Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

None of these efforts are as wide-ranging as AT&T's, though. Budget comparisons are hard for a number of reasons (AT&T had R&D happening in multiple places, under multiple funding streams, both directly and indirectly funded), but the usual thinking is that AT&T spent a larger % of revenue on research than most, but not all, organizations today, with Google being a notable example of a company that beats it on % revenue to R&D (is this still true?). My suspicion would be that that comparison wouldn't hold if you factored in the directly funded DoD work but it's hard to say without some pretty complex digging through accounting records.

The more substantial point is breadth, though. AT&T research at its peak was more comparable to a university than an industrial R&D institution, with both basic and applied research occurring in a huge variety of fields---likely all fields of physical science at various points. All of the organizations you mention are essentially single-purpose. Some of the major tech companies (Google, Microsoft) are known for wide-ranging R&D, but they seem to have struggled to produce the kind of basic advances that AT&T did, and also seem to be backing off of that work.

Basic research is the big problem... AT&T had very little problem with money going to basic research without known applications, likely due to the substantial influence that academia and "scientific management" had on AT&T, as well as its reputation for excellent research management practices that made AT&T a major part of basic physics research on the behalf of the DoD for decades (Sandia National Laboratories, for example, operated by AT&T until relatively recently). In my opinion, accounts of Bell Labs enormous success, having made major contributions to nearly every field of engineering, often focus too much on the excellence of its staff (which was a factor, although Bell Labs management practices were not exactly modern), and downplay the role of AT&T's willingness to fund basic research and ability to find outside funding for basic research as well. Few modern organizations seem to be willing to entertain major efforts in a nascent field of astronomy, for example, on the assumption that the technical work will lead to useful engineering knowledge.

There's a lot out there about the history of Bell Labs, but its own multi-volume "A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System," from the late '70s, does a good job of covering the incredible breadth and scale of work performed at Bell Labs. One thing to consider is that costs were quite a bit lower back then, and so Bell Labs small-looking budget of $3-5 billion of today's dollars per year translated to a workforce in the tens of thousands working, during WWII, 70-hour weeks. A two-day weekend did finally reach most of the Bell Labs technical staff early in the Cold War.

Besides, if you read into the history of Bell Labs, you will recognize vestiges of its bureaucratic structure in most government and military R&D today. Its influence in government and military physical research is enormous.

Fusion isn't a good example. It's not getting anywhere near the funding it requires. Maybe I've become cynical, but it seems like all the big new technology products which have come out in the last decade or two have just been software products mostly designed to predict human behavior more accurately to advertise to us. AT&T invented solar panels, the transistor, radio astronomy, as well as computing innovations that we're still using today. It's hard to imagine we'll hold Google, Apple, or Facebook in the same reverence 100 years from now because they created some interesting consumer products which distract us for a couple years before going in the trash to be replaced by the next, slightly more distracting version

sir, i must respectfully disagree - bell labs is still a thing

disclaimer - i work there as a senior researcher and we still do world class research, so pls don't portrait us as a thing of the past just yet, thx :)

How do you figure? The model now has been tech companies for the last 15 years.

Bell labs is long gone but the site has since been redeveloped and now is a mixed use Office/Hotel space. I think redevelopment started in 2013.

Microsoft tore down those buildings, the original X buildings campus, a few years ago:

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/microsoft-says-goodbye-past-de...

Replaced with anonymous open plan buildings. Quite difficult for me to think about despite having left 23 years ago. I’m actually not a very nostalgic person most of the time.

I always found Fairchild to come up surprisingly often in random bits of knowledge. He had his hands in and was a pioneer in aircrafts, photography, spy satellites, semiconductors and had over 70 companies (known to us) throughout his life. Just makes my conspiracy side tingle.