Maximilian Büsser was born in 1967 in London to a Swiss-Italian father and an Indian mother, and grew up between Switzerland and the United Kingdom. He studied microtechnology at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) before joining Harry Winston in 1994, where he spent a decade as CEO of its watch division. Under his direction, Harry Winston Rare Timepieces established itself as a serious force in haute horlogerie, and Büsser cultivated the relationships with independent watchmakers and movement designers that would later define his own venture.

In 2005, Büsser founded MB&F (Max Büsser and Friends) in Geneva, with a philosophy that has remained consistent ever since: that watchmaking should be a form of three-dimensional kinetic art, and that collaboration should be acknowledged rather than obscured. Every MB&F creation credits the specialist watchmakers, movement designers, and craftspeople who contributed to its making, a transparency that was almost without precedent in the industry at the time.

The Horological Machine series launched with HM1 in 2007, establishing MB&F's visual language of mechanical sculptures shaped like spacecraft, jet engines, and alien organisms. The Legacy Machine line, introduced in 2011, offered a counterpoint: architecturally bold but rooted in classical watchmaking tradition, featuring large suspended balance wheels and movements developed in collaboration with makers including Kari Voutilainen. Among the most celebrated pieces are the HM3 Frog, the HM6 Space Pirate, and the Legacy Machine Perpetual.

Büsser has described many of the Horological Machines as the spacecraft and robots he imagined as a child in the 1970s, a personal dimension that gives the brand an emotional coherence distinguishing it from purely technical exercises in independent watchmaking. MB&F has also extended beyond the wrist through its M.A.D.Gallery (Mechanical Art Devices) spaces in Geneva, Dubai, and Taipei, which present kinetic art and table clocks in collaboration with sculptors and designers.

Büsser remains one of the most visible and outspoken figures in independent horology. MB&F produces fewer than 300 watches per year, sold through a tightly controlled network of authorised dealers and its own galleries.