[Eduardo3rd]

I've been reading The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner recently and I feel like the parallels between the two are really striking. The advent of Google X projects, the Motorola acquisition, and all of the recent robotics acquisitions make it feel like Google is actually building the future that I've been dreaming of since I was in elementary school.

I only hope that the next wave of technological innovation will be far more decentralized than the last one. We haven't had a Bell Labs like organization in a long time. Maybe one day we won't need one.

[creade]

I was amazed after finishing The Idea Factory and realizing how much we (as humans and as the tech industry specifically) owe to Bell Labs. The invention of UNIX gets literally one sentence in the book and I think that's the scale it deserves given their work in every other piece of communication and electronic technology.

[Balgair]

Take a drive around the googleplex. Go by the LinkedIn offices to the south. See those buildings off on the end there? Look at your google maps. Do you see them online? Will you ever? Google has it's secrets too, ones it doesn't want advertised.

[jmillikin]

I just checked, and all the buildings near the Googleplex-proximate LinkedIn offices are on Google Maps. The Google buildings even have floorplans.

[eli_gottlieb]

So... what are those? The Google X complex? The secret Take Over the World labs?

[prezjordan]

Hope you finish it soon! The last quarter or so of that book is really great.