Boston's history of entrepreneurship
BOSTON AND Silicon Valley are widely recognized as the two leading regions for innovation-based entrepreneurship. But while Northern California's success has been entirely tied to the high-tech boom starting in the 1950s, Boston's history of innovation covers far more fields and dates almost to its origins.
Harvard economist Edward L. Glaeser has documented the four major waves of economic reinvention that have taken Boston from its founding to today's strong position. From our first transformation in the mid-1600s to the center of a regional trade network through our evolutions into a global, seafaring merchant power, a pioneer of the Industrial Revolution and, finally, a leader of knowledge-based industries, Boston has always depended on its ability to innovate.
Opportunities for innovation constantly arise as a function of new technologies, changing market needs, regulatory shifts, and evolving demographics. For one of us, the window of opportunity was created by greater fluidity in the job market combined with the emerging opportunity of the Internet. For the other, the tremendous shift of women into the work force, new research about the importance of early education, and the need for employers and employees to find better ways to balance work and family led to unprecedented demand for high quality, worksite early-education centers.
Boston has always been home to such a disproportionately large share of successful innovation because of our ability to supply a blend of entrepreneurs eager to strike out in new directions, financiers willing to nurture these ventures, and high levels of skilled workers able to turn an idea into a growing company.
Since an entrepreneur must have a new idea, Boston benefits from its extraordinary supply of higher education that remains the wellspring for many of the great ideas around which to build companies. But Boston's culture of dissent and independent thinking also plays a role as an entrepreneur is always challenging the orthodoxy of how things are done today.
Boston's base of venture capital, legal and accounting expertise, and experienced consultants provide fertile soil into which to plant seeds for high growth as businesses.
Finally, the tremendous supply of higher education combined with an attractive quality of life makes Boston a magnet able to attract and retain just the sort of people that knowledge-based companies require to build their teams. In fact, the relatively rare company that relocates here does so in spite of our high costs and challenging regulatory situation in order to tap into that human capital. Boston's competitive advantage is its people.
While we can take great pride in Boston's amazing longevity as a source of innovation and entrepreneurship, we certainly cannot take our position for granted. In an ever more competitive global economy, many other regions seek to supplant us.
Since Boston and Massachusetts depend on the success of rapidly growing, entrepreneurial ventures, we feel that more investment should be made to encourage and support young ventures. Tax and other policies, which today are either neutral or even biased in favor of more politically powerful mature industries, should be oriented towards encouraging the proliferation and success of small businesses.
Second, our region must continue to lead in the development of highly skilled human capital. From more universal early education to a K-12 system that narrows, even eliminates the achievement gap based on race and socioeconomic class to continuing to expand the ranks of the college-educated, Massachusetts must live up to the tradition of the first public school, the first college, and Horace Mann's vision of public education for all.
Finally, we must continue to be a place of choice for highly skilled people who can live anywhere. That means we must we must keep our eye on the cost of living, especially that of housing, we must invest in our environment and cultural institutions, and we must embrace diversity of all kinds so that Boston continues to incubate the inventors of the future.
Jeff Taylor is founder and chief monster of Monster Worldwide. Linda Mason is chairman and founder of Bright Horizons Family Solutions.
