5 ms·

Google or Microsoft are pretty close nowadays. Look at all the infrastructure both of these sponsored over the years. It may not be as foundational as what BL

Google or Microsoft are pretty close nowadays. Look at all the infrastructure both of these sponsored over the years. It may not be as foundational as what BL did, but then again there is not as much low hanging fruit today either.

zelphirkalt 2y ago
Also Google and Microsoft for the most part are not even trying to be innovative. Rather they try to milk out every last cent of existing products, driving people to buy their cloud services, or directly or indirectly sell user data to third parties.
- fragmede 2y ago
  self driving cars and transformers not good enough for you?
  - bobmcnamara 2y ago
    Not when hipsters in my town strand them with a sack of flour.
  - beezlewax 2y ago
    What self driving cars? None of them are up to the task from what I've seen.
    - NullHypothesist 2y ago
      Waymo's got an open-to-public service in SF & Phoenix. Testing in LA & Austin now. It works really well, and has been expanding quickly (relatively speaking). https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/travel/self-driving-cars-san-francisco.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/travel/self-driving-cars-...
- nox101 2y ago
  You're saying Google's long work in AI, Quantum Computing, etc... are not trying to be innovative? Their researchers certainly put out a lot of influential papers. https://research.google/ https://research.google/
- abadpoli 2y ago
  There is an insane amount of innovation happening at Google and Microsoft et al. The amount of investment going into efforts like making data centers more power efficient, making better cooling systems, reducing latency or using fiber more efficiently etc is incredible and rivals the work done at Bell Labs back in the day. You just don’t hear about it because these private companies have no incentive to share it. And that’s entirely separate from the fact that Generative AI wouldn’t even be a thing if not for the research that Google published.
  - buildbot 2y ago
    Literally just watched an internal talk about this topic at work (Microsoft). Lots of cool internal research to make things better in every domain, but as you said, it won't be shared that much. The Open Compute Project is great though, and MSR does awesome research across many domains too, as does Alphabet.
    - count 2y ago
      Was the Bell Labs Systems Journal shared outside of Bell Labs contemporaneously? I have original copies of the Unix issue, for example, but have no idea if that was 'generally available' back when it came out...
      - ghaff 2y ago
        Without deeply researching the topic, my understanding is that Bell Labs didn't really "open source" everything or really most things. Just look at the later law suit over Unix.
        gregw2 2y ago
        See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix : "Due to a 1956 consent decree in settlement of an antitrust case, the Bell System was forbidden from entering any business other than "common carrier communications services", and was required to license any patents it had upon request. Unix could not, therefore, be turned into a product. Bell Labs instead shipped the system for the cost of media and shipping. ... In 1983, the U.S. Department of Justice settled its second antitrust case against AT&T, causing the breakup of the Bell System. This relieved AT&T of the 1956 consent decree that had prevented the company from commercializing Unix. AT&T promptly introduced Unix System V into the market. The newly created competition nearly destroyed the long-term viability of Unix, because it stifled the free exchanging of source code and led to fragmentation and incompatibility. The GNU Project was founded in the same year by Richard Stallman."
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  > not even trying to be innovative it was Google's research that led to the current LLM revolution
- xtracto 2y ago
  Someone from The Valley told me a couple (~8) of years ago that he didn't like the way SV startup culture had transformed. He argued that in the past, the culture of startups in the valley focused on innovation and disruption. VCs would fund moonshots and small teams doing crazy bew thing. But nowadays, the valley looks more for "scalability' projects, things that will sell to millions of people. He blamed the cost of living/hiring in the area. He mentioned that with a lower cost of wages and living. A pre-seed startup could go a long way with family money funding the moonshot. I think it's sad that as you said even companies with large chunks of money aren't willing to spend in r&d as much as before. I guess a war is needed for that unfortunately.
throwaway81523 2y ago
Ma Bell was regulated and they used the labs partly as a slush fund to smooth out their apparent earnings. When they got a rate increase, the labs would be well funded for a while, so AT&T wouldn't have to show an unseemly spike in profits. When they went for a long while without an increase, the labs would run lean until the next increase came. At least that's what someone told me back then.
- tedunangst 2y ago
  I've read more than one history of bell labs and never heard about this dynamic.

