Marc Porat
| Marc Porat | |
|---|---|
| Born | Uri Porat |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Columbia, Stanford |
| Occupation | entrepreneur, angel investor |
| Known for | General Magic, The Information Economy |
Marc Porat is a tech entrepreneur and angel investor. He is founder of six companies including General Magic. General Magic has been called “the most important dead company in Silicon Valley." In the early 2000s, Porat was a member of a high profile wave of tech executives who founded cleantech companies. He launched three companies in the built environment: Serious Materials, Zeta Communities, and CalStar Cement and was a member of the U.S. China Green Energy Council.
Porat authored a pivotal work entitled The Information Economy as his doctoral thesis at Stanford University in which he predicted the transition from a manufacturing-based U.S. economy to one based on information. Porat is credited with first identifying the U.S. as an "information society." Later, his nephew Aaron Hurst defined and wrote about the "Purpose Economy" and credited Porat with the inspiration for predicting the rise of a new economy.
After Stanford, Porat worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce and then served as a program director at the Aspen Institute and was later appointed Executive Director, Washington Activities of the Aspen Institute Program on Communications and Society. While at Aspen , Porat produced the film The Information Society for PBS.
After leaving the Aspen Institute, Porat co-founded Private Satellite Network (PSN). The company was a direct broadcast satellite innovator that built and operated television and data networks for Fortune 500 companies and governments,The firm pioneered the use of small aperture rooftop antennas for videoconferencing. The company was sold and Porat joined Apple Computer.
Porat co-founded General Magic in 1990 with Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson from the original Mac team. The company built the first handheld communications device called Magic Link. Referred to then as a “personal intelligent communicator,” it was the precursor to the smart phone PDA. The company also pioneered "intellient agents."
Porat served as CEO from 1990 to 1996 and took the company public in 1995 at a valuation of $834M. The stock doubled on the first day.
...
Wikipedia