The Idea Factory
Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation

The Idea Factory is a fascinating book for anyone interesting in the process of innovation. The book follows the particular example of Bell Labs, which at its peak in ~1940-70 was a 1000+ PhD behemoth conducting full-stack research/development/deployment in communications, with decades of runway ena......more

Bell Labs was probably the most important scientific institution of the 20th century. Check out this list: transistors, semiconductors, microwave towers, digital transmission, satellites, radio astronomy, information theory, quality control, fiber optics, undersea cabling, CCDs, cell phones, video p......more

3 stars for a general audience, 4 stars for an audience interested in the history of technology. The book did a very good job of describing an almost magical place and time, and almost caused me to mourn the demise of the old monopolistic phone company, which certainly is a large part of the reason s......more

An excellent history of Bell Labs with a great combination of science, innovation, business, capsule biographies, and the like. It is amazing to contemplate the journey as the world shifted from "inventors" to scientists working together to invent stuff in a way that pre-dated the Manhattan project......more

A friend of ours, at the helm of a leading-edge R&D team within a tech giant, first recommended this book to us. As he prepared for his role, this book provided useful examples of how to do innovation well within a large company. For those of us looking for ways to generate creativity and innovation......more