Internet pioneer pushes social change through investing, activism

In today's hyper-speed world of technology entrepreneurship, David C. Bohnett ranks as a grand old man. Bohnett, 55, founded GeoCities, the pioneering social networking company that made his fortune, back in 1994 — virtually Internet prehistory. He took GeoCities public in 1998 and it was sold the following year to Yahoo for more than $3 billion in Yahoo stock. After 10 years of indifferent and shortsighted management, Yahoo consigned GeoCities to the Internet's memory banks by shutting it down in 2009.

Yet it was the original sale, which netted Bohnett personally something in the neighborhood of $300 million, that funded the next act of his life, as an investor in start-up Internet companies and a supporter of social philanthropies. He also supports a group campaigning to amend 1978's Proposition 13 (it limits the tax rate for real estate), which he has described as an anachronism and an "unmitigated disaster" for California's fiscal health that has crippled schools, universities, fire and police departments and other public institutions. Bohnett's interest in revising Proposition 13 is part of a broader agenda that places him among a breed of philanthropists who are working not merely to improve social conditions but the mechanics of government itself.