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You could write a book on this point. In fact a few have and they are worth reading. someone at Bell Labs once remarked that 90% of staff worked on development
by blululu 4y ago
You could write a book on this point. In fact a few have and they are worth reading.
someone at Bell Labs once remarked that 90% of staff worked on development (bringing research into a practical deployment). Based on that they estimate that development is ~10% more difficult than research. While works like Shannon’s or Bardeen’s or Pierce’s stand out, most of the work was devoted to deployment. Something academics and patents don’t cover.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoSo the modern equivalent might be Sunshot where the government recognises a certain area with potential like PV (sort of a Bell Labs innovation coincidentally) and then funds efforts to commercialize and drive prices down while supporting initial business in the field. https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/sunshot-initiative https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/sunshot-initiative A decentralised, non-monopolistic Bell Labs for the 21st century. Oh, just noticed it was announced by a Bell Labs alumni, Steven Chu, in his role as U.S. Energy Secretary.
- jpeloquin 4y ago> You could write a book on this point. In fact a few have and they are worth reading. If you have time, could you share some specific recommendations?
- pbronez 4y agoIf I'm going to read one book about Bell Labs, with the goal of learning things I can apply to the current day, which book should I read?
- lr1970 4y ago> If I'm going to read one book about Bell Labs, with the goal of learning things I can apply to the current day, which book should I read? The "Idea Factory" by Jon Gertner comes to mind. It is quite accurate.
- anp 4y agoThis was basically the approach of Mozilla Research AIUI, which gave us Rust. IIRC this talk goes into a lot of history there: https://youtu.be/9OHcJzJQ2Nk https://youtu.be/9OHcJzJQ2Nk.