of the San Francisco Business Times.

Kapor and Kapor Klein sat down for an interview with me and ended up discussing more than just their move to Oakland. We also talked about their views on the evolution of South of Market in San Francisco, start ups, how to address America’s shortage of tech talent, growing up Jewish in the Mid-West, H1-B Visas, and why technology often concentrates in hubs.

Here are some excerpts from our interview:

San Francisco Business Times: You’re often associated with Silicon Valley. How did Oakland get on your radar?

Freada Kapor Klein: Oakland’s been on our radar for more than a decade since we started Level Playing Field Institute and the Ideal Scholars Program which was based at Berkeley and a lot of the students in the scholars program came from Oakland high schools, so that was our first introduction. … We’ve always had ties to Oakland through our philanthropy.

Mitch Kapor: You said Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley has come to mean the Bay Area, not just down the Peninsula. When we moved to the Bay Area in 1999. We wound up locating the office in South of Market because we correctly anticipated that it was going to be the center of a big boom in tech, which it had not been until that point. Until that point, if you were doing a startup you would be down somewhere between Palo Alto and San Jose. But, the conditions were ripe for South of Market. There was a lot of inexpensive space.

Blanca Torres covers East Bay real estate for the San Francisco Business Times.

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Article source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/2012/10/mitch-kapor-freada-kapor-klein-talk-tech.html