Rise of the start-ups

Abstract

Along with my colleague Alex Tullo, I’ve been spending a lot of time exploring C&EN’s archives in this, the magazine’s centennial year. Tullo creates our From the Archives features, which look at a seminal story from each of the past 10 decades. He is also the author of a forthcoming feature that will chart the intertwined corporate histories of six major chemical companies. And Tullo often shares with me interesting pages from past issues, along with his comments on how C&EN’s design and coverage have evolved. It’s good, nerdy fun. One thing that strikes me about the magazine today, compared with 20 years or more ago, is how much more often start-up companies appear in our pages. Last week’s news section, for example, mentioned six start-ups. By contrast, a news section I picked randomly from a January 2000 issue mentioned none. Multiple definitions of start-up can be found on the