Harvard-MIT founder chose California over Boston biotech hub — SkimNews
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- Felix Wong, 33, was born in Quincy, graduated from Braintree High School, and spent a decade living in Cambridge
- Wong earned two degrees from Harvard and worked as a post-doc at MIT before launching his own biotech company
- Wong's parents still live in Massachusetts, yet he founded his startup in Redwood City in California's Silicon Valley
- Boston has dominated the U.S. biotech industry for nearly two decades, making Wong's California location a deliberate departure from the regional gravity
- Wong cited the "creative spirit of California" while reflecting outside his Silicon Valley office near a hiking trail lined with jacaranda trees
Why it matters: Each high-credentialed founder who bypasses Boston's biotech cluster — with its Harvard-MIT talent pipeline and established investor base — for California signals the competitive tension between the two regional hubs. Wong's case is especially pointed because his academic network is entirely Massachusetts-based, suggesting the pull toward California may be about environment and culture rather than access to biotech infrastructure.
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