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The Influence of Bell Labs
We’ve talked previously about Bell Labs’ long, storied history as an innovation engine and a generator of new technology.
At the time, IBM primarily produced mechanical punchcard-based calculators, but Watson Jr, recognizing that the future was in electronics, scaled up their research operations and hired thousands of scientists and engineers who understood semiconductors and solid-state physics. Even a company like Google, which spends billions on R&D and has displayed a willingness to fund speculative, longer-term moonshot projects like self-driving cars or life extension, doesn’t completely bite the Bell Labs bullet. Bell Labs also took advantage of historical circumstances: discoveries in quantum mechanics yielded promising new phenomena, and WWII energized the organization while simultaneously creating scientific and technological progress that could later be capitalized on.
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