The Idea Factory

00:06 - 00:57 Long before Google and the rise of today's tech empires, innovation in the 1900s was driven not in Silicon Valley, but in New Jersey, where Bell Labs, the legendary research and development arm of AT&T, drove groundbreaking advances. AT&T, or American Telephone and Telegraph, was the nation's telephone monopoly for much of the 20th century, controlling local and long-distance service, as well as manufacturing the equipment that kept its vast network running. Its origins went back to Alexander Graham Bell, who patented the telephone in 1876 and launched the Bell Telephone Company soon after. Through mergers, acquisitions, and aggressive expansion, that small venture evolved into AT&T.

00:57 - 01:35 a corporate giant that came to dominate nearly every aspect of American communication. To sustain and improve this vast system, AT&T created Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1925 by merging its own research division with that of Western Electric. its manufacturing subsidiary that built everything from switchboards to telephones. At its peak, Bell Labs employed over 15,000 people, including more than a thousand PhDs, making it one of the largest and most prestigious research institutions in the world.

01:35 - 02:08 Its guiding mission was universal service. the idea that anyone, anywhere, should be able to pick up a phone and connect with anyone else in the world. Bell Labs went on to produce some of the most important breakthroughs of the 20th century – the transistor, Claude Shannon's information theory, the laser, and the launch of the first communications satellites. Part 1 – Vacuum Tubes In the earliest days of the telephone, the biggest obstacle was distance.