I thought this op-ed was important because I agree with the author that companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook (etc.) get the bulk of the media's attention when none of what they do could have been done without the work that came out of Bell Labs. Real innovation is not done at Google or Facebook or Apple for that matter. Those companies are too tied to meeting quarterly results to invest in real innovation.

I think the other important implication is that the US doesn't have an entity like Bell Labs innovating today. And so we rest on the work that was done back then (cramming more transistors onto a smaller chip, etc.) vs. new innovation that would provide the platform for decades of future growth.