Comment by jorleif

> The most amazing thing was the management style of that lab

I've worked some years in academic research in a position where the pioneering research of one guy led to a big laboratory with plenty of researchers in the lucky situation that they can work very freely on what they want. Coming from industry I was completely baffled by this. This is probably the style where the great ones work best. No corporate BS, just the work. What has been very puzzling is that in this setting, is that the people there are not that great at many things. Incompetence can be quite rampant among some people. Was there some kind of "quality control" for the work at Bell Labs? I see now the circles I'm working in moving towards a more classical "publish or perish" mindset, which produces safe and unambitious research. Sure, the incompetence needs to be purged out of the system, but direct measurement very easily kills the long term for the short term. I wonder if there is any other alternative.