The Idea Factory

Pretty good description of the history of Bell Labs. Mostly focuses on the Labs through a half dozen brilliant and colorful individuals. A couple of flaws prevented a better rating: a fair amount of repetition, as if some chapters were once independent pieces; a curious omission of certain stories, such as Penzias's and Wilson's discovery of the Big Bang cosmic background radiation discovery. I worked in Holmdel for almost 20 years and never once heard the facility described as “The Big Box”. Also concludes with a rather bllitering chapter on “What is Innovation” that doesn't say much.

I worked for AT&T from 1985-2001 and while I never worked for Bell Labs proper, I was in the neighborhood. It was a joy to read the first part of this book as it described the early start and amazing developments that came out of Bell Labs. It made me proud to have been nearby. But then that last part made me sad to go through the fall of AT&T and Bell Labs. AT&T was besieged by problem from within and without and I still think we are lesser without them (the company currently calling itself AT&T bears no resemblance to the company I worked for). We see lots of innovations everyday, but they are mostly variations on a theme. There are very few places where people can just work on ideas till they figure it out, even if it's not clear it will lead anywhere. The national labs are burdened with having all of Congress as bosses, almost none of whom are qualified to evaluate the projects but feel as if there views are relevant. I think the future will be better than the past, even without Bell Labs, but it may take longer to get there.