
Ian Ross, Who Led Bell Labs, Dies at 85 - ari_elle
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/business/ian-ross-who-led-bell-labs-dies-at-85.html?ref=technology
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ColinWright

      "It's a foolish thing to tell a research person what
       the problem is - you'll get the answer to that problem
       and miss a brilliant discovery in the process,"
       Dr. Ross said.
    

Priceless.

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vanderZwan
He sounds like the perfect boss for an R&D department.

I never heard of him before, but now I feel like back when Dennis Ritchie
passed away unnoticed outside of the tech crowd, while everyone was mourning
for Steve Jobs.

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jnazario
a great view inside of bell labs in its heyday is the book "three degrees
above zero".

[http://books.google.com/books/about/Three_Degrees_Above_Zero...](http://books.google.com/books/about/Three_Degrees_Above_Zero.html?id=qM_eAAAACAAJ)

it sounds like the kind of place i would have liked to have worked. not sure
if any place with that magic (or PARC's magic) still exist in the corporate
world.

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dman
MS research probably comes closest.

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nishantmodak
_“If we had had the same progress in the aircraft industry, you and I could be
flying between London and New York in 500,000-seat planes and the fare would
be about 25 cents,” he once said._

What kind of progress/innovation does he refer to in this?

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nonamegiven
ENIAC to your phone. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selectron_tube>

