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Narain could structure such as book as follows.Introduction: What Went WrongChapter One: My Early LifeChapter Two: From a Professor to a ResearcherChapter Three: (Mis)Adventures with the Unix TeamChapter Four: Concurrent C/C++Chapter Five: The Object Database EnvironmentChapter Six: Years of TransitionChapter Seven: The Columbus GPS SystemChapter Eight: Maps On UsChapter Nine: Cell Center CapersChapter Ten: Commuting from Jersey to the Valley (by Jet)Chapter Eleven: From a Researcher to a Professor:Epilogue: What Went RightSuch a book would be a wonderful read, a great "technical autobiography" of a man, and a first-person history of Bell Labs. law. The tenacity with which Narain repeats that there is a conflict between basic and applied research is impressive, but ultimately pointless.Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel appears to want to be a popular business book. I say this because technical and research skills are regularly mocked, but little is learned from a research perspective, either. It would explain obviously important parts of Narain's career which are discussed but never described, such as his database and C/C++ systems. The technical details of what this innovation might have been are not discussed.
At one point, listening to this book while running on an eliptical, I wanted to throw the remote control at the television.In a way, comparing Bell Lab: Life in the Crown Jewel with other stories of innovation engines (such as Where Wizards Stay Up Late and Dealers of Lightning) leads to the same comparison of The Man Who Stayed Behind and I Chose China. The colleague, the colleague's manager, and the Business Unit all assert that he did. For instance, in a sickening passage, Narain discusses how he "invented" and patented co-browsing, and urged Bell Labs' general counsel to sue others who use this "invention." These ridiculous patents exist only because corporate corporations attempt to use the law to club possible competitors. Perhaps Narain Gehani will still write that book. This is not discuss.The tragedy of Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel is that it might have been one of the best case-studies of an innovation engine written. Gehani's "test" -- to see whether the Business Unit would grant a bonus of a large amount of money, because that employee might again be so productive the next year, ends the anecdote as an example of Gehani's cleverness. Both of these latter two books concern American Jews who went to China in the early post-War years, aligned themselves with the Communist Party, and witnessed Maoism first-hand over a period of decades. However, while The Man Who Stayed Behind is carefully organized, I Choose China is a collection of reminiscences that go nowhere in particular.
I hope that I will have a chance to read a more complete first-person perspective, perhaps titled Bell Labs: Decline and Fall, sometime soon. A search on the Patent Office's website indicate that Gehani's first patent was granted in 1995, considerably after he joined Bell Labs. None of these "inventions" are any more impressive than, say, "A Method to Repair Shoe Laces with Scotch Tape in the Event they Break Instead of Buying New Shoelaces." However, large companies that hire lawyers are able to cause enough problems litigating these pattens (that they get by flooding the underfunded USPTO with applications) that they are able to carve out de facto monopolies contrary to the intent of U.S. He is no longer with Bell Labs, and currently serves as the Chairman of the Computer Science Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Questions of headcount, corporate fiefdoms, and the such aren't even raised.
Gehani. Additionally, it would provide a coherent chronology and frames of reference, that do not exist in the current book. His publication list is impressive, and Google Book Search brings up numerous other works written or co-written by Dr. Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel is a collection of reminiscences that go nowhere in particular. My obvious conclusion is that Bell Labs, ever closer to its decapitation by Lucent, began generating patents in order to force competitors to "license" obvious methods, or else face hundreds of thousands in legal bills.
Instead, in this anecdote and others, the reader is intended to exist with a sense of Gehani's unique cleverness.The book is a nauseating example of how corporate lawfare retards actual innovation. For instance, in one anectdoe, Gehani disputes whether a colleague actually saved a Business Unit a large amount of money through some new technique. But neither is any business thinking exhibited.
Also, I expect Narain to write about things he was most involved with, such as MapsOnUs or the many other significant contributions he made. However, it was not the culture, nor the tendancy to really put those folks on pedestals. While the book may be hard to understand by those without "Bell-shaped heads," it is interesting to read by those of us who were there. Having worked some with Gehani, it is important to clarify some of the errors in some of the other reviews. Narain indeed knew a lot of the "big names" at Bell Labs, as did many of us.
I wouldn't even use this book for a grade school book report. Again, I found myself frequently saying, "What the hell is the point of this." after each chapter.It's truly sad that this book exists. His sentence structure is consistent with a 7th grade reading level (7th grade by US standards, so basically, a normal 8 year old). It truly is that worthless.My review of this book has since been critized. Gehani does not shed any light on the fascinating scientific culture that produced so many Nobelists. I can't remember reading a more poorly written book since grade school.
Gehani appears to have slapped together every single moment he can remember about his time at BL, inserted 9 chapter headings at random, and called it a book. So many other writers could have done a better job and added something to libraries around America. I read the whole book solely so I could write this review honestly. He does however, shed light on each and every mundane managerial decision he had to make. As PhD student in computational physics and chemistry, my failure to "get" this book is not for lack of understanding of the research that went on at Bell Labs, but perhaps a lack of understanding of why anyone would write this poorly about mundane events. Mr.
