Andrew S. Rappaport
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
venture capitalist partner in August Capital
an information technology venture capital firm based in Menlo Park
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. In the last three years he has become recognized as one of the largest American Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
donors and philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
with his wife Deborah Rappaport.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/magazine/25DEMOCRATS.html?ex=1248494400&en=13ada638bbe542f0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt
Andy Rappaport joined August Capital in 1996. His expertise is in the areas of technology and market expertise related to open-source software
Open-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
, broadband
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
communications, semiconductors, and computer systems. He has more than 15 years of experience as a founder, investor, and/or director of venture-backed start-ups. He has served on more than 30 public and private company board
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
s.
Prior to joining August Capital, he was involved in more than a dozen venture capital-backed start-ups since 1985 including Actel
Actel
Actel Corporation is a manufacturer of nonvolatile, low-power FPGAs, mixed-signal FPGAs, and programmable logic solutions...
, Atheros Communications, Genoa Corp, MMC networks, Silicon Architects (acquired by Synopsys
Synopsys
Synopsys, Inc. is one of the largest companies in the Electronic Design Automation industry. Synopsys' first and best-known product is Design Compiler, a logic-synthesis tool. Synopsys offers a wide range of other products used in the design of an application-specific integrated circuit...
), Silicon Image, Viewlogic, and Transmeta
Transmeta
Transmeta Corporation was a US-based corporation that licensed low power semiconductor intellectual property. Transmeta originally produced very long instruction word code morphing microprocessors, with a focus on reducing power consumption in electronic devices. It was founded in 1995 by Bob...
. For over thirteen years he was the president of The Technology Research Group (TRG), a Boston-based strategy consulting firm he founded in 1984. Before starting TRG, Andy was Senior Editor of EDN Magazine. He was also a research physicist with Panametrics, Inc.; and in his early 20s he was founder and president of his own audiophile consumer-electronics company.
He was also a founder of the Massachusetts Center for Technology Growth, a private economic-development organization and a director of the Massachusetts Microelectronics Center. In the early 1970s Andy attended Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, but dropped out in the second year. He also holds a US patent.
Andy has lectured and written on the economics of changing technology. The Computerless Computer Company, which he wrote together with Shmuel Halevi, won the McKinsey award for Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business Review is a general management magazine published since 1922 by Harvard Business School Publishing, owned by the Harvard Business School. A monthly research-based magazine written for business practitioners, it claims a high ranking business readership among academics, executives,...
article of the year in 1991.
Andy is a guitarist, composer and guitar collector. He and his wife, Deborah Rappaport, are the founders of the Rappaport Family Foundation and Skyline Public Works that funds a variety of non-profit organizations and some commercial ventures too. One of the commercial ventures they sponsor is Huffington Post. They also fund the Participatory Culture Foundation
Participatory Culture Foundation
The Participatory Culture Foundation is a 501 non-profit organization whose mission is to “enable and support independent, non-corporate creativity and political engagement.”...
, an open source video based browser developer.