Where Futures Converge Kendall Square and the Making of a Global Innovation Hub

The evolution of the most innovative square mile on the planet: the endless cycles of change and reinvention that created today’s Kendall Square.

Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been called “the most innovative square mile on the planet.” It’s a life science hub, hosting Biogen, Moderna, Pfizer, Takeda, and others. It’s a major tech center, with Google, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple all occupying big chunks of pricey office space. Kendall Square also boasts a dense concentration of startups, with leading venture capital firms conveniently located nearby. And of course, MIT is just down the block. In Where Futures Converge, Robert Buderi offers the first detailed account of the unique ecosystem that is Kendall Square, chronicling the endless cycles of change and reinvention that have driven its evolution.
 
Buderi, who himself has worked in Kendall Square for the past twenty years, tells fascinating stories of great innovators and their innovations that stretch back two centuries. Before biotech and artificial intelligence, there was railroad car innovation, the first long-distance telephone call, the Polaroid camera, MIT’s once secret, now famous Radiation Laboratory, and much more. Buderi takes readers on a walking tour of the square and talks to dozens of innovators, entrepreneurs, urban planners, historians, and others. He considers Kendall Square’s limitations—it’s “gentrification gone rogue,” by one description, with little affordable housing, no pharmacy, and a scarce middle class—and its strengths: the “human collisions” that spur innovation.
 
What’s next for Kendall Square? Buderi speculates about the next big innovative enterprises and outlines lessons for aspiring innovation districts. More important, he asks how Kendall Square can be both an innovation hub and diversity, equity, and inclusion hub. There’s a lot of work still to do. 
 

Robert Buderi is an author, journalist, and entrepreneur. He is the author of Engines of Tomorrow, The Invention That Changed the World, and other books, former Editor-in-Chief of Technology Review, and founder of the media company Xconomy.

Introduction 1.0, or Preface: The Kendall Theory of Biogeography ix
Introduction 2.0: The Best Place to Have These Problems xiii
1 The Most Innovative Square Mile Kilometer On Earth 1
2 Model of Innovation 9
3 The First Economic Vision for Kendall Square is a Bust 21
4 Charles Davenport and the Square's Transformation 25
5 Kendall Becomes Kendall 33
6 Davenport's Failed Dream Opens the Door for "New Technology" 37
7 "A Canopy of Industrial Haze" 47
8 Rad Lab: Kendall Square's Tipping Point 55
Spotlight: The F&T--Place-Making's First Place 65
9 Urban Marshland to Urban Renewal 69
10 Kendall, We Have a Problem 77
11 Tech Surge: Lotus to AI Alley 87
12 The Ordinance and Biogen 99
13 Beginnings of Gene Town 111
14 Bubble Days: Media Lab to Akamai 119
Spotlight: Lita Nelsen on Technology Licensing and How "Clusters Feed Themselves" 133
15 Cambridge Innovation Center: Kendall Square's Startup Heart 137
Spotlight: Innovation Space Zoning--How Kendall Square Hopes to Keep Its Startup Community Vibrant 147
16 "Nibber": Big Pharma Ups the Ante 151
Spotlight: Bob Langer--Personification of Kendall Square's Secret Sauce 159
17 Homegrown Biotechs Make Their Mark 163
18 Road to the Broad 179
19 The Corporatization of Kendall Square 193
20 Venture Migration and the Tech Startup Squeeze 205
Spotlight" Flagship Pioneering--Kendall Square Company Creator 217
21 Forty Missing Companies 223
22 700 Main: The Story of Kendall Square--In One Building 237
23 Nexus of Collaboration 249
Spotlight: Mapping the Moderna Network 257
24 Challenges and Regional Advantage 261
25 Voices of the Square 273
26 Eleven Decisions that Shaped Kendall Square 283
27 Lessons and Observations 287
28 Converge and Consilience 295
Acknowledgments 303
List of Interviews 305
Notes 309
Bibliography 337
Index 359