In 1974, AT and T's US $26 billion in revenues—the equivalent of $82 billion today—represents 1.4 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. The next-largest enterprise, sprawling General Motors Corp., is a third its size, dwarfed by AT and T's $75 billion in assets, more than 100 million customers, and nearly a million employees.
Bell Labs is often cited as a modern the peak of technological innovation
The oft-repeated list of Bell Labs innovations features many of the milestone developments of the 20th century, including the transistor, the laser, the solar cell, fiber optics, and satellite communications. Few doubt that AT and T's R and D machine was among the greatest ever.
Bell Labs spent over $500 million on nonmilitary R and D, or about 2 percent of AT and T's gross revenues. Western Electric spent even more on its internal engineering and development operations. Thus, more than 4 cents of every dollar received by AT and T that year went to R and D at Bell Labs and Western Electric.
The US Labor department inflation adjustment is to triple 1974 dollars to get 2015 equivalent. The $500 million would then be $1.5 billion.
1974 US GDP was $1.55 trillion. US GDP is about 12 times higher today. The Bell Labs nonmilitary research is equal to about $6 billion in terms of share of US GDP.
Google is targeting Life extension, global high speed internet satellite/balloon/drone network and more with a $10 billion/year budget
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They have about $70-80 billion in cash and liquidity.
Google has a research budget of over $10 billion a year.
Google's founders are trying to change the world and are targeting huge research goals. They are looking for possible game changers with their Solve for X program. They then scale up promising Solve for X solutions
DARPA's budget is and has been about $3 billion to $3.5 billion per year.
DARPA's research has also produced ground breaking results over its history
NASA has a budget of $15-20 billion per year but 80-90% of it is spent on facilities on the ground and administration and
mostly not for new ground breaking projects. Especially over the last thirty years the $300 billion of the space station and space shuttle
are discounted as mostly not enabling the next transformational thing.
The difference between Bell Labs, Google and DARPA and large research budgets at Apple, Microsoft or Samsung is the scope of the goals that are targeted.
If you spend billions of dollars making a larger iPhone or larger and more complex versions of Microsoft office with artificial intelligence paperclips then success will result in those capabilities. If you target radical life extension or lower the cost of nutritious food production or the creation of satellites or the internet then there is the possibility you could succeed.
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Bell Labs is often cited as a modern the peak of technological innovation
The oft-repeated list of Bell Labs innovations features many of the milestone developments of the 20th century, including the transistor, the laser, the solar cell, fiber optics, and satellite communications. Few doubt that AT and T's R and D machine was among the greatest ever.
Bell Labs spent over $500 million on nonmilitary R and D, or about 2 percent of AT and T's gross revenues. Western Electric spent even more on its internal engineering and development operations. Thus, more than 4 cents of every dollar received by AT and T that year went to R and D at Bell Labs and Western Electric.
The US Labor department inflation adjustment is to triple 1974 dollars to get 2015 equivalent. The $500 million would then be $1.5 billion.
1974 US GDP was $1.55 trillion. US GDP is about 12 times higher today. The Bell Labs nonmilitary research is equal to about $6 billion in terms of share of US GDP.
Google is targeting Life extension, global high speed internet satellite/balloon/drone network and more with a $10 billion/year budget
They have about $70-80 billion in cash and liquidity.
Google has a research budget of over $10 billion a year.
Google's founders are trying to change the world and are targeting huge research goals. They are looking for possible game changers with their Solve for X program. They then scale up promising Solve for X solutions
DARPA's budget is and has been about $3 billion to $3.5 billion per year.
DARPA's research has also produced ground breaking results over its history
NASA has a budget of $15-20 billion per year but 80-90% of it is spent on facilities on the ground and administration and
mostly not for new ground breaking projects. Especially over the last thirty years the $300 billion of the space station and space shuttle
are discounted as mostly not enabling the next transformational thing.
The difference between Bell Labs, Google and DARPA and large research budgets at Apple, Microsoft or Samsung is the scope of the goals that are targeted.
If you spend billions of dollars making a larger iPhone or larger and more complex versions of Microsoft office with artificial intelligence paperclips then success will result in those capabilities. If you target radical life extension or lower the cost of nutritious food production or the creation of satellites or the internet then there is the possibility you could succeed.
Read more »
