The Factory of Ideas: Working at Bell Labs - Computerphile

Bell Labs pioneered some of the most important inventions of the 20th century, what was it like to be part of that? Professor Brian Kernighan was there.
The C Programming Language: t.co/YFItbi64BE
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This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.
Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: bit.ly/nottscomputer
Computerphile is a sister project to Brady Haran's Numberphile. More at www.bradyharan.com

[@2Cerealbox]

The stuff that Bell Labs was able to produce in such a short period of time is mind-boggling. A couple of brilliant guys hanging around in the right environment revolutionized the way we'd be living some 50 years later.

[@JETBLAST88]

Ryan N Socialism :)

[@rangedfighter]

Bennett Piater Not necessarily socialism, but centralising research would reduce the amount of redundant work done and the ability to cooperate between different researchers so much that things would speed up dramatically.

[@DustinSpeckhals]

Bennett Piater More like a free market system: few regulations, independent thought, and positive competition; especially since it was all funded by a very large corporation :-)

[@2Cerealbox]

Dustin Speckhals Well, a large corporation that happened to have a monopoly in the industry they were competing in, so they didn't have to worry too much about how actually producing a product that had had to compete with other companies. So "free", but not traditionally considered a well-behaving market.

[@josephinhiding3595]

Love it! "transistors, just something that comes to mind."

[@jim40135]

Anyone else really jealous of what sounds like a fantastic, stimulating and rewarding work environment far away from middle-management cluelessness and "employee engagement" questionnaires...?

[@dominodoce]

I can honestly say I'm not because I've crafted my career working only for places i think are stimulating environment!

[@mariedefazionovak403]

You are right

[@miyalys]

i feel like universal basic income would recreate such an atmosphere. i wonder how much innovation we'd see in that case, looking at all the stuff happening at bell labs at that time.

[@vinesthemonkey]

guess what the vast majority of people did with COVID checks: sleep in and watch Netflix. so much for the aspiring artists and creators

[@bravefastrabbit770]

@@miyalys LOL, Yes yu wil eat ze bugs

[@jagardina]

"Transistor comes to mind as something that was useful" This is an awesome quote.

[@KarlTykke]

I joined Bell Labs about the same time, in a larger development organization that was devoted to working on problems directly related to communication systems. In these organizations the efforts were much more focused and results oriented. However, these organizations interacted strongly with "Area 1". the basic research organization. The research organization was always enthusiastic about pitching in to see if they could impact a practical problem. And so a related benefit was the opportunity of development engineers to interact with people such as Brian Kerrigan.

[@runninggames771]

Any stories? do you remember talking to him back then?

[@hikari_no_yume]

Kernighan!!! The K of K&R!!! RIP Dennis Ritchie :(

[@thebyteguru9928]

TazeTSchnitzel I was actually wondering if the book was placed there deliberately.

[@chrishay3]

TheByteGuru Nah, he always has it there in his office. If they panned the camera around you'd see that there's actually quite a few things in there that he's worked on over the past 50ish years

[@Krissam2k]

+TazeTSchnitzel When I find my code in tonnes of trouble friends and colleges come to me speaking words of wisdom "Write in C" RIP Ritchie

[@profdaveb6384]

Andreas Kristoffersen Love it! And part of the "in crowd" joke is that it has to be sung to "Let It Be" which is itself written in the key of -- wait for it! -- C major ? . However in line 2 we do need to do: s/colleges/colleagues/ ?

[@Krissam2k]

+ProfDaveB Yea, we definitely need that substitution, sorry, must've been really tired when I wrote it :)

[@steverodgers1112]

This management model is called Open Allocation. Only a few companies practice it today. Valve Software is one which comes to mind. Most companies use Closed Allocation which basically means: "Work on this problem or be fired.". Bell Labs is missed. We need to bring something like it back. Corporations today can't afford to fund such an entity, but it is in the interests of nation/states to do so. I've always wondered why nation/states do not step up to the plate and set up an organization with the same management style as Bell Labs.

