391. Host Dan Hesse and award-winning writer Jon Gertner discuss the most innovative institution in history, Bell Labs

The Mentors Radio Show

In this episode of THE MENTORS RADIO, Host Dan Hesse talks with multi-award-winning writer Jon Gertner about what many believe was the most innovative institution—public or private—in history, Bell Labs. It is the topic of Gertner’s first book, The New York Times best-seller, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. Bell Labs’ inventions and discoveries are too long to list, but include the vacuum tube, the transistor, the silicon chip, the solar cell, microwave and fiber optic transmission, UNIX, and for you TV fans, even the Big Bang Theory. A seasoned science and technology feature writer with The New York Times Magazine, Jon’s writing and book reviews have also appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Book Review, and Wired Magazine. Additionally, Jon is the author of The Ice at the End of the World: Greenland’s Buried Past and Earth’s Perilous Future, and he is currently working on a book about NASA’s long-running Voyager Mission, tentatively titled How to Build Something the Lasts Forever. Listen to THE MENTORS RADIO podcast anywhere, any time, on any platform, click here!

SHOW NOTES:

JON GERTNER:

• BIO: BIO: Jon Gertner
• BOOKS:
  • The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, by Jon Gertner
  • The Ice at the End of the World: Greenland’s Buried Past and Earth’s Perilous Future, by Jon Gertner
• X: @jongertner