[ih] Review: Yasha Levine's "Surveillance Valley"

[Craig Partridge]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2018 at 11:57 AM, Richard Bennett <richard at bennett.com>
wrote:

> Organizations such as Bell Labs and IBM Research pretty much put a dagger
> in the heart of “big companies don’t innovate” conventional wisdom all by
> themselves.
>
>
>
Bell Labs is a lousy example as it was Govt mandated research in return for
monopoly status for AT&T.  Once AT&T broke up and Bell Labs was divided up
and the parts became subject to normal corporate governance of research,
the pieces began to fade (despite desperate attempts by former Bell Labs
folks to keep them sound).  Many of those pieces are now gone.

IBM is the more interesting one, as Tom Watson Sr apparently believed
deeply in research as a way to help the corporate bottom line and that
ethos continued for a long time.  Currently IBM Labs folks say it ain't
what it used to be but remains a vibrant place.  But it is also known as an
exception.

Craig



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