From the Basement to the Dome: How MITs Unique Culture Created a Thriving Entrepreneurial Community (The MIT Press)

How a bottom-up problem-solving ethos, multidisciplinary approach, and experimental mind-has nurtured entrepreneurship at MIT.

MIT is world-famous as a launching pad for entrepreneurs. MIT alumni have founded at least 30,000 active companies, employing an estimated 4.6 million people, with revenues of approximately $1.9 trillion. In the 2010s, 20-30 ventures were spun off each year to commercialize technologies developed in MIT labs (with intellectual property licensed by MIT to these companies); in the same decade, MIT graduates started an estimated 100 firms per year. How has MIT become such a hotbed of entrepreneurship? In From the Basement to the Dome, Jean-Jacques Degroof describes how MIT's problem-solving ethos, multidisciplinary approach, and experimental mind-set nurture entrepreneurship.

Degroof explains that at first, the culture of entrepreneurship sprang from such extracurricular activities as forums, clubs, and competitions. Eventually, the Institute formally supported these activities, even offering courses in entrepreneurship and prototyping. Degroof describes why MIT's culture is so uniquely aligned with entrepreneurship: a history of bottom-up decision making, a tradition of academic excellence, a keen interest in problem-solving, a belief in experimentation, and a tolerance for failure on the way to success. Entrepreneurship is the logical outcome of MIT's motto, Mens et Manus (Mind and Hand) ), translating theories and scientific discoveries into products and businesses—many of which have the goal of solving some of world's most pressing problems. Degroof maps MIT's current entrepreneurial ecosystem of students, faculty, and researchers; considers the effectiveness of teaching entrepreneurship; and outlines ways that the MIT story could inspire conversations in other institutions about promoting entrepreneurship.