Robert Smith was raised in a working-class Denver neighborhood in the 1970s. A high-school science class in his junior year sparked his interest in transistors, the building blocks of computers, cellphones and other electronic devices. Transistors were invented in the 1940s by AT&T’s Bell Labs, which had a facility not far from the teenager’s home. He applied for a summer internship there but was told it was available only to juniors and seniors in college. Unbowed and impatient, he spent months pestering people in the human-resources department to give him a shot.

Source: Wall Street Journal May 28, 2019 23:03 UTC