Manufactured Innovations

The book is about the rise and fall of the Bell Laboratory. Bell Lab makes the transition into the digital era a reality through their ingenious scientists, such as Bardeen, Shockley, and Shannon. To match Bell Lab's philosophy of managing ideas rather than employees, the book is composed of the discovery or invention of transistors, information theory, fiber optics and others.

Everyone today feels the impact of the transistors. The book answers how transistors come into being. In particular, when we read about the inventor of the transistors, Shockley, it's inevitable that we will be attracted to read Shockley's life. Shockley is an ingenious scientist, but is terrible at management. It's exciting to see great things coming out of his lab, but sorry to hear that he passed away almost lonely.

One riveting fact about Bell Lab is its uncompromised support for fundamental research. A lot of researchers in the Bell Lab are eventually awarded the Nobel Prize. This uncompromised support for fundamental research brought AT&T, Bell Lab's mother company, with astounding profits during the transitional era into the digital era. However, at the end of the book, Jon Gertner points out that fundamental research costs quite a lot, but results in limited profits. It's unlikely that a private institution can sustain such extravagant investment in fundamental research.

An interesting inference from the aforementioned phenomena is that in the supposedly capitalistic world, the market, mainly start ups, are increasingly relying on government-supported research for technologies. This may be another useful evidence to defend against market fundamentalists.

There are a lot more to reflect on how Bell Lab succeeded, and whether the success is a result of serendipity or inevitability. Reading this book is an enjoyable way to think about these questions.