[@miyalys]

Thanks for that term, didn't know about that. I'm wondering if we'd see the same if Universal Basic Income was implemented nation wide, instead of such a policy company wide. Maybe combined with much more open source and open hardware.

[@pptheastrologer6870]

That's really interesting, thank you!

[@NikolajLepka]

I love how he talks about Ritchie while having his world-famous book on C programming laying on the shelf in the background.. Ritchie changed the world of computing. RIP

[@nithishkoppula3465]

Nikolaj Lepka To top it of, he (Brian) co-authored the said book.

[@gukobi]

Straight from the horses mouth and does it ever get right down to the guts of the C, but not recommended for the timid.

[@gklinger]

Setting aside his many accomplishments and contributions, you'd be hard pressed to find a nicer person than Brian Kernighan.

[@deadfreightwest5956]

Back in the days before MBAs there was thought and creation. Now there's activity. Aimless, busy, pointless activity.

[@DigitalGnosis]

Lots of scrolling mouse wheels on news websites and documentation... open plan office battery farm.

[@mariedefazionovak403]

The learning of computers how everything changes your world

[@Snoopod]

Brian Kernighan!!!!! Computerphile has really stepped it up!!!!

[@Desmaad]

The way he described timesharing reminds me of how multitasking works; in fact, it probably inspired many of the mulitasking systems out today!

[@FreeScience]

Desmaad Certainly, I would say timesharing and cooperative multitasking are synonyms. Parallel multitasking is another beast however.

[@debug_duck]

Desmaad Well in fact it is quite exactly the technique modern operating systems use to do multitasking: The scheduler of the OS gives every thread a time slot for its instructions based on its priority.

[@gfetco]

Desmaad check out Erlang, (and its creation).

[@ib9rt]

Calle Silver-Granhall Quite not at all. Timesharing was not cooperative multitasking, it was preemptive multitasking. The OS was in total control of how much time you got and how long you got it for. If your program did not cooperate the OS was completely able to shut it down. There was no other way to manage 100+ users all sharing the same resource, especially when a large number of those users were trying to measure how fast the machine was by running CPU benchmarks ("Oh, gee, a Ferrari, how fast does it go?")

[@FreeScience]

ib9rt Ok, thanks for clarifying. I had misunderstood the "cooperative" term in that case. I understood it as "yielding processes" not whether they did it themselves or the scheduler forced it (I assumed the latter).

[@unlokia]

_"The K&R Book"_ - even if I hardly ever use it, it's reassuring to know it's there beside me in my room :) Thank you, K & R

[@ur-mom-gay]

i wasnt even alive back then but the more i hear about bell labs the more i feel like i missed out on probably the coolest place to work in comp sci

[@incrediblejava]

i wish i was there when C and C++ were made at AT&T Labs.

[@DaSauceful]

I have a Job like this. very little pay since I don't have my degree yet. but very freeing and collaborative.

[@SimplyaGameAholic]

DaSauceful Where you work ? :)

[@DaSauceful]

university researcher

[@SimplyaGameAholic]

Oh awesome, it must me a great environment

[@kentvandervelden]

DaSauceful If you enjoy that freedom, and you are comfortable with the pay, you may want to consider freelancing, perhaps after a graduate degree and a bit more experience in the area you wish to freelance. If possible, and there's the interest, use the freelance earnings to fund your own curiosities. The world may be amazed by what you develop.

[@DaSauceful]

That's sort of the plan. I'm a project based learner which makes me pretty well rounded. I like the idea of being a project manager for hire or a an "mercenary innovator". Idk if there is a term for that. only problem is money.

[@BorlandC452]

Awesome to hear an interview from the man himself! A little while back I read a book called "Exploding The Phone". They pretty much portray Bell as an arrogant monopoly. Very surprising to hear his very open experience.

[@wibas2008]

With in few moments of video, I started envying this pioneer , LOL look at his unassuming and simple way to describe his work and accomplishment. He is blessed for sure

[@benjaminforman8901]

This video should have more views. I'm not even a big computer guy, just a fan of Brady's Video Empire, but this is a really nice interview. I didn't even know who he was until I read some of the comments. He gives off a super positive vibe.