zelphirkalt 2y ago

Also Google and Microsoft for the most part are not even trying to be innovative. Rather they try to milk out every last cent of existing products, driving people to buy their cloud services, or directly or indirectly sell user data to third parties.

fragmede 2y ago
self driving cars and transformers not good enough for you?
- bobmcnamara 2y ago
  Not when hipsters in my town strand them with a sack of flour.
- beezlewax 2y ago
  What self driving cars? None of them are up to the task from what I've seen.
  - NullHypothesist 2y ago
    Waymo's got an open-to-public service in SF & Phoenix. Testing in LA & Austin now. It works really well, and has been expanding quickly (relatively speaking). https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/travel/self-driving-cars-san-francisco.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/travel/self-driving-cars-...
nox101 2y ago
You're saying Google's long work in AI, Quantum Computing, etc... are not trying to be innovative? Their researchers certainly put out a lot of influential papers. https://research.google/ https://research.google/
abadpoli 2y ago
There is an insane amount of innovation happening at Google and Microsoft et al. The amount of investment going into efforts like making data centers more power efficient, making better cooling systems, reducing latency or using fiber more efficiently etc is incredible and rivals the work done at Bell Labs back in the day. You just don’t hear about it because these private companies have no incentive to share it. And that’s entirely separate from the fact that Generative AI wouldn’t even be a thing if not for the research that Google published.
- buildbot 2y ago
  Literally just watched an internal talk about this topic at work (Microsoft). Lots of cool internal research to make things better in every domain, but as you said, it won't be shared that much. The Open Compute Project is great though, and MSR does awesome research across many domains too, as does Alphabet.
  - count 2y ago
    Was the Bell Labs Systems Journal shared outside of Bell Labs contemporaneously? I have original copies of the Unix issue, for example, but have no idea if that was 'generally available' back when it came out...
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Without deeply researching the topic, my understanding is that Bell Labs didn't really "open source" everything or really most things. Just look at the later law suit over Unix.
      - gregw2 2y ago
        See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix : "Due to a 1956 consent decree in settlement of an antitrust case, the Bell System was forbidden from entering any business other than "common carrier communications services", and was required to license any patents it had upon request. Unix could not, therefore, be turned into a product. Bell Labs instead shipped the system for the cost of media and shipping. ... In 1983, the U.S. Department of Justice settled its second antitrust case against AT&T, causing the breakup of the Bell System. This relieved AT&T of the 1956 consent decree that had prevented the company from commercializing Unix. AT&T promptly introduced Unix System V into the market. The newly created competition nearly destroyed the long-term viability of Unix, because it stifled the free exchanging of source code and led to fragmentation and incompatibility. The GNU Project was founded in the same year by Richard Stallman."
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> not even trying to be innovative it was Google's research that led to the current LLM revolution
xtracto 2y ago
Someone from The Valley told me a couple (~8) of years ago that he didn't like the way SV startup culture had transformed. He argued that in the past, the culture of startups in the valley focused on innovation and disruption. VCs would fund moonshots and small teams doing crazy bew thing. But nowadays, the valley looks more for "scalability' projects, things that will sell to millions of people. He blamed the cost of living/hiring in the area. He mentioned that with a lower cost of wages and living. A pre-seed startup could go a long way with family money funding the moonshot. I think it's sad that as you said even companies with large chunks of money aren't willing to spend in r&d as much as before. I guess a war is needed for that unfortunately.

throwaway81523 2y ago

Ma Bell was regulated and they used the labs partly as a slush fund to smooth out their apparent earnings. When they got a rate increase, the labs would be well funded for a while, so AT&T wouldn't have to show an unseemly spike in profits. When they went for a long while without an increase, the labs would run lean until the next increase came. At least that's what someone told me back then.

tedunangst 2y ago
I've read more than one history of bell labs and never heard about this dynamic.