I'd imagine the closest modern analogue to Bell Labs would be Google X. (Or whatever they're calling it now after the Alphabet reorg.) They have a lot of the sa

I'd imagine the closest modern analogue to Bell Labs would be Google X. (Or whatever they're calling it now after the Alphabet reorg.) They have a lot of the same hallmarks - huge company in a backbone industry that can afford to pay top dollar for the smartest folks they can find. From what I understand about their internal cultures, it sounds like there's plenty of similarities there as well - loose oversight, just the directive to make Cool Stuff.