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Mitch Kapor dropped out of MIT's business school in 1979 — and had soon cofounded the pioneering spreadsheet company Lotus. He also cofounded the EFF, was the founding chair of the Mozilla Foundation, and is now a billionaire (and an VC investor at Kapor Capital). 45 years later, when the 74-year-old was invited to give a guest lecture at MIT's business school last year by an old friend (professor Bill Aulet), he'd teased the billionaire that "there's only one problem, Mitch, I see here you haven't graduated from MIT." The Boston Globe tells the story... After graduating from Yale in 1971 and bouncing around for almost a decade as "a lost and wandering soul," working as a disc jockey, a Transcendental Meditation teacher, and a mental health counselor, Kapor said he became entranced by the possibilities of the new Apple II personal computer. He started writing programs to solve statistics problems and analyze data, which caught the attention of Boston-area software entrepreneurs Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, who co-created VisiCalc, one of the first spreadsheet programs. They introduced Kapor to their California-based software publisher, Personal Software. Midway through Kapor's 12-month master's program, the publisher offered him the then-princely sum of about $20,000 if he'd adapt his stats programs to work with VisiCalc. To finish the project, he took a leave from MIT, but then he decided to leave for good to take a full-time job at Personal. Comparing his decision to those of other famed tech founder dropouts, like Bill Gates, Kapor said he felt the startup world was calling to him. "It was just so irresistible," he said. "It felt like I could not let another moment go by without taking advantage of this opportunity or the window would close...." When Aulet made his joke on the phone call with his old friend in 2024, Kapor had largely retired from investing and realized that he wanted to complete his degree. "I don't know what prompted me, but it started a conversation" with MIT about the logistics of finally graduating, Kapor said. By the time Kapor gave the lecture in March, Aulet had discovered Kapor was only a few courses short. MIT does not give honorary degrees, but school officials allow students to make up for missing classes with an independent study and a written thesis. Kapor decided to write a paper on the roots and development of his investing strategy. "It's timely, it's highly relevant, and I have things to say," he said. One 77-page thesis later, Kapor, donning a cap and gown, finally received his master's degree in May, at a ceremony in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Cambridge, not far from where he founded Lotus.

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It's forecast to be another day of warm temperatures

The NFL legend was one of a host of A-listers who jetted in as the TV host and Amazon billionaire tied the knot in a lavish wedding on Friday.

A painting with a link to one of the most famous historic ships in the world is heading to auction this week.

A rare and beautiful duck has been captured on camera in Essex by an enthusiastic photographer.

Nando's restaurant in Braintree is temporarily closed for refurbishment.

The village is seeing more extreme weather events

PLUS: Broadband blimps to fly in Japan; Starbucks China put ads before privacy; and more!

Asia In Brief  Canada’s government has ordered Chinese CCTV systems vendor Hikvision to cease its local operations.…

On the big screen, she has featured in movies with a dazzling array of top-flight stars including Tom Cruise, Sandra Bullock, Steve Carell and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Bridget Phillipson (left) said too many young people have been put off from having families because of soaring costs for things like housing and childcare.

"Researchers are embarking on an ambitious project to construct human genetic material from scratch," reports the Guardian, "to learn more about how DNA works and pave the way for the next generation of medical therapies." Scientists on the Synthetic Human Genome (SynHG) project will spend the next five years developing the tools and knowhow to build long sections of human genetic code in the lab. These will be inserted into living cells to understand how the code operates. Armed with the insights, scientists hope to devise radical new therapies for the treatment of diseases. Among the possibilities are living cells that are resistant to immune attack or particular viruses, which could be transplanted into patients with autoimmune diseases or with liver damage from chronic viral infections. "The information gained from synthesising human genomes may be directly useful in generating treatments for almost any disease," said Prof Jason Chin, who is leading the project at the MRC's Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge... For the SynHG project, researchers will start by making sections of a human chromosome and testing them in human skin cells. The project involves teams from the universities of Cambridge, Kent, Manchester, Oxford and Imperial College London... Embedded in the project is a parallel research effort into the social and ethical issues that arise from making genomes in the laboratory, led by Prof Joy Zhang at the University of Kent. "We're a little way off having anything tangible that can be used as a therapy, but this is the time to start the discussion on what we want to see and what we don't want to see," said Dr Julian Sale, a group leader at the LMB.

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Up to 75 protesters gathered in London's Hyde Park this afternoon for a Let Women Speak (LWS) event, spearheaded by campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen, also known as Posie Parker.

Russell Crowe cut a dashing figure when he attended the Golden Bee Awards in Malta on Sunday. 

Holly Valance is single again following her split from her billionaire property tycoon husband, Nick Candy, after 13 years of marriage.

A woman in her 30s was killed in the collision in Corby, Northants on Saturday afternoon after her scooter was hit by the powerful grey vehicle. Emergency services soon arrived on the scene.

Organisers of the event at Dreamland Margate, an amusement park in Kent, announced on social media that it was forced to 'close early' as 'it was just too hot today'.

Primark shoppers are rushing to praise a new outfit from the retailer

The company said a 'manual error' resulted in its customers being told that they had won 'excessively high prizes' and that the sums won had been 'multiplied by 100'.

It follows other European hotspots that have banned huge liners from their shores and imposed passenger restrictions in a move to try and combat overtourism.

Earlier in the weekend, punk duo Bob Vylan led revellers in a chant of 'death to the IDF' prompting condemnation from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who branded the remarks 'appalling'.