By definition AT&T is an organization and cannot do anything - people can do things.
Best Regards , Lennart Thornros lenn...@thornros.com +1 916 436 1899 Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon, must inevitably come to pass. (PJM) On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 2:57 PM, Joe Hughes <jhughe...@comcast.net> wrote: > I'm not sure how you can say that AT&T never invented anything. > For decades Bell Labs (Part of AT&T) was one of the preeminent research > labs in the world. > > From Wikipedia: > > *At its peak, Bell Laboratories was the premier facility of its type, > developing a wide range of revolutionary technologies, including **radio > astronomy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_astronomy>**, the **transistor > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor>**, the **laser > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser>**, **information theory > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory>**, the operating > system **Unix <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix>**, the programming > languages **C > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%28programming_language%29>** and **C++ > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B>**. Eight Nobel Prizes have been > awarded for work completed at Bell Laboratories.**[8] > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs#cite_note-8>* > > - *1937: **Clinton J. Davisson > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_Davisson>** shared the Nobel > Prize in Physics for demonstrating the wave nature of matter.* > - *1956: **John Bardeen <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bardeen>**, > **Walter H. Brattain > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_H._Brattain>**, and **William > Shockley <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley>** received > the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the first **transistors > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor>**.* > - *1977: **Philip W. Anderson > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_W._Anderson>** shared the Nobel > Prize in Physics for developing an improved understanding of the electronic > structure of glass and magnetic materials.* > - *1978: **Arno A. Penzias > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_A._Penzias>** and **Robert W. > Wilson <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Woodrow_Wilson>** shared > the Nobel Prize in Physics. Penzias and Wilson were cited for their > discovering **cosmic microwave background radiation > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation>**, > a nearly uniform glow that fills the **Universe > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe>** in the microwave band of > the radio spectrum.* > - *1997: **Steven Chu <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Chu>** > shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for developing methods to cool and trap > atoms with laser light.* > - *1998: **Horst Störmer > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_St%C3%B6rmer>**, **Robert > Laughlin <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Laughlin>**, and **Daniel > Tsui <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Tsui>**, were awarded the > Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering and explaining the **fractional > quantum Hall effect > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_quantum_Hall_effect>**.* > - *2009: **Willard S. Boyle > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_S._Boyle>**, **George E. Smith > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_E._Smith>** shared the Nobel > Prize in Physics with **Charles K. Kao > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_K._Kao>**. Boyle and Smith were > cited for inventing **charge-coupled device > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device>** (CCD) > semiconductor imaging sensors.* > - *2014: **Eric Betzig <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Betzig>** > shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in super-resolved > fluorescence microscopy which he began pursuing while at Bell Labs.* > > *The **Turing Award <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award>** has > twice been won by Bell Labs researchers:* > > - *1968: **Richard Hamming > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hamming>** for his work on > numerical methods, automatic coding systems, and error-detecting and > error-correcting codes.* > - *1983: **Ken Thompson <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson>** > and **Dennis Ritchie <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie>** > for their work on operating system theory, and for developing **Unix > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix>**.* > > > Granted they were spun out of AT&T in 1990's, but still a very impressive > list. > > Joe > > > On 4/14/16 5:01 PM, Lennart Thornros wrote: > > Jed, > Very few small companies went belly up because of those examples I gave. > The number of people impact was infinitesimal small. > The other side is that many small companies had the flexibility to shift > and therefore they grow. > > AT&T has never invented anything. > Shockley was given credit I think. Not important who and where as it was > many people over decades getting there - I guess the selenium diode was a > German invention in the 30is. > Same thing for HP and TI, which actually are examples of companies that > grow because of seeing the shift. I do not believe that there is a given > formula for all small and all large companies. > I do know that large corporation become stagnant and inflexible at some > point in time. That would be OK. The problem is that we do not let them > follow the natural part and go belly up. The government comes in and 'save > the jobs'. > Really they create a monster with total inflexibility. > > You know there are many small companies that are inflexible. That is > because they are often managed by one individual and if he is inflexible > then the company will be and probably not do so good. > Unfortunately there are stubborn inflexible people that cannot see the > forest for all the trees.. No, Jed small companies do not lack flexibility > in general and to survive they need to be flexible. > > Best Regards , > Lennart Thornros > > > lenn...@thornros.com > +1 916 436 1899 > > Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and > enthusiastically act upon, must inevitably come to pass. (PJM) > > > On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 1:12 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Lennart Thornros <lenn...@thornros.com> wrote: >> >> >>> There is theory called the S-curve theory. Many examples from the vacuum >>> tube / transistor evolution and calculators mechanic / solid state. Plenty >>> of big companies went belly up as they did not react fast enough. >>> >> >> So did many small companies. >> >> >> >>> This is why large corporations are a bad thing. They have no flexibility >>> . . . >>> >> >> The transistor was invented at AT&T, and the calculator at HP and TI. >> Those were large corporations. Your own examples show that sometimes big >> corporations are good thing, and they sometimes have flexibility. >> >> Small companies often lack flexibility. >> >> - Jed >> >> > >
