[pmb]

It was forcibly funded as part of a consent decree from the US government that allowed AT&T to continue as a monopoly as long as they invested a percent of their yearly revenue (or profit? I forget) in research. AT&T, having no interest in changing their incredibly profitable phone network, then proceeded to do fundamental research, as required as a condition of their monopoly.

Decades later, AT&T was broken up into the baby bells and the consent decree was removed at that time. Bell Labs' fate was then sealed - it no longer had a required legal minimum funding level, and the baby bells were MBA-run monstrosities that were only interested in "research" that paid dividends in the next 6 months in a predictable fashion.

The funding model is an integral part of the story.

[kqr]

That sounds plausible, but is not how it is told in The Idea Factory, where the authors explain that both AT&T (running the phone system) and Western Electric (manufacturing equipment for the phone system) had separate research divisions even before this. They then discovered that they were duplicating a lot of research, so they set up one entity to perform research for both the harder and the softer sides of the communication system.

[dsjoerg]

Citation needed. What I'm seeing: No evidence of a legal requirement to spend a % of revenue on research: There was no line-item mandate in the consent decree forcing AT&T to invest a specific percentage into Bell Labs. The support for research was strategic and reputational: AT&T used Bell Labs to fend off antitrust pressure and maintain regulatory goodwill.

[speleding]

The baby bells actually took with them part of Bell Labs, renamed to Bellcore, that survived for another decade or so. I interned there whilst doing my MSc, it was still a great place for a while, with serious research.

Wikipedia tells me it still exists in some form, albeit under a different name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconectiv

[whatdhack]

This is all incorrect. The author needs to fact check. Bell labs started in January 1925 and is currently owned by Nokia. The MFJ was in 1984.

[dichotomy]

my folks worked at at&t when all that happened and so that narrative arc was a big part of my upbringing. my timeline/details is probably off and I can't ask them because they passed away but from what you say here I can totally see what you mean, it totally tracks with the dramas and discussions that they brought home from work every night.