Mitch Kapor developed the first spreadsheet for the IBM PC - VisiCalc.
According to what I've read, Kapor became interested in TM going on to
teach it in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he also worked as a computer
programmer.
He went on to become a millionaire selling software. Apparently TM really
was good for him, even though he apparently didn't really understand it
at the time.
He later became a Buddhist and joined a cult in San Francisco where he
meditates for hours at a time. Go figure.
Read more:
'Accidental Empires'
How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign
Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date
Robert X. Cringely
Addison-Wesley, 1996, p95
On 9/19/2013 11:01 AM, Bhairitu wrote:
> I never met Kapor though he was on the west coast panel for the
> "Computer Bowl" I attended in the 1990s. But he was one of many
> shakers and movers in the tech world there. Bill Gates co-emceed.
On 09/18/2013 05:19 PM, Michael Jackson wrote:
Mitchell Kapor, Founder of Lotus Software on TM
Tricycle: It seems that the material you’ve been involved with has
addressed internal and external freedom and an entrenched wariness of
authoritarian rule. Is this perspective influenced or affirmed by
your experience with the Maharishi? [His full name is Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi.]
Kapor: My dislike for authoritarian structures goes back as far as I
can remember in my childhood. If I could remember past lives, I’m
sure my memories would extend there too. But my experiences in
Transcendental Meditation ultimately really deepened my commitment to
anti-authoritarianism.
Tricycle: How did you get involved in TM?
Kapor: Well, my experience was typical for my generation. I had
gotten to college in the 60′s and started experimenting with
marijuana and psychedelics, fairly heavily. I had some distressing
experiences with LSD. Bad trips. So I stopped doing drugs and then
started getting acid flashbacks. I decided to give meditation a
serious try to see if that could have some calming effect. I got
hooked in to TM and eventually made the decision to go through
advanced training to become an initiator, an instructor.
Tricycle: How long did you stay involved with TM?
Kapor: I was involved for seven years. It all ultimately came to a
head in 1976. The movement went into a new phase and Maharishi
started talking about siddhis, powers, and techniques for doing
levitation and other things. This created so much cognitive
dissonance in me that I didn’t know what to do. I had to find out if
it was real or not, and I wanted to believe that it was real, but
something in me said that it couldn’t possibly be real. People
weren’t really going to levitate. So I went to Switzerland for the
sixth-month course on "powers."
I went and I fell apart. They were using us as experimental subjects.
There was fasting involved and various austerities that come out of
Hindu traditions, enemas and various bizarre food combining rituals.
A lot of madness got released.
After five months of this I said whatever problems I might or might
not have, TM is not making them better, it is making them worse and I
decided to leave. This was like leaving everything, because I had
severed all of my other ties and relations: no job, no career, no
marriage and no prospects. I got up in the middle of the night and
walked to the train station. I felt like I was crossing from slavery
into freedom, from one intolerable situation into the great unknown.
By the way, no one really levitates. I fully satisfied myself as to
that.
http://www.kapor.com/writing/tricycle-interview/
