The Idea Factory

Pretty good description of the history of Bell Labs. Mostly focuses on the Labs through a half dozen brilliant and colorful individuals. A couple of flaws prevented a better rating: a fair amount of repetition, as if some chapters were once independent pieces; a curious omission of certain stories, such as Penzias's and Wilson's discovery of the Big Bang cosmic background radiation discovery. I worked in Holmdel for almost 20 years and never once heard the facility described as “The Big Box”. Also concludes with a rather bllitering chapter on “What is Innovation” that doesn't say much.