The question of how eukaryotic cells assemble their mitochondria was long considered to be inaccessible to biochemical investigation. This attitude changed about fifty years ago when the powerful tools of yeast genetics, electron microscopy and molecular biology were brought to bear on this problem. The rising interest in mitochondrial biogenesis thus paralleled and assisted in the birth of modern biology. This brief recollection recounts the days when research on mitochondrial biogenesis was an exotic effort limited to a small group of outsiders. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.