[@MaxxPowerFTW]

This work environment seems absolutely amazing! Just the free rein to create and design new technologies!

[@LastofAvari]

Thanks for the interviewing this awesome person!

[@kentvandervelden]

I greatly enjoyed listening to this interview. It was only after getting hooked did I glance to see who was being interviewed, which made the video even better. Absolutely fantastic!

[@Falcrist]

***** Do you realize that you never mentioned or displayed Brian Kernighan's name once in this entire video? The only place his name is shown is in the description, which most users never bother reading. I learned C from K&R, so I know who he is, but I don't think you can make that assumption about everyone who sees this video. His name should be displayed prominently IMO. To be honest, the first time in a video that anyone gets in front of the camera, it would be nice to see their name displayed briefly.

[@LMacNeill]

I totally agree! I didn't even know who he was until after I watched the video -- I happened to glance through the description and saw his name. Then I realized, "Oh! He's the co-author with Dennis Ritchie of that 'C' book from which I learned the language back in college!" I saw the book on the shelf in the background, of course, and I knew of Dennis Ritchie's connection to that book, but it just didn't occur to me that I was watching the other half of Kernighan and Ritchie!

[@kissassparty]

These videos are pretty much for people who have some education on computers. You don't expect a common person to understand what ARM or RISC or even what binary means.

[@sirknight4981]

Is this a joke? lol

[@mariedefazionovak403]

Amen to that

[@ZenithPlaysStuff]

I love computerphile

[@joansalazar5884]

I also love computerphile

[@Whitefox789]

I knew guy exactly like Brian Kernighan, had the same experiences as well such as programming punch cards. It is always a real treat to hear these guys talk about their old work experiences especially with all the ideas they had in the time which are being implemented today. Great video, I am waiting with bated breathe for the interview you do with this guy on the C programming language (I love C/C++, please don't kill me).

[@WelcomeToTheFreekSho]

what an environment in which to create! awesome video. thanks for sharing

[@donmoore7785]

My dad retired from Bell Labs in 1969 after 42 years of service to Western Electric and Bell Labs. What an amazing era of innovation in technology he enjoyed. I worked for GE in the 1980s with some amazing people, on wonderful leading edge research and products for the military. Later I worked for Lucent, which was interesting because I ended my career as an MTS, like dad was.

[@programorprogrammed]

Fantastic, i could watch this all day long

[@richcervantes]

What an amazing time in history!

[@MrRemi1802]

Thanks for interviewing this true living legend.

[@KarnKaul]

This is unreal, surreal, whatever the least real is. It's like being transported as a ghost to the days of C, UNIX, and Bell Labs in general.

[@InsaneMetalSoldier]

This guy is so inspiring... Beyond words

[@suave319]

This is so interesting. Sounds like the perfect workplace.

[@kd1s]

Shannon, Pierce and all those guys made some really great discoveries too.

[@MrPoutsesMple]

It's amazing that so many great ideas emerged from a place that used to be a "laboratory".

[@Works42]

My stochastic models professor worked at bell labs for a time in the '60s and '70s. It's kinda funny hearing almost the same things he would say in lecture when he went off on one of his famous tangents. XD

[@prwexler]

Very good interview.

[@nafees_ur_rehman]

You guys are awesome at that time

[@LeRationalRabbit]

Just one small nitpick, at the 8:47 mark, there is an aerial view of the Bell Labs Holmdel, NJ facility, not the Murray Hill, NJ facility where Brian Kernighan worked and where all of the initial UNIX development occurred. Holmdel was built in the mid-60s and was populated mostly by engineers who designed electronic switching systems, picture phone (anyone remember that?), lasers, modems, etc. Holmdel was a showcase building and unofficially called the "crystal palace". As far as I know, it stands vacant now.

[@freddy3863]

Man, what a blast. Makes me wish I was at Bell Labs during that time.

[@luizdemilon]

This was a wondeful surprise.

[@CorneliusSneedley]

What a great environment in which to work. It would make work seem almost like play most of the time.

[@x.pie123]

😍😍 amazing! Sounds like paradise!

