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Just reading the book The Idea Factory, it was incredible amount of innovation. Lasers, early satellites, transistors. And it was all done, apparently, at leas
by kranke155 2y ago
Just reading the book The Idea Factory, it was incredible amount of innovation. Lasers, early satellites, transistors.
And it was all done, apparently, at least in the beginning, because they hired smart people and they let them do what they wanted.
- fuzztester 2y agounix, c and c++ too.
- kranke155 2y agoHaven't gotten to that part of the book.
- Lyngbakr 2y agoThey don't cover it in the book, unfortunately. A serious omission, in my eyes.
- jhbadger 2y agoAnd S, the statistical data language that was the ancestor of S-PLUS and R.
- fuzztester 2y agodid not know about that, thank you.
- ioblomov 2y agoAll true, but monopoly profits sure help.
- l33t7332273 2y agoAs do high corporate tax rates
- rmorey 2y agoI know the author, Jon. Delightful guy
- toast0 2y agoAlmost all of the things I can think of that came from bell labs are things that helped their business. The only thing that I don't know how it helped their business was Hemo the Magnificent and similar films; but I'm sure those helped with PR. Monopoly may have helped them pay for such r&d, but vertical integration is what made it possible for so much r&d to be relevant to the business.
- kranke155 2y agoI think it ended up helping their business because they deliberately made it so later, but it’s not clear how some inventions would help their business in advance. From the book there was quite a few things that sat on the shelf for years until someone figured out a way to use them later.