6 ms·

RCA and the Roaring Twenties

61 points by benbreen 2y ago

hy4000days 2y ago
[dead]
Animats 2y ago
RCA and the Nifty Fifties.[1] This is an orientation film for employees. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEPS1uYRCdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEPS1uYRCdE
trhway 2y ago
interesting tidbit: After World War II, stars that made over $70,000 faced a marginal tax rate of 77%. Paley worked out an accounting technique whereby individual performers would set themselves up as a corporation so they could be taxed at 25% rather than 77%. Sarnoff, the head of NBC and RCA, decided this method was legally and ethically wrong and he ended up losing most of his biggest stars.
- Frieren 2y ago
  > Sarnoff, the head of NBC and RCA, decided this method was legally and ethically wrong and he ended up losing most of his biggest stars. This is why the government needs to assure that everybody plays by the rules. If companies out there are lying about an employee status to make them instead a contractor (looking at you Uber) the rest of companies that are following the law are hurt as other workers and society at large. Enforcing labor law is good for the economy and good for society.
  - logicchains 2y ago
    >Enforcing labor law is good for the economy and good for society. It may be good for society but if you compare countries with more labour laws to those with less, e.g. Europe vs America (or Western Europe vs Northern Europe, which has stronger welfare but less onorous regulation), more labour law is not good for the economy.
    - wat10000 2y ago
      Amount and enforcement are orthogonal. Regardless of how much you have, it must be consistently enforced.
    - Frieren 2y ago
      > more labour law is not good for the economy If by economy you mean the richest 0.1% earning more money, I have to agree. But I disagree with that definition of "economy". For me economy includes the ability of citizens to make ends meet and afford good health care and education. A good economy requires a well regulated labor market. That definitions of a "good economy" are excluding these considerations it is just an effect of inequality and an increasing focus on the needs of the 0.1% over the economy as a whole. And it is not a real representations of the real economy at all.
    - organsnyder 2y ago
      GDP isn't the only measure of a country's success. European countries surpass the United States in many metrics relating to the actual wellbeing of their citizens.
      - nradov 2y ago
        Which European countries specifically? Europe is a big place. Are you including Moldova? Or just the nice parts of the EU? You can cherry pick measures of success to make one country look better than other countries. So what. For example, the USA does better than almost all European countries in 5-year cancer survival rates.
        organsnyder 2y ago
        My wording was sloppy: I should have said "...many European countries..." or just "many countries", for that matter. My point is that the level of GDP in the United States is not required for a thriving society.
        nradov 2y ago
nonrandomstring 2y ago
Nice compact history of US radio. Also lovely to trace a company history through several techs, phono->tape->radio->tv. And very interesting to hear about stolen lunches and ethical binds still relevant today. The invitation here (from the author, and submitter I presume) is to compare halcyon radio days with "AI". Not sure that works myself. The golden era of non-linear physics literally created fundamental new technologies each decade, By contrast "AI", blockchains etc are culmination advancements. The concluding remark is spot on IMHO. > it was unable to find a new source for dramatic growth. You wonder whether the same will be true of the Apples, Googles, Netflixes, Teslas and similar companies of the 2020s
masklinn 2y ago
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFVP0SGNlBiBtFVkV5LZ7SOU https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFVP0SGNlBiBtF... is an exploration of the CED, essentially RCA’s last major attempt at relevance before Welsh acquired it for butchering.
relaxing 2y ago
Conspicuously missing here is RCA Astro Electronics, responsible for the first weather and satcom satellites, and RCA Missile and Radar, responsible for BMD and radars leading up to the Aegis system.
hilbert42 2y ago
A very interesting article. I worked in the prototype lab of RCA Australia (Artarmon, Sydney) in the late 1960s but left before the division/manufacturing plant was closed down the early 1970s. We made professionsl broadcast and telecommunications equipment and the plant did very well (I mentioned my time there and my meeting with Sarnoff on HN a while back). Thus, it came as quite a shock when I later heard the plant had closed down as only several years earlier ('68 if I recall) Sarnoff Senior (not Robert) had visited the plant and to open a new record factory only about a dozen miles away. As I'd left before the plant was closed I wasn't privy to employees' scuttlebutt about Camden's reasons for closing it so I had to rely on industry rumors for reasons of which there were a number but none was definitive (for me it's always been a bit of a mystery). I was already aware RCA stagnanted from about 1967 onwards but this article's Fig 4 (RCA—1920 to 1986) adds numerical info of which I was unaware such as the steeper downturn around 1974, which is about when the Australian division was closed. Presumably, this downturn was at least part of the reason (many have long said the '67 decline was due to Robert Sarnoff's mismanagement). I hope someone will soon write a definitive history of RCA, it's important it's written because the Company played such an important/pivotal role in early broadcast/electronics manufacturing (BTW, when I was working there RCA was the biggest electronics company in the world).

