Benʼs working notes
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§Bell Labs Model
Questions
Why was Bell Labs Different?
Why hasn’t Bell Labs been replicated?
Was Bell Labs an anomaly?
Conclusions
Bell Labs and AT&T had timescale alignment
Bell Labs is one of the few examples of an innovation org that was aligned with its money factory
Bell labs had a budget of 2.8 billion 2020 dollars
Bell Labs was only profitable in conjunction with AT+T
AT+T benefitted significantly from creating better technology
Regulation drove many of Bell Labs’ actions
All the work at Bell Labs needed to tie back to the system
Bell Labs empowered young people
Bell Labs hired people before they had a role or expertise
The work at Bell Labs that was most valuable to AT+T and the work that was most valuable to the world was fairly disjoint
The famed bell labs research was a fraction of their activity
Bell labs was primarily not researchers
Bell labs brought many disciplines together under the same roof and broke down barriers between them
Bell Labs did not give researchers complete freedom
Bell labs asked people to do useful things but left them room to say huh that’s funny
Bell Labs management was extremely light
Bell Labs didn’t have a unique model
Bell Labs selected for people with only academic pedigrees and with a sense of adventure
Bell Labs was not a business
::NW::
Bell labs existed before continuous improvement was expected
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Bell Labs was a dance of individuals and institution, prototyping and manufacturing, invention and discovery
::NW::
Bell Labs enabled free radicals
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