Steve Kirsch

Steven Todd Kirsch (born 1956 in Los Angeles, California) is an American serial entrepreneur who has started seven companies: Mouse Systems, Frame Technology Corp., Infoseek, Propel, Abaca, OneID, and Token. Kirsch’s most recent venture, Token, focuses on faster, more secure worldwide payments. He invented and owns a patent on 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.

He has a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He used part of his fortune to set up a $75M charitable fund and became an philanthropist. On August 11, 2007, Kirsch announced on his personal Web site that he had been diagnosed with Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia, a rare blood cancer. His cancer is shrinking as a result of treatment using an experimental HDAC inhibitor, LBH-589.