does an impressive job of illuminating many of Bell Labs’ key technological triumphs.” - Wired.Brief Summary of Book: The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner Gertner’s book offers fascinating evidence for those seeking to understand how a society should best invest its research resources.” - The Wall Street Journal the research behind The Idea Factory is astonishing.” - Slate Book Review “One of the best innovation-focused books I’ve read: It’s a wide-ranging, detailed, and deeply fascinating look at the New Jersey lab which has been churning out useful discoveries since the early 1900s.” - The Boston Globe And they showcase, too, his novelistic sense of character and intuitive understanding of the odd ways in which clashing or compatible personalities can combine to foster intensely creative collaborations.” - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

Gertner’s portraits of Kelly and the cadre of talented scientists who worked at Bell Labs are animated by a journalistic ability to make their discoveries and inventions utterly comprehensible-indeed, thrilling-to the lay reader. The Idea Factory explores one of the most critical issues of our time: What causes innovation?” - Walter Isaacson, The New York Times Book Review `“Filled with colorful characters and inspiring lessons. Here, after all, was where the foundational ideas on the management of innovation were born. Today, when the drive to invent has become a mantra, Bell Labs offers us a way to enrich our understanding of the challenges and solutions to technological innovation. At its heart this is a story about the life and work of a small group of brilliant and eccentric men-Mervin Kelly, Bill Shockley, Claude Shannon, John Pierce, and Bill Baker-who spent their careers at Bell Labs. The Idea Factory traces the origins of some of the twentieth century’s most important inventions and delivers a riveting and heretofore untold chapter of American history. From the transistor to the laser, from digital communications to cellular telephony, it’s hard to find an aspect of modern life that hasn’t been touched by Bell Labs.

The definitive history of America’s greatest incubator of innovation and the birthplace of some of the 20th century’s most influential technologiesįrom its beginnings in the 1920s until its demise in the 1980s, Bell Labs-officially, the research and development wing of AT&T-was the biggest, and arguably the best, laboratory for new ideas in the world.

The idea factory book