The first network effect was a phone call (ft. James Gleick) — a16z Frontier show

James Gleick — acclaimed science writer and bestselling author of Chaos: Making a New Science as well as biographies on polymaths Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman — joins Sonal Chokshi and Robert Hackett to discuss his new book, The Telephone: A New History. It is a story of a device — who really invented it, how? — of a network, of a lab, and of how innovation happens.

The telephone was dismissed as a toy or a frivolity — at best, something people could use to listen to concerts or sermons from home. Even with a working invention, everyone was still trying to figure out what a telephone was for, using the framework of what they already knew. Then its users started finding their own answers. Farmers built their own decentralized networks using barbed-wire fences — the “devil’s rope” — and, over time, research at a company built around phone calls helped lay the foundations of modern computing.

This conversation explores the nuances of building at the frontier: competing inventors, the experiments, the “scenius of genius.” Why did established businesses underestimate it? Did the telephone network have to become a monopoly? What made Bell Labs so productive?
And how a single invention could set off a technology revolution
In this episode:

00:00 Intro: James Gleick and this new book
02:07 The messy invention of the telephone
03:53 When a “toy” becomes indispensable
08:15 How network effects changed the telephone
14:29 How farmers built a decentralized phone network from barbed wire
17:20 What Mark Twain missed while eavesdropping on his wife’s phone calls
20:12 To play monopoly or not?
31:22 Open vs. closed systems
37:17 What made Bell Labs (and Xerox PARC) more than one-hit wonders?
41:20 Scientists, tinkerers, and the conditions for invention
47:22 Debating whether AI is a fourth industrial revolution
52:11 How technology changes the way we think
54:18 James Gleick on solo writing vs. social conversation
58:25 The world brain
59:55 From “ahoy” to “hello, world”

References and readings:

read The Telephone: A New History: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374618940/thetelephone/

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image credits (listed alphabetically by topic):
Alexander Graham Bell patent drawing [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexander_Graham_Bell%27s_Telephone_Patent_Drawing_and_Oath_-_NARA_-_302052_(page_2).jpg]
barbed wire, Texas (Library of Congress)
Bell Labs campus, 2008 [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bell_Labs_Holmdel.jpg]
Bell System advertisement, 1912 [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bell_System_advertisement_in_Western_Electric_v1no1_News_March_1912_promoting_universal_service.jpg]
Centennial Exhibition, 1876 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Exposition#/media/File:Centennial_Exhibition,_Opening_Day.jpg]
Edison & phonograph, 1877 [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Phonograph#/media/File:Edison_and_phonograph_edit2.jpg Library of Congress]
Edison’s phonograph, 2004 [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Phonograph#/media/File:Fonograf_01_ubt.jpeg]
ENIAC patent, 1954 [https://www.historyofinformation.com/image.php?id=5454, Jeremy Norman Collection of Images (Creative Commons)]
Hello World, 1978 [https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Hello_World_Brian_Ke