computer science

Steve Kirsch

Steve Kirsch is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Steve Kirsch rather than just read about it. In short: Steven Todd Kirsch (born 1956 in Los Angeles) is an American entrepreneur. He has started several companies and was one of two independent inventors of the optical mouse.

Key takeaways

Steve Kirsch belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Steve Kirsch to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Steve Kirsch from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Steven Todd Kirsch (born 1956 in Los Angeles) is an American entrepreneur. He has started several companies and was one of two independent inventors of the optical mouse. Kirsch has been both a philanthropic supporter of medical research, and a promoter of misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.

Education Kirsch received a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980.

Career

In 1980, Kirsch and Richard F. Lyon independently invented the first versions of the optical mouse. Kirsch has started several companies. In 1993, he founded the search engine Infoseek, which in 1999 was sold to the Walt Disney Co. He co-founded Frame Technology Corp., bought by Adobe in 1995. In 2002 he was CEO of Propel Software. In 2005 he founded Abaca, which made a spam filter. In September 2011, he started OneID to create a user-centric Internet-scale digital identity system using public key cryptography to replace usernames and passwords with a digital identity compatible with the NSTIC goals. Sometime before March 2021, Kirsch started M10, which markets blockchains for banks, but the board asked him to step down in the summer of 2021 amid controversy generated by his statements on COVID treatments and vaccines.

COVID-19 In April 2020, Kirsch founded the COVID-19 Early Treatment Fund (CETF) to fund research into off-label treatments for COVID-19 among drugs already having FDA approval for other diseases, donating $1 million himself and also fundraising from others. He recruited what MIT Technology Review called "a powerhouse board" of scientific advisors including Robert Siliciano and management by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. By October 2021 the fund had made grants totaling $4.5 million to various researchers. The fund found a "promising candidate" for further study in fluvoxamine, according to MIT Technology Review. After funding a successful small trial which ended in November 2020, CETF provided further funding for a Phase 3 trial, which as of October 2021 was analyzing data. Kirsch, frustrated that CETF's scientific advisory board was not willing to promote use of the drug based on results of a small preliminary study, wrote a post on Medium titled The Fast, Easy, Safe, Simple, Low-Cost Solution to COVID That Works 100% of the Time That Nobody Wants to Talk About. Medium removed his access to the site, citing misinformation concerns. Kirsch also refused to accept the outcome of a CETF-funded study on hydroxychloroquine, which had found the drug ineffective; he eventually warred with CETF's scientific advisory board over CETF's treatment of both drugs to the extent that in May 2021 all 12 members resigned.

Vaccine misinformation In May 2021, Kirsch posted an article online claiming that COVID-19 vaccines affect fertility, while also underplaying the vaccines' ability to prevent illness and death, both statements criticized by fact checkers as being inaccurate and misleading. In September 2021, speaking at an FDA meeting and identifying himself as CETF's executive director, Kirsch claimed that the vaccines "kill twice as many as they save"; the FDA responded that Kirsch had misinterpreted data and that there was no evidence his statement was true. Reuters assessed the claim as false. In March 2023, Kirsch said that he had offered a woman sitting next to him on a first class Delta flight $100,000 to remove her mask for the entire flight. She refused. In October 2021, Kirsch founded the anti-vaccine group Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (VSRF), which created ads depicting deaths the group attributed to vaccines. Foundation advisors include Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, and Stephanie Seneff. Before this, in June 2021, Kirsch had appeared with Malone on the Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying podcast, which according to MIT Technical Review "introduced Kirsch to followers of the 'intellectual dark web'" and allowed him to access a "large and receptive audience to his claims about a fluvoxamine conspiracy".

Personal life Kirsch and his wife, Michele, fund a charitable foundation, which by 2007 had given $75 million to different causes. Kirsch also was a noted contributor to Democratic Party related funds. In 2007, his personal fortune was estimated at $230 million; that same year he was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer and funded research into experimental treatments for it, eventually refocusing the family foundation on medical research. As of 1998 the couple lived in Los Altos and had two children.

References

External links Official website Steve Kirsch at Politifact

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Steve Kirsch

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Steve Kirsch claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Steve Kirsch before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Steve Kirsch ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Steve Kirsch

In research: Steve Kirsch appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Steve Kirsch in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Steve Kirsch is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century American inventors, 21st-century American inventors, American anti-vaccination activists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Steve Kirsch outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Steve Kirsch in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Steve Kirsch means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Steve Kirsch out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Steve Kirsch in simple terms?

Steven Todd Kirsch (born 1956 in Los Angeles) is an American entrepreneur. He has started several companies and was one of two independent inventors of the optical mouse.

Why does Steve Kirsch matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Steve Kirsch?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Steve Kirsch.