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Jed Alexander Smith is an American entrepreneur, social investor, and philanthropist. He is the founder and managing director of the venture capital firm Catamount Ventures and was the founder of drugstore.com and co-founder of the Cybersmith chain of Internet cafés and the education technology investment firm Owl Ventures.

Early Life and Education

Smith was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 6, 1965, to Marshall J. Smith and Judith Anne Alper Smith. His father was the founder of the Paperback Booksmith chain of bookstores and, later, of the video chain Videosmith and the educational toy store chain Learningsmith.

Jed Smith grew up in Brookline, MA where he attended Brookline public schools. He graduated from Philips Exeter Academy  in 1984 and from Middlebury College in Vermont, where he received a BA in History, in 1988. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1995.

Career

After graduating from Middlebury, Smith worked in the direct marketing division at Oracle Corporation and as vice president of sales at networking hardware and software company Tribe Computer Works.

While at Harvard Business School, Smith co-founded Cybersmith cafés with his father. The New York Times described the first café, in Harvard Square, as “not just another hangout for techies. It is set up to appeal to the many who don't know the first thing about navigating in the new technopolis.”

''"The technology elite is developing these different media, but the general public has had no place to go to catch up," Jed Smith told the Times. "We wanted to offer an unintimidating way to introduce the novice to cutting-edge technology. The cafe adds a sense of community, something familiar that people can approach."''

In 1997, Smith developed the idea for the online drugstore drugstore.com. The site, with financial backing from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, launched in 1998 with Smith as vice president. Smith left drugstore.com in August 1999 and sold about a quarter of his stock in the company six months later. (The company was sold to Walgreen’s in 2011 and was shut down in 2016.)

In 2000, Smith announced he was launching the venture capital firm Catamount Ventures, focusing on investing in very early-stage companies with 20% of partnership's profits going into a nonprofit organization he would set up to focus on education and the environment. In 2014 Smith co-founded the technology venture capital fund Owl Ventures.

In addition to his involvement in entrepreneurship and technology, Smith is the active president of two family-owned businesses in Massachusetts, Brookline Booksmith, the original store in the chain founded by his father, and Wellfleet Marketplace, a Cape Cod grocery.

Public Service and Activism

In 2012 Smith co-founded the Herring Ponds Watershed Association in Massachusetts to help protect natural resources in Massachusetts. In 2015 he created the David E. Alper Nature Preserve, with support from the Town of Plymouth Open Space Committee and private and nongovernmental organization sources. He has also sat on the boards of education and non-profit institutions, including the board of trustees of Middlebury College for International Studies, Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and Shackleton Schools.

In November 2022 Smith was elected to the Board of Directors for the Marin Municipal Water District, serving Division 4 which includes Mill Valley, Marin city and Sausalito, California.

"Although our water challenges are tough, I’m driven to solve difficult problems and I’m an optimist at heart. With fresh eyes, courage, and commitment I believe we can sustainably meet our future."

''“I’m proud of our stewardship of this land,” board member Jed Smith said at the Dec. 12 meeting. “And it’s a unique thing for a water agency to be focused on, and we’re doing it well.”''

''“I think this is an opportunity for our represented staff, our unrepresented staff, our leadership team, the board, to all lock arms and move in one direction,” said Jed Smith, a board member… “I think we have an opportunity to learn from the past and move forward in as positive a light as possible,” Smith said. “We have so much to do in the months and years to come that it’s time for us to have better, open communication, get the best ideas to the top, and be super thoughtful about supporting each other.”''