Tech history comes in brief golden epochs: Athens, Renaissance, Bell Labs

wavefnx · x · 2026-11-13

Blogger wavefnx argues that intelligence and creativity arrive in short bursts — the Athenian golden age, the Renaissance, Bell Labs — followed by long stretches of technological stagnation.

He ranks companies by innovation rather than valuation, and pairs the post with a 1956 photo of IBM's SAGE computer system built for the U.S. Air Force, implying the current AI wave may be another such golden epoch.

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