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Globe 100 | The Big Think
Ballmer: Look to Cambridge tech
The Bay State's tech brand has shifted from Route 128 to Cambridge, which is fertile ground for high-tech start-ups
Massachusetts isn unbelievable place: the talent, the schools, the educational institutions, the start-ups. We have over 1,000 people here now in Massachusetts. I think it's just a testimony to the great talent that's here.
Cambridge is a great brand. Route 128, I don't think is a tech brand anymore. The mentality now is more around MIT, Harvard, and the other universities than it is around the 128 corridor - I mean, for somebody outside of this community.
You know, it's a little bit happenstance and luck whether you get a start-up that really goes big. It's not as much happenstance in Silicon Valley, which has the most developed venture capital community and two or three of the large companies that have stayed in business. Those companies throw off talent and do start-ups. But once you get past Silicon Valley, getting a big company to pop, even in an area with a lot of start-ups, is a little bit luck.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen really started the business in Cambridge. Their first customer was in Albuquerque, so they moved, but they started it basically in Paul's apartment out near Fresh Pond. Paul was living there, Bill was at Harvard. So I would say we're a Cambridge-based start-up, in a sense. Although, you know, Harvard certainly gave Bill a little bit of a hard time for using some Harvard computer time for a school project that he turned around and used also as part of Microsoft.
But that's where Bill and I met, in 1974 in Cambridge, Mass. There wouldn't be a Microsoft without this place. No question.
Steve Ballmer is chief executive of Microsoft Corp., the giant software maker based in Redmond, Wash. Microsoft's nerve center in Massachusetts is the New England Research and Development Center in Cambridge.
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