Innovation Economy. The new book by Scott Kirsner.

Scott Kirsner is a natural storyteller. His new book, Innovation Economy, compiles so much of his writing into one place, covering his two-decades long view of the changing economy of Cambridge and Boston. Of all his tales, my favorites are the quirkier ones — Mark Zuckerberg having a coffee at Henrietta’s Table at the Charles Hotel, trying to get funding for this new Harvard project called thefacebook, or the old frat house at Dartmouth College that served as the basis of the 1978 film Animal House. If you’re of a certain generation (I am), that movie was a wonderful encapsulation of the absurdity of that era. It’s not surprising to learn the home of “Toga, Toga, Toga” is now a shared workspace for tech entrepreneurs. If that doesn’t encapsulate the last 40 years of educated America, I don’t know what does. But Kirsner also shares his observations about some other changes that are more vexing — How should we think of gig workers? What will happen to the urban office real estate market post-Covid? And back to Mark Zuckerberg for a moment — How in the world did a Harvard College dropout create a company that 15 years later would be worth approximately $720 billion? As Kirsner points out, when Zuckerberg first approached local venture capital firms, the model was to fire all these “kids” and replace them with “responsible adults.” Imagine if that had happened!