Randall
Kaplan was
giving back
to the
•
community
long before he
became one of
the hottest
•
new names in
business.

ALAN ABRAMS

Special to the Jewish News

A

s a young boy growing up
in Southfield and later
Birmingham, Randall
Kaplan always was con-
cerned about helping other people.
His mother, Linda Eder Ross of
Franklin, remembers, "When he was
in the third and fourth grade, if he
heard a sad story on TV, he used to
take part of his allowance and donate
a dollar."
Now 31, Kaplan lives in Los Angeles
and still wants to help people. He just
happens to have a lot more money at
his disposal.
Kaplan is among the leaders of a
new generation of youthful Internet
multimillionaires. When he left his
last job with Akamai Technologies in
October, he took with him three mil-
lion shares of stock worth nearly a bil-
lion dollars.
Kaplan was one of the co-founders
of Akamai, the Internet software
maker with a net worth of $11.5 bil-
lion. Two of his partners were
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
math professors. They developed the
formulas for programs that improved
the speed of Web-content delivery for
companies like MGM, Paramount,
Disney and Playboy.
Akamai (pronounced UH-ke-my)
means "clever" or "cool" in Hawaiian.

It lived up to its name when it went
public in October 1999 with one of
the largest initial public offerings in
history, and quickly became the
best-performing stock on the mar-
ket's Nasdaq indicator. Kaplan is
now the largest outside shareholder.
His parents, who made a small origi-
nal investment in the company, have
shared in Kaplan's success.
Why leave Akamai? L.A. has its
virtues, and Kaplan didn't relish"his
weekly commute to Alcamai's Boston
headquarters, even though he owned
10 percent of the company.
So now he both lives and works in
the upscale L.A. suburb of
Brentwood. He is chief executive
officer of JUMP Investors, a venture-
capital firm he founded to assist
qualified new businesses, including
Internet start-ups. JUMP is the
acronym for Just Upwardly Mobile
Professionals. In less than a year, he
Randall and Lara Kaplan with their dog
has secured 30 clients.
Pooah.

Up ward And Onward

Earlier in his career, Kaplan walked
away from a multimillion-dollar pack-
age of stock options at former
Detroiter Eli Broad's SunAmerica firm
in order to help found Akamai.
Saying he has no time for "hind-
sight, regrets, and what-ifs," Kaplan
admitted he thought about it a lot
when just two months after he left,
Broad sold SunAmerica, a company
that specializes in annuities for retire-
ment plans, for $18 billion.
SunAmerica is now a fully owned
subsidiary of AIG, the publically trad-
ed parent company. Part of the deal
Broad hammered out was the stipula-
tion that all employees could cash out
their stock options immediately. At
the time he left SunAmerica, Kaplan
was still short of the three years' serv-
ice required before employees could
realize the profits. Had he stayed with
Broad two more months, Kaplan
would have reached the financial strat-
osphere at age 29.
Instead, it took him another year to
realize his dream of conquering the busi-
ness world by the time he turned 30.

Helping Real People

Kaplan's metro Detroit roots are
important to him, as is "the impor-
tance of having a strong family, people
who believe in you early on."
For more than 50 years, his grand-
mother, Judy Eder of Southfield, has
been active in the Infant Service
Group. The organization sponsors an
annual fund-raiser called the Infant

Services Luncheon.
At the Oct. 11 luncheon at Big
Daddy's Parthenon in West
Bloomfield, Lottie Malkin, the group's
president, told the guests how a young
man had called her and asked what
the organization did and who they
supported because he wanted to make
a sizable donation in his grandmoth-
er's honor.
Malkin of Southfield thought it was
a hoax and said sure, she would send
some information to his office. She
did, and after two weeks went by with
no response, she was convinced the
call had been a prank.
The day before the luncheon,
though, Kaplan called Malkin again
and said his check was in the mail. It
was made out for $2,500, and with it
came a message titled "To My Loving
Grandmother Judy Eder." He asked
that it be read to the luncheon guests
by her daughter — Kaplan's mother
Linda. In part, his message reads, "I
love organizations that help real peo-
ple — particularly those in need —
and particularly those that help inno-
cent children. You are an inspiration
and a role model to so many people,
and have always been a hero to me."
Kaplan's maternal grandfather, Jack
Eder of Dixfield Super Markets, is
deceased, as are his paternal grandpar-
ents, Elsie and Seymour Kaplan — the
latter being the well-known jeweler.
Randall Kaplan said he believes that
when it comes to helping others, "a
person's net worth is not the issue. You
do not have to be wealthy in order to
give back. Once you have become suc-

cessful, you just have more of an
opportunity," he said.

Family Ties

Ross, a real-estate agent with Hall &
Hunter in Birmingham, is her son's
best press agent — he has no publicist
or public relations agency.
That's why when former Israeli
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
came to dinner at the home of Kaplan
and his wife, Lara, on Sept. 23, it was
a low-key affair. Kaplan said Bibi came
there because he wanted to learn more
about the Internet.
Typically, many of the guests were
members of Kaplan's family, whom he
flew to L.A. from Detroit for the occa-
sion.
Kaplan met the former Lara
Greenberg, 33, when she was looking
for a job. She had lived in Israel for a
year and a half. Lara told Kaplan
about the two MIT mathematicians
who ended up his partners at Akamai
Technologies. They had entered a
$50,000 competition for entrepre-
neurs but needed a business plan.
Ironically, they lost.
Since their marriage in July 1999,
Lara Kaplan has brought her husband a
stronger sense of Judaism. She observes
Shabbat every week, and Kaplan joins
her as she lights candles. Kaplan is not
currently affiliated with any L.A. tern-
ple, although several are interested in
having him become a member. He
became a bar mitzvah at Temple Beth
El in Bloomfield Township under
Rabbi Richard C. Hertz.

Growing Plaudits

Although Kaplan has received coverage
in the New York Times, he does not boast
about his accomplishments. David Lash,
executive director of Bet Tzedek Legal
Services, a beneficiary agency of the
Jewish Federation of Greater Los
Angeles that provides free legal services
for the elderly and the impoverished,
credits Kaplan for making the agency's
annual Justice Ball a major success.
"Of the 3,200 people who attend-
ed this year, 90 percent of them were
under 35," Lash said.
Kaplan was in Ann Arbor last
week to attend meetings as a newly
appointed member of the Visitors
Committee of the University of
Michigan's College of Literature,
Science and the Arts.
How did that word get out?
Credit his proud mother.
Kaplan earned his law degree from
Northwestern University Law School
in Chicago; he serves on the

SW

10/27
2000

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