The Idea Factory

Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation

De: Jon Gertner

Narrado por: Chris Sorensen

In The Idea Factory, New York Times Magazine writer Jon Gertner reveals how Bell Labs served as an incubator for scientific innovation from the 1920s through the 1980s. In its heyday, Bell Labs boasted nearly 15,000 employees, 1200 of whom held PhDs and 13 of whom won Nobel Prizes. Thriving in a work environment that embraced new ideas, Bell Labs scientists introduced concepts that still propel many of today’s most exciting technologies.

©2012 Jon Gertner (P)2012 Recorded Books, LLC

Fascinating look at innovation and history of science

Really cool to hear how bell labs was responsible for so many advances. Good narration. The writer’s style includes really long sentences that sometimes are difficult to parse even when performed by the competent narrator. But the underlying history being told is too fascinating for that to matter.

Inspiring and Informative

I learned so much about the minds which created the ideas which became the modern era.

A must listen/read for today's innovators

If you are interested in how to make your own organization more innovative, this book should help you to "innovate" your own ideas on the methods to deploy.

Great reconstruction of Bell Labs rise & fall

This book focuses on the heyday of Bell Labs and does a good job telling the story of some of the key innovations that happened there & the people behind the scenes. The slow narration does detract from the audiobook, but it's not noticeable at 2.5-3x speed.

I learned so much

I'm a creative technologist. I know the basis of technology history. this filled in so many gaps and connected so many dots for me. I definitely recommend it. I think it could be an excellent TV series. it's a very compelling read.

A Good Listen

A very interesting listen that has just enough detail, but it is not technical. I was very interested in the early scientists and this touched each of the critical people with sufficient detail.

A great "biography" of Bell Labs

Bell Labs played a hugely significant role in shaping our world today, a role which is surprising unknown. Gertner takes a biographer's approach to recounting Bell Labs' history. Most of the story focuses on the influential people, their personalities, their idiosyncrasies, their experiences, and how they shaped the most significant discoveries, inventions, policies, and events of Bell Labs. I think the story is probably most likely to be enjoyed by those with strong science and engineering interests.

Gertner clearly conducted deep and meticulous research to write the book. This "biographer's" approach has a humanizing effect on Bell Labs by reminding the reader (listener) that behind this mammoth, influential institution were real people. However, as can often be the case for in-depth biographies, there are some dull moments when you get lost in the details at the expense of the story line.

Some of the AT&T and Bell Labs policies, decisions, and approaches are controversial and one can make arguments regarding their merits or faults. As a "biographer," Gertner generally doesn't comment much on these types of ethical issues. He seems to lay out the facts, details, and people, and then let the reader come to his/her conclusions.

Other listeners have commented on the narrator. I tend to listen at 2X or 3X, so I can't really comment on his pauses. At accelerated speeds, he was fine.

Overall, I enjoyed Idea Factory and recommend it for better understanding the important people and events around Bell Labs.

Sciencistory!

It's a good read. A combination of science and history. I wish I had this background when I learned about these theories in courses or textbooks. The conclusion is strong and educating.
What could be better: The storyline, it covers several years and different technologies. It has an episodic nature that could be formed either around technologies or characters from Bell Labs or guest stars such as Edison or Moore. In some sections, it's hard to follow the lines or remember the characters. Part of this issue is due to a major shortcoming in the audiobook: Chapters are no in synch with the book chapters; there are several more than the book and with no title.
I wish there were figures and drawings for the concepts although I did a search for several.
It sees the world from Bell Lab "fanboys" or leaders. While I agree they contributed to several technologies, they were not the inventor in several cases.
It touches a little bit of how corporate culture was in Bell Labs but cautiously.

Bell Labs and the Creation of The Modern World

Could've easily been the title of this book. Beautiful performance and an excellent and engaging story.

Could have benefited from a more critical eye

The history of Bell Labs was mostly new to me and I was not disappointed. It was pretty incredible to read about the plethora of revolutionary patents, ideas, and theories as well as the people behind them. All of this was well written, well read, and well researched, but at times I felt that the telling of the story was a little biased and could have benefited from a more critical approach, e.g. many pages were used to describe Bell Labs important collaborations with the military but none were used to discuss the role that AT&T played in the violation of privacy rights by cooperating with the the government to illegally eavesdrop on American citizens. This is not to say that the author wasn't critical at all - he did analyze the ugly sides of some of the labs innovators and did give some great analysis of how Bell Labs might operate in today's world - but there were a couple points where I thought he could go further. Nonetheless though, this is a recommended listen, especially for those new to the topic.