Silicon Insider: Britain Embraces Start-Ups
O X F O R D, England, Dec. 3, 2002 -- The Bodleian Library is nearly as old as printed books themselves.
The first library to appear at Oxford is dated to about 1320. In 1488, Humfrey, the Duke of Gloucester and Henry V's younger brother, built a library here to house 281 priceless manuscripts — all of them tragically scattered to the winds during the reign of Edward VI, who ordered the destruction of anything that hinted of Roman Catholicism.
The might have been the end for the library, and perhaps even Oxford University as a center of learning, had it not been for a retired diplomat of Queen Elizabeth, who retired early, married rich and wanted to spend his new fortune on good works.
His name was Sir Thomas Bodley, and in 1602 he refurbished the old library building and filled it with 2,500 books, making it one of the largest libraries then on the planet.
Today, the Bodleian remains one of the world's greatest libraries, with millions of books, from a copy of the Acts of the Apostles annotated by the Venerable Bede in the 7th century to the earliest illustrated Canterbury Tales to texts published just last week. This collection alone is awesome enough, but add to that the buildings in which it is housed — from late Gothic Divinity School to Humfrey's Elizabethan library (the one used by Harry Potter in the movie) to the Georgian dome of the Radcliffe Camera — and you have one of the world's greatest treasures.
But even as the Bodleian offers an unequaled glimpse into the past, the library itself is gazing intently into the future. As part of a major new capital campaign, the Bodleian is planning to digitize more and more of its rare manuscripts in order to make them available to online users throughout the world. Even now, tucked discreetly under the dark oak shelves and beneath the painted coffered ceilings, one can spot glowing computer monitors and ISDN plugs.
Britain’s New Revolution
This compelling combination of old and new at the Bodleian symbolizes a larger revolution taking place in the UK, particularly at the great university towns of Oxford and Cambridge.
This revolution is not digital. That happened in England long ago. After all, it was the British code breakers at Bletchley Park during WWII who built the first modern mainframe computers.
Nor is this revolution cultural. Though I did encounter some American-style shock jocks during an interview at the local BBC radio station, and British television is wilder than ever, the so-called "Cool Britannia" inaugurated by Blair Government is in little evidence once you leave downtown London. Endless Starbucks and McDonalds aside, the British countryside looks little changed by the rah-rah Nineties.
No, this revolution is philosophical. And it is about to present Britain with one of the biggest opportunities — and challenges — it has faced in decades.
My occasion for being at the university was an event titled "Silicon Valley comes to Oxford," an outgrowth of a solo visit I made last year at this time to give a speech.
This time I brought along a group of Silicon Valley executives, venture capitalists, and entrepreneurs, even the head of a local foundation. The venue was the glittering new Said Graduate School of Business, and the topic was the lessons to be learned from the Valley experience.
It was we Valleyites who got the lesson.
Oxford Looks to the Future
On Sunday afternoon, we were given a tour of Christchurch College, a school that was a quarter-Millennium old when Columbus sailed to America. Everything breathed the glittering dust of history: the quadrangle built by Cardinal Wolsey, the tower designed by Christopher Wren, the rooms occupied by Charles I during the English Civil War, the garden where Lewis Carroll composed the stories for Alice Liddell, even the halls used for Harry Potter's Hogwarts School.
On a foggy Monday morning we ate at traditional British breakfast in a dark 16th-century library in the Medieval Quad of one of Oxford's smallest colleges, and then jumped 800 years in a matter of moments as we drove to one of the city's most successful new biotech start-ups.
There, we sat in a modern conference room, indistinguishable from its counterparts in Santa Clara or Austin, and listened to a presentation by Powderject Ltd. on its new yellow fever and Hepatitis B vaccines and non-invasive powdered vaccine injectors. Some of the technology was more sophisticated than anything found at largest U.S. pharmaceuticals (one of which will likely buy Powderject any day now).
Powderject is, as we learned that morning, only one of dozens of new start-ups being backed by Oxford's own venture capital operation, called ISIS Innovation Ltd. Most are biotech, arising from the school's world-class chemistry and biology programs.
We in Silicon Valley like to pride ourselves in having no past, as if would impede our forward progress. But Oxford, which would seem to have the biggest legacy problem imaginable, also appears to found a way to build off that past, to even use it as a springboard into the future.
In emulating Silicon Valley while retaining its own venerable character, Oxford may in fact be forging a whole new model for business creation; a real "Third Way" to prosperity that the Blair government has yet to recognize. Oxford is already England's past; it may now also be England's future.
A New Start-Up Nation
And just how quick that future is arriving we learned after lunch. That's when, back at Said Business School, I moderated a panel of the Valleyites, for the MBA students, on the Valley's lessons. Halfway through the session, as a whim, I asked the students how many of them wanted to become entrepreneurs.
Fully 80 percent of them raised their hands. Not surprisingly, during the break the panelists were mobbed by the students asking for advice on business plans, funding and new product marketing.
That night, we repeated the panel discussion for the general public. This time the audience was mostly middle-aged, composed of business executives, academics, and government officials. More than a few name badges bore names preceded by "Sir" or "Dame."
Just for fun, I asked the same question. Astonishingly, half of the audience raised it hands. Even they seemed surprised by their numbers. "Twenty years, would you ever have predicted this?" I asked. Many in the audience members shook their heads.
Whether it grew out of watching the U.S. or from envy of the Irish miracle or, most likely, a grass-roots revolution fed by the intrinsic opportunities presented by the digital revolution (as it was in America), this shift to entrepreneurial capitalism suggests an earthquake is about to hit Merry Old England. The nation of shopkeepers is ready to become the nation of start-ups.
But there's one small problem. The European Union. Not long ago a French minister connected with the EU proudly announced that the Union would put a stop to all this unregulated new business creation and assert some rational control over the chaos.
That's a big uh-oh for entrepreneurs. Once again the Brits are getting a reminder that their best interests may not lie on the Continent.
Will it choose the dull security of the Union, or the thrill, adventure and chance for greatness that comes with entrepreneurship? For the sake of those MBA students, I'm praying for the latter. Either way, though, I suspect neither side will give up easily.
And that means that Cool Britannia is about to get very hot.
Michael S. Malone, once called “the Boswell of Silicon Valley,” most recently was editor-at-large of Forbes ASAP magazine. His work as the nation’s first daily high-tech reporter at the San Jose Mercury-News sparked the writing of his critically acclaimed The Big Score: The Billion Dollar Story of Silicon Valley, which went on to become a public TV series. He has written several other highly praised business books and a novel about Silicon Valley, where he was raised. For more, go to Forbes.com.