[@EngPheniks]

"Nobody telling me what to do" this is what we need. free thinking and free working environment

[@liquidsnake6879]

So long as someone is willing to pay for it, the only reason it was possible was again because AT&T had a monopoly and guaranteed money, so dumping some millions of it into R&D which may not return anything for years wasn't a big problem for them. But other than state-sponsored universities i can't think of any other modern environment where such a thing is possible. You cannot ask people for money with nothing in return usually unless you're the government

[@supernenechi]

I think that kind of environment is perfect for someone who loves researching. It's like a hobby such as drawing or creating music. You do it, not because you have to, or because it's interesting at the time, but because you love doing it. Basically, you're telling artists: Here is an unlimited budget and unlimited things to draw. Except replace artists with researchers and things to draw with problems that need solving. I'd love to work in an environment like that! Creating things, solving complex problems

[@ua2894]

These things don't really work like that. you gotta be a little bit of an obsessed maniac

[@supernenechi]

@@ua2894 That's crazy talk. Is there nothing in your life that you like doing? Well, researching is just something people love doing. It's not for no reason that millions of people choose academia as their field of work

[@roachtoasties]

Bell Labs was an anomaly at AT&T. My AT&T career started and ended as a TSPS telephone operator. I can describe it in one word: Horrendous. I lasted almost three years. I won't go into why my employment ended, but there was litigation afterward that I won. Since leaving I finished my university degree and went onto a productive career in I.T. I'm still at it, with thousands of people using my software who don't even realize it.

[@FishKungfu]

What an awesome humble genius! Cool guy!

[@MePeterNicholls]

Government should fund this kind of pure research. Look at what it produces!

[@liquidsnake6879]

It does, all the time, countless researchers are paid from public funds to produce thousands of meaningless research papers nobody ever reads. Bell Labs was an anomaly in that it happened to be at the epicenter of computing when it all kicked off and so its researchers were in prime position to innovate repeatedly in that new space. Bell Labs hasn't produced anything worth mentioning in many years since, because it's no longer as easy to innovate in this space anymore, it's nothing special about how Bell Labs worked, it's just the time and place they were at aligned. Nowadays you got many "Bell Labs" out there, Microsoft has one, Google has one, Facebook has one, etc. Just very few of them produce groundbreaking tech because it's not as easy to do that with a field that is established and highly standardized vs one that is new. Not to say you CAN'T innovate in computer science, but it's not as easy as it was for people at Bell Labs, the same way it's not as easy to produce groundbreaking physics as it was in Newton's era, you know? There comes a point where most questions have been answered and even coming up with new questions is challenging, figuring out the answers can sometimes be the easier part

[@MePeterNicholls]

@@liquidsnake6879 no. It fund research. Yes. But it isn’t PURE research. They have to bid, apply for funding, go through rounds of hearings, stacks of application papers etc etc. pure research like at bell labs was - you’re employed to research anything you want, whatever, when ever, with whomever. Not even the corps you mention do pure research. I am not just in about computer science.

[@Flankymanga]

This is the secret sauce to innovation...

[@EdwinNoorlander]

And now we are still learning that’s the best way to have a innovative company that’s future proof.

[@EtrielDevyt]

Tbh bell labs sounds like a fantastical dreamland where people who were actually interested in academic concepts and theoretical principles came together and made a utopia

[@kd1s]

Bell Labs was one of my dream places to work. Sadly it's a shell of it's former self now.

[@ua2894]

Kernighan is quite humble but it is pretty obvious that these guys were all hand-picked. Incredibly smart and well-educated, yes, but also driven and obsessed with whatever their interests were. "Just go do something, we won't tell you what it is" works with these kinds of people. There are many out there who would simply coast along and take the paycheck for as long as they could.

[@saultube44]

Google took that freedom philosophy and had been done by other companies with incredible productivity results, this should be the default working philosophy for societies, would be great!

[@aMulliganStew]

Thanks for this! Since you seem to be state-side and interviewing Computer Science Titans, might I suggest Knuth and/or Sedgewick?

