I just stared an internship at Bell Labs Murray Hill. Growing up in Holmdel, I've been a fan of Bell Labs since childhood and feel so happy to be working here. The atmosphere and energy from all the amazing achievements is really palpable. Word is the acquisition of Alcatel Lucent by Nokia has really put Bell Labs back into the public spotlight. Excited to see what the future holds and I hope I can still be a part of…
Congrats. I grew up new HP Labs and felt the same way when I was an intern there over 10 years ago. :)
I don't know what's more sad, the fact that NJ killed its own tech scene or that the revival efforts shining example focus on a "company that helps people make money on videos they post on social media". That's certainly a far cry from inventing the transistor and pioneering radio. Yep, NJ is still (for now) dead to tech. It reminds me of Columbus, Ohio, which used to be a big Internet and tech hub. Now, only burnt e…
I don't think there is any reason to believe that any places, no matter how far sighted, can expect lightning to strike more than once. These booms happen when some technological advance precipitates a cluster of development. Eventually, that technology becomes commoditized, the margins fall out, the work gets shipped overseas. The next boom is going to cluster somewhere else and you're not going to be able to predict what will cause it. Why did the auto industry arise in Detroit? Why did the airline industry arise in Seattle?
TLDR: anti-competative laws shunted growth to areas like silicon Valley which didn't have them. Seriously, why do we even allow people not at a C level to be impacted by these laws that say you can't leave to start a competitor? Moreover, why is it legal, like in NY, for a company to say they own all your work both on and off the job? We're killing ourselves.
I suspect that a lot of people over-emphasize the role of California non-compete lack of enforceability, specially given that (perhaps especially in the past) they've also reflected cultural differences between established large east coast firms and California startups. I'm not aware of research in the area but states other than California vary in the degree they enforce non-competes and other restrictions. I'm not a…
Massachusetts's enforcement of non-competes and poor performance relative to California is the classic variation, first (or at least famously) pointed out in 1994 and subject of many studies since; http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/ebook/serien/lm/DRUIDwp/10-02.pdf is one from 2011 that extends analysis to all US metros: less enforcement correlated with more employment, business establishments, and patents (sigh) even if the SF bay area is excluded.
>Seriously, why do we even allow people not at a C level to be impacted by these laws that say you can't leave to start a competitor? Moreover, why is it legal, like in NY, for a company to say they own all your work both on and off the job? We're killing ourselves. Because the people in power don't want to compete in a market.
"Because the people in power don't want to compete in a market." That's something people forget. Even people and companies who have benefited from the market don't really want to compete and will do whatever they can to not have to compete.
Sure, but 100 years ago none of them would have thought of moving to Northern CA, where now they are more likely to go there than the East Coast.
MIT, CMU, Princeton, Harvard and Cornell are all top schools for C.S. and those are all still on the East Coast. None of these schools have any difficulty attracting top talent from around the world.
I got skewered in /r/cscareerquestions several months ago for suggesting that any Ivy had a top-tier CS program. It may not be reality, but there is definitely a strong perception.
Even as Silicon Valley was still in its infancy, a group of organizations including Bell, MCI, GM, and others hired Fred Terman from Stanford to make NJ more like what Silicon Valley (NJ and SV share a ton of similarities, i did a tedx talk about it below [1]) but Terman was unsuccessful. He pointed to how Princeton was not focused enough on applied science the way Stanford was. East coast politics and stock market d…
The old Bell Labs building is, finally, under a revitalization and reuse of the workspace called Bell Works ( http://bell.works/neighborhood/ ). Based on job listings it seems NVIDIA's AI/Autonomous driving is happening there. As someone who lives close by, but commutes to NYC, I can only hope to see more big name companies move in. As for Fort Monmouth, pretty much all the offices were moved to Aberdeen as part of t…
If you wanted to confuse the hell out of people, you could call it "Silicon Garden", after the state's nickname, the Garden State.
Of course, it's only really confusing if your only touch points in the state are I-95 and US-1. A small handful of miles either direction off the Northeast Corridor, and the state earns its nickname.
I grew up in South Jersey and I agree that it does earn that nickname! But so many people only see New Jersey as a place to pass through and so they don't see it.
I take the train which is 78-80 minutes, but all told it takes 2 hours door to door.
There is a train service running from the shore area? From the Atlantic City area? I know there's one out of Trenton.
"The Shore" goes a lot farther north than that. The New Jersey Coast Line runs regular trains from NYC to Long Branch, and has a few trains that go as far as Bay Head (though you need to transfer to get to NYC).
