Missing context here is that Bell labs was at its most productive when it was a government backed monopoly, with the govt insisting that it work in the general public benefit. It’s not possible now because that sort of public-private symbiosis has totally fallen out of favour and regulators just don’t really have the teeth to grab the bull by the horns like that anymore.

Articles like this always tend to overlook the fact that Bell Labs wasn’t unique in its time. And other companies had very similar labs running. A famous example is Xerox Labs which invented the computer mouse and graphical windowing, among other things.

Google had this vibe too, prior to going public.