Talent leak drains AT&T think tank

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 09:47:37 -0500
From: Lorrie Cranor <lorrie () cs cmu edu>
Subject: Talent leak drains AT&T think tank
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>

Dave,

There's a long article in today's Star-Ledger on the shrinking AT&T
Research. Here's the URL and the beginning of the article for IP.

Lorrie


http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-14/ 1079855793325040.xml

Talent leak drains AT&T think tank
Once a bastion of cutting-edge research, it's lost its star power

Sunday, March 21, 2004

BY KEVIN COUGHLIN
Star-Ledger Staff

When AT&T Labs was carved from Bell Labs in the 1995 breakup of AT&T ,
the telecom giant set lofty goals for its new research arm.

 "Our mission, in my view, is to invent the future of communications,"
proclaimed Alexander "Sandy" Fraser, who pushed to create AT&T Labs.

 Today, many of AT&T's top scientists still chase that dream --
somewhere else. They strive to invent the future in the shiniest ivory
towers and hottest tech companies, from MIT to Microsoft, from the
Pentagon to Google.

 Some 200 scientists -- nearly half the core research staff -- were let
go from AT&T Labs in Florham Park in January 2002 amid sweeping
corporate cuts throughout AT&T. Since then an all-star collection of
researchers has bolted from the labs.

 The fate of AT&T Labs mirrors changing fortunes at AT&T, an American
icon squeezed by bad investments and bad timing. More importantly, some
scientists say, it raises tough questions about the direction of
industrial research and America's future as an innovator.

 At AT&T Labs, the brain drain is so severe, observed Michael Kearns,
now at the University of Pennsylvania, that his former employer's motto
should be "404 Not Found" -- the error message that greets many
searches on the labs' Web site.

 Defectors point to the loss of esteemed colleagues, cuts in long-range
research and restrictions on travel, media contacts and publication of
scholarly articles. The place has had three different vice presidents
of research within the past year.

 For some researchers, the last straw was having to pay their own way
to present scientific papers at prestigious conferences. For others, it
was the elimination of free espresso and bottled water at the leafy
Florham Park campus, once the estate of Vanderbilt descendants.

 Yet many remember the brief heyday of AT&T Labs, during the euphoria
of the Internet boom, as the most thrilling time of their careers. For
them, the exodus is a tragedy.

<snip>


--
Lorrie Faith Cranor, Associate Research Professor
Computer Science and Engineering & Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University
http://lorrie.cranor.org/

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