The Idea Factory: Bell Labs, the Transistor, and the Origins of the Information Age

In this episode of Internet Origins, we explore The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner. Decades before Silicon Valley, Bell Labs—the legendary research arm of AT&T—pioneered the technologies that built the modern world. From the invention of the transistor and Claude Shannon’s Information Theory to the creation of satellites, lasers, and digital switching, Bell Labs was the birthplace of the Information Age.