As I recall, Bell Labs had a license to print money -- they had a government permitted monopoly on the US voice telephone network.
So, for one effort, they saw that for the electronic signal amplifiers they needed, vacuum tubes, amazing and powerful, were too big, hot, expensive, and delicate so invented transistors, patented them, and, realizing the power, gave the patent to the world. Today if we had to pay a penny a transistor, then the 8 core AMD 4.0 GHz processor I bought for $115 (with HOW many transistors?) would cost -- hmm, could buy a house, a big one!
So, net, Bell Labs was a big success for Bell, its stockholders, the US voice telephone network, the future of technology, the economy, and the standard of living of the world.