[@profdaveb6384]

***** Er .... no. Nothing state-side here. Sean and I interviewed Brian here in the School of Computer Science, Univ. of Nottingham. Brian was on a day visit (he is one of our Honorary Professors). I live in hopes that one day Computerphile may also be able to feature something from Don Knuth (Brady already has him on Numberphile)

[@rooneye]

I got half way through the video and suddenly realised this is that guy from the AT&T Unix video I remember watching, it's from the early 80's :D Awesome lol He was showing how to use pipes in Unix to create a little dictionary app, in a snazzy blue jumper I might add ^_^ His voice hasnt changed at all.

[@Yash-ML-Sharma]

I don't know if you're aware but he's the guy who named UNIX

[@wotsac]

I had a short stint inside, though I'll more remember the post-apocalyptic air of broader Lucent NSC from the early '00s.

[@neiln62]

Lasers are useful now

[@truedeadandlife]

This guy is so young. (no sarcasm)

[@bim1537]

I'm 28 and I feel like older than him, which is miserable.

[@jaimefairbanks5818]

I finished MP3 the meaning of the format by Jonathan Stearne, which gives the history described here & traces the technologies that shaped our modern music culture.

[@fnvtyjkusg]

it's the guy from jurassic park

[@suzannef4931]

Brian, I hope you and Greg Chesson worked together. He had your book on his shelves, as I was going through his things. Called by some the Godfather of network protocols, he passed away June 26, 2015.

[@t6hp]

This is what happens when you are in a team of 2000 Ph.D. holders not being ever told what to do or focus on, working for one of the biggest companies in the world with a steady revenue and big budgets.

[@rkevic]

RIP Dennis Richie

[@user-ei3yu9dn2u]

Wow, never thought Prof. Kernighan went to UofT,

[@microcolonel]

First-edition copy of _The C Programming Language_ sitting quietly in the background. Surely somebody left it there for Brian. :-)

[@profdaveb6384]

***** Well spotted that it was the original edition ! Yes -- that's my personal copy (now signed) . There are a couple of "UNIX Special Editions" of the Bell Systems Technical Journal on the shelf as well.

[@microcolonel]

ProfDaveB Congratulations on seeing the 202 memo recovered, I printed it out on a mighty fancy digital typesetting machine and was very satisfied with the output. I didn't know that things this beautiful could come out of troff. It is nice to see that some bits aren't just left to rot.

[@profdaveb6384]

***** Well, all of Brian's books have been typeset with troff. The problem is that you really do need the device-independent version, that he created with the Linotronic 202 in mind, to get good quality output. Sadly AT&T decided in the early '80s, that ditroff would *not* be bundled with the standard UNIX distribution. It was a $4000 (I think) add-on extra. Faced with that kind of outlay, it's small wonder that academics went with TEX, which was free. Quite a bit later groff came along, which Brian actually uses .....

[@microcolonel]

TeX is pure magick, especially with the macros people have these days, it maybe would've won anyway.

[@justplainc]

Cannot wait for "The 'c' Programming Language"

[@tenpenny2919]

I love C. It made me come to life // Tux

[@WillGPessoa]

Why don't have subtitle on the videos? English isn't my native tongue. So, when there is subtitle, understand is more easier.

[@j.b.9581]

5:01, he says, "Could you call that an early version of cloud computing?" They called it the client-server model, an analogus concept.

[@chromacat248]

Bell Labs kind of sounds like the way Valve is managed

[@smorrow]

Sounds like a Sudbury school

[@xybersurfer]

what a dream job

[@madhubhargava5049]

Wow

[@gdm413229]

I spotted a copy of K&R!

[@toolhog10]

Sounds like a dream 'job' or hobby.

[@miyalys]

I wonder how productivity would be affected today if we had universal basic income, so people could basically do what they like more. It sounds their environment was almost like that, and look at what they accomplished.

[@davidwilkie9551]

Ego-less , more Ego-less please

[@MAtukulis]

This guy sounds so intresting

[@matanshtepel1230]

wow...

