Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#51

Post by pests » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 7:31 AM UTC

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #28

atleastoptimal wrote: post #27

It's interesting how the area around NYC was the silicon valley of the mid 20th century. Most of the country's tech innovation was coming out of Bell and IBM. Has that area's loss of dominance solely been due to all the tech industry moving to California?

Tech was present in California in the mid-late 20th century; in fact, Silicon Valley was founded by an ex-Bell scientist named Bill Shockley, who shared a Nobel prize for the transistor. His company didn't do well, but ex-employees founded Fairchild Semiconductor, whose ex-employees founded Intel. This brought along many other tech companies, such as Atari, Apple, and the like. Though Bell labs continued to innovate…

I always found Fairchild to come up surprisingly often in random bits of knowledge. He had his hands in and was a pioneer in aircrafts, photography, spy satellites, semiconductors and had over 70 companies (known to us) throughout his life. Just makes my conspiracy side tingle.

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#52

Post by Taniwha » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 8:58 AM UTC

Gigachad wrote: post #44

Was this office just built in the middle of nowhere? Where do people go for lunch? I’m not an expert on commercial buildings but it always seemed like immediate proximity to food, public transport, and other businesses is one of the most important factors of an office.

I went there to, or all things port Unix to an AT&T board (like coals to Newcastle) in the mid 80s. There was food available.

Went there in the middle of winter, snowing, rental car company gave me an upgrade, some form of caddy land whale that was definitely now snow worthy - was a scary trip

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#53

Post by jtbetz22 » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 10:23 AM UTC

etrautmann wrote: post #20

graphviz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not AT&T was far-seeing, they had a mandate to design and deliver universal telephone service, and cost-plus deal to pay for it, so it made sense to buy nice expensive things. Even when the mission was fulfilled and the economy started to restructure the company, it ran along for at least another 10 or 15 years before the real disruption started (the 1996 breakup that turned Bell Labs into Lucent). And eve…

How do you figure? The model now has been tech companies for the last 15 years.

Brian Kernighan's book, "Unix: A History and a Memoir" paints a compelling picture of just how open-ended research at Bell Labs can be.

FAANG do a lot of research, but the budgeting for those efforts is much more tightly controlled and connected to corporate strategy.

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#54

Post by appleflaxen » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 12:30 PM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #37

God, it’s painful to see this. So much happened there. I read about it decades ago and dreamed of working there. I ended up working at Microsoft’s Building 2, which was just as good. It was a giant plus sign, lined with individual offices and nestled in a veritable forest. I worked with some of the greatest minds in computer science, and they were all kind, helpful, brilliant people. I knew at the time it was special…

What was its fate?

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#55

Post by _fat_santa » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

appleflaxen wrote: post #54

tomcam wrote: post #37

God, it’s painful to see this. So much happened there. I read about it decades ago and dreamed of working there. I ended up working at Microsoft’s Building 2, which was just as good. It was a giant plus sign, lined with individual offices and nestled in a veritable forest. I worked with some of the greatest minds in computer science, and they were all kind, helpful, brilliant people. I knew at the time it was special…

What was its fate?

Bell labs is long gone but the site has since been redeveloped and now is a mixed use Office/Hotel space. I think redevelopment started in 2013.

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#56

Post by elzbardico » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 1:25 PM UTC

jcrawfordor wrote: post #24

etrautmann wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share the sentiment but there are companies doing this - it’s just in different domains than telephony. Deepmind, OpenAI, etc, fusion research, SpaceX. There are lots of long bets on hard tech. If anything it’s a proliferation, although Bell labs is no longer a thing. My hope is that we can establish a similar model for biology, since many challenges in that domain are pre-commercial but not at the appropriate scal…

None of these efforts are as wide-ranging as AT&T's, though. Budget comparisons are hard for a number of reasons (AT&T had R&D happening in multiple places, under multiple funding streams, both directly and indirectly funded), but the usual thinking is that AT&T spent a larger % of revenue on research than most, but not all, organizations today, with Google being a notable example of a company that beats it on % reve…

How I miss the age before MBAs and stock buybacks fever. Too bad I was not even born at that time.

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#57

Post by amw-zero » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 10:15 PM UTC

It’s not abandoned though. They turned it into office and retail space, and you can go there and just walk around and hang out for the day.

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#58

Post by adventured » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 10:31 PM UTC

appleflaxen wrote: post #54

tomcam wrote: post #37

God, it’s painful to see this. So much happened there. I read about it decades ago and dreamed of working there. I ended up working at Microsoft’s Building 2, which was just as good. It was a giant plus sign, lined with individual offices and nestled in a veritable forest. I worked with some of the greatest minds in computer science, and they were all kind, helpful, brilliant people. I knew at the time it was special…

What was its fate?

Microsoft tore down those buildings, the original X buildings campus, a few years ago:

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/microsoft-says-goodbye-past-de...

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#59

Post by randshift » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 11:51 PM UTC

Scubabear68 wrote: post #11

I went to Holmdel High School, and my girlfriend’s dad was a researcher at this facility, he invented a delta wave modulation technique in the 60’s that was (is?) used by NASA for certain spaceship comms. I got to visit him once or twice here, it was truly an inspiring building with all of the open air quality and glass everywhere. Really part of another era, where AT&T sunk billions into the labs just for pure resea…

Lucky it's still alive and well. I've been there... it's not full but it's still open!

https://bell.works/new-jersey/explore/

Re: Bell Labs Holmdel Complex (2019)

#60

Post by tomcam » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 4:24 AM UTC

appleflaxen wrote: post #54

tomcam wrote: post #37

God, it’s painful to see this. So much happened there. I read about it decades ago and dreamed of working there. I ended up working at Microsoft’s Building 2, which was just as good. It was a giant plus sign, lined with individual offices and nestled in a veritable forest. I worked with some of the greatest minds in computer science, and they were all kind, helpful, brilliant people. I knew at the time it was special…

What was its fate?

Replaced with anonymous open plan buildings. Quite difficult for me to think about despite having left 23 years ago. I’m actually not a very nostalgic person most of the time.