For over a year, Mike Alvarez Cohen studied the development of UC Berkeley as a leader in entrepreneurship and startups. He collected case studies of company founders and their ventures, highlighting how campus innovators created an environment that fostered new business ideas and led to hundreds of startups each year.
Cohen, who serves as the director of innovation ecosystem development at UC Berkeley, faced feedback suggesting that the university’s proximity to Silicon Valley made its success inevitable. However, his research into archival documents revealed that for much of its history—up until the 1990s—the campus was indifferent or even opposed to industry partnerships. Many faculty members were skeptical about collaborating with businesses or profiting from taxpayer-funded research.
The shift toward embracing industry collaborations and entrepreneurship happened gradually through intentional changes in campus culture. This realization became central to Cohen’s new book, “Startup Campus: How UC Berkeley Became an Unexpected Leader in Entrepreneurship and Startups,” published this month. The 214-page book covers different phases of Berkeley’s approach to innovation, from early resistance to its current status as a leading institution for generating startups.
Digital copies of the book are available free for students, faculty, and staff with CalNet authentication. A dedicated website has been launched where people can share their startup experiences, and events related to the book are planned throughout the semester.
“The publication is like a startup’s exit into an IPO or acquisition,” Cohen said. “It’s not the end of the journey, but it’s a culminating milestone.”
The book is divided into six chapters, each focusing on a distinct period in Berkeley’s innovation network—from early initiatives by electrical engineering and computer science faculty in the 1960s to modern programs and accelerators developed in recent years.
“Nearly 100 faculty, staff and alumni contributed to this story,” said Chancellor Rich Lyons, who wrote the foreword. “It’s built on our research strength, our culture of questioning and our drive to make a difference. This is a new model for higher ed, one where scholars and entrepreneurs work together to scale impact for society.”
Cohen first considered writing about Berkeley’s entrepreneurial ecosystem in 2017 with Caroline Winnett from Berkeley SkyDeck but waited until he saw a clearer narrative emerge by late 2023. By then, UC Berkeley had become recognized as a top institution for undergraduate-founded venture-backed startups—a significant change from earlier decades when entrepreneurship was less valued on campus.
“Executive leadership wasn’t just supporting innovation and entrepreneurship,” Cohen said. “They were championing it.”
Chancellor Lyons responded positively when Cohen proposed making it a campus-wide project. The effort officially began in February 2024.
Laura Hassner, executive director for innovation at UC Berkeley and part of the initial team behind the project, described it as ambitious but necessary: “We knew Berkeley was punching above our weight in innovation and entrepreneurship, and it was time for the world to know,” Hassner said. “With his deep knowledge of I&E and his experience as a published author, Mike was absolutely the right person to lead this donor-funded effort.”
Cohen credited both Hassner and Darren Cooke—who succeeded Lyons as chief innovation officer—for helping bring “Startup Campus” to completion despite working on it part-time over 19 months.
He noted that telling UC Berkeley’s story required focusing on collective achievement rather than individual protagonists: “This hobby taught me that the best stories are character-driven,” Cohen said. “So with this nonfiction UC Berkeley book, a big challenge was finding an arc for the story, especially without having one individual as the protagonist. Instead, the campus is the protagonist, and the arc is its unexpected journey to entrepreneurship excellence.”
Cohen hopes that sections such as narrative accounts from contributors will serve as guidance for other universities seeking ways to combine teaching with societal impact through innovation.
“I’m particularly proud to have been a part of the team that wrote the story about part of what makes Berkeley special,” Cohen said. “The book’s emergence, like the rise of our startup campus, was anything but a solo effort.”
More information about “Startup Campus” can be found at https://startupcampus.berkeley.edu/.