[@x0rZ15t]

All hail the great patriarch K

[@linkVIII]

I just read the Unix Haters. Having only used modern Linux for a short time, it was interesting to read problems of the past. Kinda says unix was great in a research environment but it left bell labs way too early to be used in production. One of the biggest problems was consistent lack of documentation. Like the interview said, the source was the document. For bell labs that worked but apparently was quite problematic for unix users. The authors quite fondly remembered the lisp machines. The book (google and find the pdf hosted at mit) is obviously negative so if you are overly defensive of unix don't read

[@kaitlyn__L]

linkviii that's a large part of why BSD/berkeley unix was so popular!

[@profdaveb6384]

linkviii There was a folklore tale doing the rounds,many years ago, that someone (Dennis Ritchie ??) had been challenged in an interview, to the effect that "UNIX isn't user friendly". To which the reply came back: "It wasn't designed to be user-friendly; it was designed to be programmer-friendly" . Which, for me, just about sums it all up.

[@aerohk]

Si Valley of the 60s. Together with Princeton institute of advanced research

[@MrROTD]

I was born in Toronto as almost everyone in Canada LOL typical thing a Torontonian says

[@aperture147]

So the word timesharing is literally a machine give each operators half of second to work on it.

[@smorrow]

Like a Sudbury school for scientists.

[@johnviera3884]

I’ve worked through the years and watched our tools degrade from seemingly infallible Bell Labs tools to the barely useable foreign made profit driven tools of today

[@wa2ise]

I used to work at Bell Labs, and you have to have a PhD to get to do anything there. Otherwise you're little more than a janitor...

[@Lion_McLionhead]

AT&T still is a monopoly of sorts, but buying back stock instead of inventing.

[@nathanjustus6659]

What is called AT&T now, is really Southwestern Bell, who acquired the assets of the post-1984 divestiture of the Bell System. That AT&T ran the long distance network and tried to go into various businesses like selling computers. It didn't work.

[@THB192]

Wait, Kernighan worked on project MAC? The same project MAC which later became the MIT AI lab, known for, among other things, thumbing their noses at unix and C, and pretty much being the embodiment of the smug lisper stereotype (or so they say)? Wow.

[@viorelharabaru1836]

I just accidentally found about Bel labs when studying R. Seems like 99% of the tech we use today is because of these guys at Bell Labs and literally... NOBODY is talking about it. Why?

[@nobeltnium]

Bell lab reminds me of Black Mesa research facility

[@KhalilEstell]

Very similar to how it feels to work at NASA.

[@frogandspanner]

He describes a working environment rather like a British University until 1979. I wonder what happened that year to screw things up?

[@JaredReabow]

Bell labs sounds like how google is or was

[@nathanjustus6659]

Google is nothing like BTL. BTL was civilized. Today's software companies are NOT. Plus, AT&T was run by smart people who were well ground in reality. Another things that software companies do not have.

[@Mackinstyle]

Not that this is a bad thing, but did time sharing make people "sloppier" programmers? If I have to punch cards and walk them to a person, you better believe I'm going to quadruple check my work. It's faster just to catch errors and try again.

[@dmitripogosian5084]

Yes, in a way. I wrote my first research paper with large numerical component done on punch card. It took 1/2 year to produce the paper. It takes almost the same if not longer for current grand students, despite all the technology

[@generessler6282]

When the Nixon justice department broke up Bell in the name of consumer choice, Bell Labs was doomed. Now it's become fashionable to bash big tech companies and casually talk about tearing them apart as well, while the Bell-labs-like innovation power that will go down with them is mostly ignored. Sigh... Where are the grown-ups in politics?

[@roachtoasties]

Early 1980's. Reagan, not Nixon. Fast forward to today. Even if nothing happened back then, Bell Labs would have still faded away.

[@syproful]

Bell labs, more like Black Mesa.

[@mikeadrover8825]

~M~ NPHS

[@user-oy3me6qu7d]

ты умный ! Почему все ученые тупят ?

[@calvinkleinjedandrierana2867]

what is bell lab all about?

[@alex_squeezebox]

I can't help thinking how strong an argument this is for deregulation of monopolies...

[@nurlatifahmohdnor8939]

nigh_ = ma-lam