Eleven

Unthinkable New Ways

HOW DO YOU CREATE the future?

To begin to answer a virtually unanswerable question, it might help to take a quick look at a company that—decades ago—was busy creating the time period we are living in right now. Before Apple, Google, and countless other tech companies brought us incredible innovation, there was Bell Labs. Tucked away for decades on a surprisingly beautiful campus in suburban New Jersey, the company employed 15,000 scientists at its peak. Not exactly the tiny, nimble startup we’re used to seeing today. Yet they produced more than 30,000 patents, many of which radically changed the world, and their scientists were awarded eight Nobel Prizes.

When it opened in 1925, Bell Labs (now owned by Nokia) was ...

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