Bell Labs invented Google, Facebook, etc? Wow, did not know that.

But as you say, the labs were a very small, independent part of a very big corporation, which is likely why they did interesting things. The other thing is that they were forced by the government to license transistor patents to others, who actually created almost everything else.

By your theory the military invented the internet, so they invented the modern world. A huge and wasteful military is the key!