This really confirmed visually for me something that I started to think was just in my head: I miss working with adults.<p>Since I've been in tech over 35 was "old", even among "senior" leadership. I had memories of when this wasn't the case (I even worked in a old style office where literally everyone had their own office with a door), but I thought maybe it was just a function of me being much younger then.<p>What's remarkable in these images is that there is a range of ages and at the same time it's obviously not a gerontocracy. I can't remember the last time I worked with someone that had gray hair.<p>The last several teams I've worked with I remember a constant sense of everyone trying to figure out what to do. When you look at resumes you can see why, nearly everyone has worked at one or two places and only worked for at most 5 years. On any of these teams everyone would still be considered "kids" with a lot to learn about patience and how to solve hard problems.<p>I seriously wonder what has happened to older people in tech, and sometimes wonder if one day I'll be taken out back and find out.
I worked at Bell Labs from mid-1980 until 1990 as a contractor - termed "Resident Visitor" in the org chart. I don't recall our department title but we were at the Indian Hill facility near Naperville IL and worked on the 3B-20D reliable processor and operating system that was supposed to be the core of switching systems. I remember a lot more women in our department in both tech and management roles than the department in the directory. The Research Department in Murray Hill NJ would be the interesting org chart with all the big names of Unix legend. The offices for individual contributors were two persons sharing with kind of T-shaped desk arrangement that made playing backgammon at lunchtime very convenient.
From the text:<p>> I can't name a single thing from Google X or Amazon 126, Apple or Microsoft Research departments.<p>This is a very narrow way of looking at who's making things of value.<p>Let's take a single example out of those companies mentioned: Apple's iPhone and the demand it generated for smartphones, pushed many industries to invest in research, development and mass production of high resolution, low cost, low power screens, low power (and now even faster than desktop workstations) compute in small form factor SoC, ever so small low noise and high resolution camera sensors and lenses, faster, higher bandwidth, cheaper and more widely accessible cell networks, and so on and on and on...<p>Take any single one of the above components/infrastructure and one can list 100 products of value stemming from its cheap and widespread availability. Apple didn't just make a phone, it changed computing forever (something Jobs would probably say on stage) in span of a few years.<p>Also, did you forget <a href="https://research.google/" rel="nofollow">https://research.google/</a> or just ignored it? There are mind numbing number of research papers *with* corresponding global scale real products used by millions/billions of people, that based on those research.<p>I am sick of people glorifying the past when today, right under their noses, exists orders of magnitude greater research and innovation. Their title may not be sweet and straightforward like "invention of the telephone" but that's how progress works — the more you move forward, the more nuanced and specific things get.
A "Center" was managed by a third level manager titled "Director" with "Department Heads" and group "Supervisors" reporting to them. An alternative organizational name was the "Laboratory", also managed by a "Director".<p>Above that were "Divisions" managed by "Executive Directors". Divisions were in "Areas" managed by Vice Presidents, and Vice Presidents reported to Executive Vice Presidents and then to Presidents.<p>This appears to be a Center which prepared the official design documentation that was sent to the engineer for manufacture at Western Electric who would then work out the manufacturing processes need to produce the equipment for the telephone companies. It appears to have supported the Transmission area and the Customer Premises equipment area.
The Idea Factory, written by John Gertner, covers the almost inconceivable amount of innovation that came out of Bell Labs from the turn of last century to the 1980s. The names of the people who worked there reads like a text of 20th century physics, electrical engineering, and computer science.
Working on ideas for an organisational design research project I was taken aback by the realisation that the old directories in my organisation were a treasure trove of information on what the organisation was, and how peoples careers evolved in the past. Very upsettingly this treasure trail stopped in 1999 when the intranet took it all online and the data vanished. Does training a cohort have any impact on attrition and career development - we shall never know, short of running a 20 year project. The observational data is gone.
So either, this was a very progressive place or it is sad when the directors had a woman directly next to them but without even a role (like secretary or assistant). Seems like the gender was then enough to classify as an assistant on the higher roles.<p>Sad.<p>And second thing: A printed org chart with pictures in it. As if they had a stable work culture for more than one months ... oh wait ... that was normal once ;)
It's remarkable how much cash Big Tech has and how little they do with it. They could start <i>massive</i> R&D centers that do fundamental research like Bell Labs. If they return cash to shareholders as stock buybacks, they'd self-indict they're no longer growing. Want innovation in USA? Big Corp needs to invest and employees need to pressure them because shareholders sure as hell wouldn't. Big Tech has little national interest, they're all global international corporations [1] – I really don't mean to start a national interst comment war, I am pointing out that they can invest if they so desire to. As of Nov, Apple has $190B, Alphabet $168B, Microsoft $137B and Amazon $86B in cash [2].<p>[1] This story got little coverage. $275 Billion. That's more than what Intel just announced yesterday to invest in Ohio. I consider 'The Information' best in class of SV reporting, yet not a peep from any major news source afaik: <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facing-hostile-chinese-authorities-apple-ceo-signed-275-billion-deal-with-them" rel="nofollow">https://www.theinformation.com/articles/facing-hostile-chine...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/sp500-companies-stockpile-1-trillion-cash-investors-want-it/" rel="nofollow">https://www.investors.com/etfs-and-funds/sectors/sp500-compa...</a>
Times have changed a lot for the clothing as well. The suits with shirt and ties are mostly replaced by t-shirts and hoodies, and I haven't seen a tie in Google Research.
hope you don't mind me sharing this to a mostly disused subreddit:<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/BellLabs/comments/sagzx8/scans_of_a_bell_labs_org_chart_1980/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/BellLabs/comments/sagzx8/scans_of_a...</a><p>if anyone would like to adopt the subreddit let me know, I'll turn over moderation to anyone interested in preserving this history.
There are sure a lot of art and drafting groups in that book. I wonder how much of it would now be done by CAD software used directly by circuit designers.
Bell has a great historical material just watch the redesign presentation of Saul Basso in the 70s! [0] I had so many marketing meetings with worse presentations just a week ago.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKu2de0yCJI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKu2de0yCJI</a>
Interesting how the organization was broken out.<p>What is the difference between "Engineering Information" and "Computer and Engineering Information" groups?
I found my father-in-law, and I found a guy I went to school with. The former worked in Columbus, Ohio, and the latter was also from Ohio. I wouldn't be surprised if all of Department 375 was in Columbus.
Neat bit of history! I'd have enjoyed seeing one of these for whatever group dmr et al. was in (doesn't seem to be in this one of the "Design Engineering Center 375").<p>The title got my hopes up that it was all of Bell Labs :(.