Rear Vision — How History Shaped Today Innovation — from the spinning jenny to AI
Mar 13, 2026
Robert Friedel, historian of technology, and Andrew Lee, author on innovation history, trace six great waves from the spinning jenny to AI. They unpack Britain’s early edge, industrialization’s social shifts, rail and mass production, Cold War R&D, the internet boom, and today’s move toward renewables and AI. The conversation also covers China’s scaling strategies and Shenzhen’s rapid prototyping culture.
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Steel And Rail Built The Industrial Investor Class
- The second wave centred on steel, rail and mass capital mobilisation that created modern R&D and giant industrial financiers.
- Robert Friedel notes new processes produced vast iron and steel supplies and investors like Rockefellers rewired economic power.
Assembly Lines Created Mass Consumer Society
- The third wave was mass production driven by electricity and the assembly line, making cars widely affordable.
- Andrew Lee highlights Henry Ford's assembly line as central to mass production and broad consumer access to automobiles.
Transistors Fueled The Age Of Mass Communication
- The fourth wave emerged from microelectronics and the transistor, starting mass communication and computing.
- Robert Friedel and Dorothy Neufeld note Cold War R&D spending and microcircuitry led to integrated circuits and early AI programs.