Before Silicon Valley, New Jersey Was Tech Capital (npr.org)

New submitter artmancc writes: It was in New Jersey that Thomas Edison invented sound recording, motion pictures, and the light bulb in what is considered the first modern corporate R&D facility. In other words, Edison invented the modern lab -- teams of people working together, sharing ideas and perfecting devices. In the century after Edison, New Jersey became the place to set up shop if you wanted to invent. On top of all the other assets, the state had lots of inexpensive land available. The transistor and cellular communications came out of AT&T's Bell Labs, also in New Jersey. If it was 1955 and you had to bet on where the next half-century of technical innovation would emerge, the Garden State would be the most likely winner, not some farmland south of San Francisco. As a couple of Jersey natives at NPR note, it didn't quite work out that way. What happened?

Comments

Re:In a word, patents

[PPH]

No mod points, but this.

Creative people fled the corporate IP ownership that Edison fathered. To a place where employees could move back and forth without having their knowledge and experience effectively stripped from them.

Is it any wonder that at the far end of this philosophical spectrum New Jersey became one of the centers of mob activity? Where you have to cut the big boys in on the action if you want to play in their markets.