How did Bell Labs evaluate its researchers, as Brian Kernighan describes it?

Brian Kernighan said Bell Labs researchers had no deadlines, assigned projects or externally set goals. Once a year each member of technical staff wrote one side of one page summarising their work, nicknamed the 'I Am Great' report. Department heads and directors, who were still technically active, met to rank people into rough order, then a separate step split a fixed raise pool so some got slightly more than average and some slightly less. Kernighan said idleness over two or three years would be noticed, but a project that had not yet paid off was fine.

• Kernighan said the process was collegial, with managers reminding each other of good work by people outside their own group.
• Most researchers avoided promotion; Kernighan resisted until about 1981 and then managed around 10 people.

▸In their words

“There were no deadlines. There were no projects.” Brian Kernighan · at 16:51 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Ryan Peterman (2026-10-26). Read the whole episode summary →

▸More from this episode