61 points by benbreen 2y ago

[dead]

RCA and the Nifty Fifties.[1] This is an orientation film for employees. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEPS1uYRCdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEPS1uYRCdE

trhway 2y ago

interesting tidbit: After World War II, stars that made over $70,000 faced a marginal tax rate of 77%. Paley worked out an accounting technique whereby individual performers would set themselves up as a corporation so they could be taxed at 25% rather than 77%. Sarnoff, the head of NBC and RCA, decided this method was legally and ethically wrong and he ended up losing most of his biggest stars.

Frieren 2y ago
> Sarnoff, the head of NBC and RCA, decided this method was legally and ethically wrong and he ended up losing most of his biggest stars. This is why the government needs to assure that everybody plays by the rules. If companies out there are lying about an employee status to make them instead a contractor (looking at you Uber) the rest of companies that are following the law are hurt as other workers and society at large. Enforcing labor law is good for the economy and good for society.
- logicchains 2y ago
  >Enforcing labor law is good for the economy and good for society. It may be good for society but if you compare countries with more labour laws to those with less, e.g. Europe vs America (or Western Europe vs Northern Europe, which has stronger welfare but less onorous regulation), more labour law is not good for the economy.
  - wat10000 2y ago
    Amount and enforcement are orthogonal. Regardless of how much you have, it must be consistently enforced.
  - Frieren 2y ago
    > more labour law is not good for the economy If by economy you mean the richest 0.1% earning more money, I have to agree. But I disagree with that definition of "economy". For me economy includes the ability of citizens to make ends meet and afford good health care and education. A good economy requires a well regulated labor market. That definitions of a "good economy" are excluding these considerations it is just an effect of inequality and an increasing focus on the needs of the 0.1% over the economy as a whole. And it is not a real representations of the real economy at all.
  - organsnyder 2y ago
    GDP isn't the only measure of a country's success. European countries surpass the United States in many metrics relating to the actual wellbeing of their citizens.
    - nradov 2y ago
      Which European countries specifically? Europe is a big place. Are you including Moldova? Or just the nice parts of the EU? You can cherry pick measures of success to make one country look better than other countries. So what. For example, the USA does better than almost all European countries in 5-year cancer survival rates.
      - organsnyder 2y ago
        My wording was sloppy: I should have said "...many European countries..." or just "many countries", for that matter. My point is that the level of GDP in the United States is not required for a thriving society.
        nradov 2y ago

nonrandomstring 2y ago

Nice compact history of US radio. Also lovely to trace a company history through several techs, phono->tape->radio->tv. And very interesting to hear about stolen lunches and ethical binds still relevant today. The invitation here (from the author, and submitter I presume) is to compare halcyon radio days with "AI". Not sure that works myself. The golden era of non-linear physics literally created fundamental new technologies each decade, By contrast "AI", blockchains etc are culmination advancements. The concluding remark is spot on IMHO. > it was unable to find a new source for dramatic growth. You wonder whether the same will be true of the Apples, Googles, Netflixes, Teslas and similar companies of the 2020s

masklinn 2y ago

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFVP0SGNlBiBtFVkV5LZ7SOU https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFVP0SGNlBiBtF... is an exploration of the CED, essentially RCA’s last major attempt at relevance before Welsh acquired it for butchering.

relaxing 2y ago

Conspicuously missing here is RCA Astro Electronics, responsible for the first weather and satcom satellites, and RCA Missile and Radar, responsible for BMD and radars leading up to the Aegis system.

hilbert42 2y ago

A very interesting article. I worked in the prototype lab of RCA Australia (Artarmon, Sydney) in the late 1960s but left before the division/manufacturing plant was closed down the early 1970s. We made professionsl broadcast and telecommunications equipment and the plant did very well (I mentioned my time there and my meeting with Sarnoff on HN a while back). Thus, it came as quite a shock when I later heard the plant had closed down as only several years earlier ('68 if I recall) Sarnoff Senior (not Robert) had visited the plant and to open a new record factory only about a dozen miles away. As I'd left before the plant was closed I wasn't privy to employees' scuttlebutt about Camden's reasons for closing it so I had to rely on industry rumors for reasons of which there were a number but none was definitive (for me it's always been a bit of a mystery). I was already aware RCA stagnanted from about 1967 onwards but this article's Fig 4 (RCA—1920 to 1986) adds numerical info of which I was unaware such as the steeper downturn around 1974, which is about when the Australian division was closed. Presumably, this downturn was at least part of the reason (many have long said the '67 decline was due to Robert Sarnoff's mismanagement). I hope someone will soon write a definitive history of RCA, it's important it's written because the Company played such an important/pivotal role in early broadcast/electronics manufacturing (BTW, when I was working there RCA was the biggest electronics company in the world).