I found myself frequently saying, "What the hell is the point of this." after each chapter.There have been many brilliant scientists at BL; Mr.
The entire volume is really summed up in one sentence: Life at Bell Labs was like academia until after the divestiture, and then no one at either Bell Labs, AT&T, the RBOCs, or Lucent really knew how to harness its energy. However, I don't know that the material is worthy of a book. As somewhat of an industry insider, I was hoping for more details of its products and innovations, but such information was hit-and-miss -- the author talked about "MapsOnUs" in detail, but quickly blew over other products like VoIP and Softswitch. Crown Jewels describes the evolution of Bell Labs from the gravy-train days under the Ma Bell monopoly to its struggling to stay alive under the faltering Lucent. Aside from back and forth chronology that confused me at times, I found the book to be well-written.
In the concluding sections, he courageously mentions the infamous fraud that marred this respected institution (but it could be a "vaudoo" trick as well to avoid really adressing the core of the issue: scientific dishonesty as a mushroom on a decaying environment). But nevertheless he seems to praise Raman amplifiers (invented in Germany, France and Japan in the 80s, notwithstanding the discovery of SRS in fibers at Holmdel in the 70s) while remaining blind to the discovery/development of the erbium fiber amplifier at the BL Holmdel facilities. when research was still under AT&T funding without business pressure, and at the birth of optical communications, a field that BL carried to the full end, in spite of many other useful or useless but high research achievements. Regrettably enough, the author puts emphasis on the more politically-correct later stage, instead of telling us what was good and personal in the earlier one. Unfortunately, this is where the intimate story is skipped, and thus the official one (taht the reader is offered) starts with the "day after" the demise of the Crown, and the Jewels in the process of running away. This book thus indirectly provides an unwanted homage to these lesser-known and shadowy aspects of the Labs. Yet, he provides a vivid account of his (seemingly mild ). We may surely save our tears in the latter case).
Overall, it looks like the author stayed inside a fall-out shelter during all the events that got the market and stocks down to where it still lags. There are good and bad sides to this account of the legendary Bell Labs.On the good side, this book is definitely a _must_ to the BL "diaspora", people who spent some 5-10 years of their life there, but did not choose it for lifetime. In spite of many repeats and heavy commonplaces "scientific- vs. We would have liked to know more about the causes that precipitated the doom of Telecoms, as viewed by the seemingly unique institution in charge. As one Holmdel veteran wrote it once ".it was hard believing that you could be paid to have so much fun".The book is very interesting when showing the transformation from this legendary research system model into the new-and-ugly market-oriented one. (now are these heroes really dead, or enjoying happy lives in California start-ups instead. market-oriented research problem, or the reverse, and again never really solved", it is written in a soft and agreeable style, with that touch of personal and sincere account that makes you want to read the book to the end (could CS engineers of the world unite and follow such a writing example). This is true especially for those who experienced the real pioneer era, i.e.
At the beginning of his book, the author is very honest (say at least careful) to mention his lack of knowledge of non-CS activities at BL. A bit more curiosity and less self-centeredness would have been a plus for such an otherwise very commendable personal account. The painstaking story of the N-vestiture of the BL hologram, which gives a conceptual ground to the book, is alas no substitute to a real personal 20-years account. The competition and ROW must have been following in daily angst the Murray Hill saga, with its waltz of questionable promotions and friendly departures. For any experienced-writer viewpoint, the final edition looks embarassingly perfect and rosy, in spite of some episodic 'disagreements' and other ego-tantrum lullabies.
This lack of curiosity about other fields, due to internal competition, rivalry or complete indifference between BL sites, was typical of the older BL regime. The author was probably not interested in the history of BL to such an extent, past his office/coffee-machine loft at Murray Hill. But glamour of the past is also important for little boys and girls.One star yet for "buy" in a 1/0 decision space. Such an event triggered the entire WDM revolution and generated billions of revenues for the new market-oriented BL BUs, their subsidiaries and an opportunistic submarine branch in particular. Good times indeed from 1945 to until the 1990s for talented and die-hard investigators.
Maybe when the author was a post-doc researcher doing science and papers in his laboratory keyboard, hoping to get to the boss position, could we have learned something about the Crown Jewel times. But the reader may forgive the author's sincere epitaph for the "great" bosses that made up his career, and understandably, that book is a dedication to them. tribulations to get the scientific nerds and egoes under him through such a cultural painstaking transformation, especially when he strove to develop a viable and interesting product which unfortunately failed to interest the blind Top. On the less good side, there is way too much lip service to the author's past line/patriarchal hierarchy: basically GOD, as incidentally represented by VP research, then N+2 and N+1 or self, yielding annoying or meaningless expressions such as "the post-(my boss)BL", and so on.
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