Edward Linde

Linde was born to a Jewish family[6][7] in Brooklyn on June 22, 1941, the son of Irving and Dorothy Linde.[8] In 1958, he moved to Boston in 1958 to attend MIT where he studied civil engineering[3] and graduated in 1962.[8] In 1964, he graduated from Harvard Business School and went to work for Cabot, Cabot & Forbes[3] where he met Mortimer B. Zuckerman.[8]

He and Zuckerman redeveloped much of East Cambridge into the area now known as Kendall Square, helping create a U.S. technology hub, with Harvard and MIT researchers mixing with firms such as Google, Microsoft, Biogen Idec, and Novartis.[3] In Boston, Linde was responsible for properties such as the office towers at 28 State Street and One Boston Place.[3] Perhaps his most prominent contribution to the city was the Prudential Center, where he helped transform a disjointed area into a retail mecca.[3] In 2007, he was succeeded as company president by his son, Douglas T. Linde.[9]

Forbes ranked him tied as the 840th richest billionaire worldwide in 2007, with a net worth of US$1.1 billion.[10]

Linde was chairman of the board of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a director of Jobs for Massachusetts, WGBH, and Boston World Partnership, and a trustee at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.[3] The west wing of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts is named after him, his wife, and the Linde family in recognition of the more than $25 million they donated to the museum.[3] He also was a major donor to his alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,[3][5] the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston.[11]

In 1963, he married Joyce Goldfine (born 1943) whom he had met in college; they had two children, Douglas Linde and Karen Linde Packman.[12][13][8] Linde died from pneumonia in 2010.[9]

As of 2016, Joyce Linde was worth $1.5 billion.[14]