Humably
Michael D. Lapico
Founder and CEO, Capably Human
Founder · Product Design Leader · Author
For more than thirty years, Michael D. Lapico built technology meant to make things effortless. Then AI made thinking itself optional. Now he is turning human-centered design on a harder question: how to build technology that makes people more capable, not less.
At a Glance
30+
Years in digital, continuously since 1996
CPO
Chief Product Officer at venture-backed startups
Founder
Founded and led agencies and tech businesses
Author
Of Capably Human’s founding publications and the forthcoming Heavy Lifting
Career
From effortless to capable
1986
The 286
Met his first computer at seven, and by twelve was repairing computers and teaching the people who used them.
1996
Web designer
Built his first websites for local businesses at sixteen, after teaching HTML at MicroAge Training; joined Outputs Web Design in 1998 and became webmaster of ICON Laser Eye Centers in 1999.
2001–2011
Agency founder
Founded or co-founded and led MediaDuo, Prativo Group, and Web Heads, with full responsibility for strategy, clients, operations, and P&L.
2002–2003
Instructor
Taught Interactive Multimedia to graduating graphic design students at St. Clair College, on a course he built from scratch.
2011–2013
Touch Village
As founder and CEO of a mobile publisher, brought a catalogue of apps and games to market, including KitchenPad Timer, featured in the Los Angeles Times and in Apple App Store curated lists.
2013–2017
Chief Product Officer
Led product at the venture-backed startups WeCam, built in the earliest days of WebRTC, and StoryShapr, a social storytelling platform.
Nearly a decade
AIRSTAGE Cloud
Led product design on one smart building platform as it moved from Ventacity Systems into Fujitsu General America (now GENERAL HVAC Solutions America), and built the company’s first UX organization.
Now
Capably Human
Founder and CEO of Capably Human, building research and products around Capability Fitness.
The Question Behind the Work
Across those roles, his work has returned to one question:
How can technology expand what people are capable of doing without weakening the judgment, independence, and skill that make progress possible?
That question became Capably Human, and its organizing idea, Capability Fitness.
Read An Origin StoryBuilding Now
The work
Founder and CEO
Capably Human
A mission-driven company advancing human capability in the age of artificial intelligence, through open, testable research and the products built on it.
Capably Human’s first venture
Humably
The app that makes you better at working with AI, on your own work. At work, at school and in retirement.
