Thank the Beatles

Writing in Slate, Thomas Goetz on how the Beatles caused the health care crisis.

And saved a bunch of lives.

And in 1962, on the recommendation of EMI recording executive George Martin, the company signed a new group called the Beatles to a recording contract. Over the next decade the company earned millions of dollars from the Fab Four. It was so much money that EMI almost didn’t know what to do with it. Meanwhile, a middle-aged bachelor engineer named Godfrey Hounsfield was working at EMI’s less glamorous electronics business. Hounsfield was a skilled, unassuming scientist, quietly leading a team that built the first all-transistor computer. Flush with money broken out of teenagers’ piggy banks, EMI let Hounsfield pursue independent research.