Steve Kirsch


Steven Todd Kirsch is an American serial entrepreneur who has started seven companies: Mouse Systems, Frame Technology Corp., Infoseek, Propel, Abaca, OneID, and Token. He invented and patented an early version of the optical mouse. In 2007, his personal fortune was estimated at $230 million, the majority earned from the IPO of Infoseek and the acquisition of Frame Technology.

Career

Kirsch has a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Steven Kirsch founded Mouse Systems Corporation in 1982. After he left the company, he co-founded Frame Technology Corp. in 1986 to market the FrameMaker publishing software. After Frame was acquired by Adobe Systems for $500 million, he founded a Web portal company, Infoseek Corporation, in 1994. After Infoseek was acquired by The Walt Disney Company, he founded Propel Software Corporation in 1999.
He set up a $75 million charitable fund and became a philanthropist. In 2003, Hillary Clinton presented Kirsch with a National Caring Award from the Caring Institute in Washington, D.C. The award celebrates those special individuals who, in transcending self, devote their lives in service to others, especially the disadvantaged, the poor, the disabled and the dying. In 2005 he founded Abaca, which made a spam filter. Abaca was acquired by Proofpoint, Inc. in 2013.
On August 11, 2007, Kirsch announced on his personal Web site that he had been diagnosed with Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, a rare blood cancer. His cancer was shrinking as a result of treatment using an experimental HDAC inhibitor, LBH-589.
In September 2011, he started OneID which is creating a user-centric Internet-scale digital identity system that uses public key cryptography to replace usernames and passwords with a single, stable, secure, digital identity that preserves privacy and is compatible with the NSTIC goals. The technology was used by Salsa Labs in 2013, to increase the frequency and security of online donations.