![]() I also want to know who the Jon Gertner, Tracy Kidder, or Scott Rosenberg of OpenStack will be. That model no longer works in our modern competitive environment, and I am left wondering how we will manage to make the next fundamental leap forward (and what that leap will be) when most businesses can’t afford to take such a long view, and most research universities struggle for funding. From its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labsofficially, the research and development wing of AT&Twas the biggest, and arguably the best. Most of the book talks about a different era, when attitudes about monopolies were different and pure research was funded with fewer expectations of immediate profit. The definitive history of America’s greatest incubator of innovation and the birthplace of some of the 20th century’s most influential technologies. Let’s see how that was even possible and what it took to make that happen. As it turns out, this company has almost single-handedly invented modern communication technology. Gertner’s writing moves along at a nice steady pace, and he tells the stories with a good balance of scientific detail – not so much that you need a physics degree, but enough that you understand the difficulty and significance of the work. In his 2012 book The Idea Factory, Jon Gertnerlooks at the history of Bell Labs, the company behind the telephone ring, among other things. I love these sorts of books, that talk about engineers and scientists solving problems and discovering how the world works. It’s a history of Bell Labs and its impact on modern technology. ![]() ![]() I just finished reading The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner. ![]()
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