A False Alarm at Microsoft Turns into Serendipity

Serendipity often comes when you least expect it.

This morning, cycling into Cambridge from the north, I had to drop an envelope at a lawyer’s office on Station Road. I decided to take a quieter back route rather than the main road. By chance, that choice took me past the Microsoft offices.

As it happened, the building had just been evacuated by a fire alarm-mercifully a false one. A large crowd of Microsoft staff lined the pavement as I rode by. Inevitably, I scanned the faces. And there, right at the end, was Chris Bishop, who leads Microsoft Research in Cambridge.

Chris was surprised to see me, though I had the advantage of spotting him first. We immediately began talking. He was bubbling with enthusiasm about Microsoft’s work in science, particularly its use of density functional theory (DFT) to design molecules, and the way retrosynthetic analysis allows one to work backwards from a desired molecule to see how it might be constructed.

“Everything is made of molecules - every drug, every material, every technology.”

This struck a deep chord. As co-founder of Chemify in Glasgow, I’ve spent years helping to build universal molecular machines-systems that can make any molecule, guided by digital blueprints. In June, we opened the world’s first Chemifarm, a fully automated facility for molecule production.

Chris emphasised that molecules are the basis of everything-drugs, materials, technologies. I knew exactly what he meant. At that point, he introduced me to the head of the project, who happened to be Italian. Switching into Italian, I discovered that her grandfather owns a house just a few kilometres from where we spent this summer. A small-world coincidence within a larger one.

Back with Chris, I outlined Chemify’s vision. He mentioned he was travelling to Islay next week and suggested he might stop in Glasgow on the way back. Readers of my book Serendipity: It Doesn’t Happen by Accident will know it begins with another chance encounter-on the Isle of Skye. The echo was hard to miss.

Where might this lead? Perhaps nowhere - Microsoft may prefer to keep its work tightly under wraps. Or it may be that Chemify’s molecular machines and Microsoft’s design tools are natural partners. Either way, the essence of serendipity is to stay open, to follow the unexpected lead, and to see what might emerge.

For me, this was serendipity in action: a chance route, a false alarm, a familiar face in the crowd, and a conversation that could open an entirely new frontier. Cambridge has a way of turning the unexpected into opportunity - and this morning was no exception.

As I argue in my book Serendipity: It Doesn’t Happen by Accident, Cambridge provides a unique setting where these encounters happen-and why I devoted a whole chapter to it. This morning was a reminder of why Cambridge remains such a remarkable place for chance to turn into opportunity.