3 ms·

The more that we find out about Bell Labs the more we all realize how much of our world they built. We really could use a place like that today.

em3rgent0rdr 1y ago
There is a place like that today. It is called "Nokia Bell Labs".
- jll29 1y ago
  This is a valid point. Are there still regularly ground-breaking innovations (which ones e.g. in the last decade) coming out of the same lab today, whatever its owner or name?
  - rollcat 1y ago
    It's more difficult to innovate today on a similar scale, or with similar impact. It also seems that big budgets don't really help. Graphene chips are an insanely exciting (hypothetical) technology. A friend of mine predicted in 2010 that these chips will dominate the market in 5 years' time. As of 2025 we can barely make the semiconductors. Apple makes chips that have both excellent performance per watt, and overall great performance, but they make small generational jumps. On the other hand, startups, or otherwise small-but-brilliant teams can still produce cool new stuff. The KDE team built KHTML, which was later forked into Webkit by three guys at Apple. Paxos was founded on theoretical work of three guys. Brin & Page made Google. In the era of big & expensive iron, the innovation was to use cheap, generic, but distributed compute power, and compensate for hardware failures in software. This resulted in cheaper, more reliable, and more performant solutions. But yeah, most of the "moonshot factories" just failed to deliver anything interesting. Maybe you need constraints, market pressure?
    - dimator 1y ago
      > But yeah, most of the "moonshot factories" just failed to deliver anything interesting. Maybe you need constraints, market pressure? It's funny you say that because to me it seems like bell labs was the exact opposite. Because of the antitrust ruling, there was a cap on profits, so many monies were instead funneled into green field R&D. The facility was run by people who knew how to manage a large group of capable people: put them in close proximity with other cross discipline stars, get out of their way, let their imaginations dictate the path.
      - rollcat 1y ago
        I can't quite put my finger on these changes in the landscape. Shuji Nakamura invented blue LEDs in his garage. Meanwhile, graphene. I just don't think there's a universal rule.
- justin66 1y ago
  This comment was illuminating. It would indeed have been more accurate to say "we could really use people like that today." Where they're located is a secondary concern.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

em3rgent0rdr 1y ago

There is a place like that today. It is called "Nokia Bell Labs".

jll29 1y ago
This is a valid point. Are there still regularly ground-breaking innovations (which ones e.g. in the last decade) coming out of the same lab today, whatever its owner or name?
- rollcat 1y ago
  It's more difficult to innovate today on a similar scale, or with similar impact. It also seems that big budgets don't really help. Graphene chips are an insanely exciting (hypothetical) technology. A friend of mine predicted in 2010 that these chips will dominate the market in 5 years' time. As of 2025 we can barely make the semiconductors. Apple makes chips that have both excellent performance per watt, and overall great performance, but they make small generational jumps. On the other hand, startups, or otherwise small-but-brilliant teams can still produce cool new stuff. The KDE team built KHTML, which was later forked into Webkit by three guys at Apple. Paxos was founded on theoretical work of three guys. Brin & Page made Google. In the era of big & expensive iron, the innovation was to use cheap, generic, but distributed compute power, and compensate for hardware failures in software. This resulted in cheaper, more reliable, and more performant solutions. But yeah, most of the "moonshot factories" just failed to deliver anything interesting. Maybe you need constraints, market pressure?
  - dimator 1y ago
    > But yeah, most of the "moonshot factories" just failed to deliver anything interesting. Maybe you need constraints, market pressure? It's funny you say that because to me it seems like bell labs was the exact opposite. Because of the antitrust ruling, there was a cap on profits, so many monies were instead funneled into green field R&D. The facility was run by people who knew how to manage a large group of capable people: put them in close proximity with other cross discipline stars, get out of their way, let their imaginations dictate the path.
    - rollcat 1y ago
      I can't quite put my finger on these changes in the landscape. Shuji Nakamura invented blue LEDs in his garage. Meanwhile, graphene. I just don't think there's a universal rule.
justin66 1y ago
This comment was illuminating. It would indeed have been more accurate to say "we could really use people like that today." Where they're located is a secondary concern.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]