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Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

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Re: Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

#11
I lived in Rochester, NY and got a 20 hr/week job interning at Kodak in the slide film research department during HS in 1999-2000.

I remember on one occasion my boss, a mid-level executive (head of new slide film research? something like that) asked me what I thought about digital cameras, I think both because I was young and seen as "the computer guy". I didn't own one but I'd read about them a decent amount. I told him I understood they were expensive/low-quality at the moment but the advantage of ditching film and using ever-improving digital tech still seemed huge. I don't remember his exact words, but he couldn't really see the appeal or promise.

The 7-story building I worked in is just a mound of grass last I looked. I have thought from time to time just about the institutional inertia that fights against seeing what's going on and adapting. There were just tens of thousands of people with very highly specialized skills around film and chemicals and processing and dark rooms and paper and so many things most of which simply aren't relevant to a digital photography world.

Now, granted, other film/pre-digital camera companies did a far better job making the jump. I'd argue maybe in part again that Kodak seeing itself as emotionally wed to film while other companies saw themselves moreso as camera/photo companies. That Fuji has been able to survive is more surprising to me than Canon/Nikon/Olympus/etc.

Re: Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

#12
My high school physics teacher worked at Kodak's research labs on CCDs, including some that were for use in "specialized applications," which I assume to mean spy satellites†. He said that he had quit when Kodak decided to stop shooting themselves in the foot and shot themselves in the head instead. That would have been the early 90s, I think. I don't have any specific mismanagement stories, but I'll send you his email address (the most recent that I could find.) I always wished that he would talk about it in more detail and now that it is some years later, maybe he will.

† He told us one fun story. One of his research papers had been cleared by the censors for publication and accepted by a scientific journal. However, just before the journal went to print, the censors changed their minds. It was too late to fix the layout, so the edition was released with a sheaf of blank pages in the middle. He said that it was the proudest anyone had ever been of some blank paper.

Edit: Apparently, there is no way to private message an HN user. If you have a Reddit account or similar, I can pm you there.

Re: Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

#13
post #9

What I've always been curious about was whether Apple's engineers reached out to Kodak when designing the iphone's camera? It would seem logical that Kodak could have potentially been a possible supplier.

Kodak? Around 2005 when the iPhone hardware spec was being designed? They had completely lost the digital camera game by then.

Re: Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

#14
post #11

I lived in Rochester, NY and got a 20 hr/week job interning at Kodak in the slide film research department during HS in 1999-2000. I remember on one occasion my boss, a mid-level executive (head of new slide film research? something like that) asked me what I thought about digital cameras, I think both because I was young and seen as "the computer guy". I didn't own one but I'd read about them a decent amount. I told…

I had never really put much thought into it, but you're totally right- the expectation was that a chemical company (essentially) would transform itself into a Hardware & software manufacturer. That's a might, mighty leap. That Fuji was actually able to do it is even more impressive.

I worked for a company that did some work for Kodak - both directly and indirectly - around some of their software initiatives & partnerships with mobile manufacturers. They were not pretty or well-run projects, to be sure.

Re: Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

#16

The story of staggering institutional inertia and failure is amazingly similar to Xerox's, and similar to hundreds of other US corporate manufacturing giants declining into bankruptcy over the last 40 years, by failing to be concerned with, or collectively act on (board, executive, staff) the future year risks of on a several-decade time scale. This list of inertially failing organizations, among others, includes Gen…

Halide, not haloid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_halide

The chemical grouping is halide, yes, but the Xerox precursor company was indeed called Haloid.

Re: Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

#17
post #11

I lived in Rochester, NY and got a 20 hr/week job interning at Kodak in the slide film research department during HS in 1999-2000. I remember on one occasion my boss, a mid-level executive (head of new slide film research? something like that) asked me what I thought about digital cameras, I think both because I was young and seen as "the computer guy". I didn't own one but I'd read about them a decent amount. I told…

Sometimes I think nostalgically about my DOS 16 bit programming skills - all quite useless today. It's hard to give that up.

Re: Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

#18

There are quite a few articles online that go into some detail about it. Just search for "Kodak Clay Christensen", or something similar. Here's one: http://www.economist.com/node/21542796 Another reason why Kodak was slow to change was that its executives “suffered from a mentality of perfect products, rather than the high-tech mindset of make it, launch it, fix it...” Bad luck played a role, too. Kodak thought that…

Christensen's book, The Innovator's Dilemma, is well worth reading.

I don't think it's one of Christensen's examples (it's been a while since I read the book) but IMO the all-time greatest blunder of this type was Sears closing down their catalog operation the same year the first graphical web browser was introduced. The younger readers may not remember this, but there was a time when the Sears catalog sold everything. You could even buy an entire pre-cut house that would be shipped to you for assembly.

They basically had Amazon, and threw it away. Now they're essentially nothing but a subsidiary brand of K-Mart.

Re: Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

#19
post #3

Big ships are slow to turn. One systemic cause based on my experience in old-big companies is that if profit margins on some products are high, mid and some high level managers maximize that product (e.g. roll-to-roll manufactured films in Kodak). With such optimization, you end up at "local-maxima". This continues until you have an "iceberg right ahead" moment when profits start to spiral downward. Depending on the…

I understand that abstract idea in the big picture, but I am interested in the specific history of how that played out at Kodak.

Re: Ask HN: Insider history of the demise of Kodak?

#20
post #14
post #11

I lived in Rochester, NY and got a 20 hr/week job interning at Kodak in the slide film research department during HS in 1999-2000. I remember on one occasion my boss, a mid-level executive (head of new slide film research? something like that) asked me what I thought about digital cameras, I think both because I was young and seen as "the computer guy". I didn't own one but I'd read about them a decent amount. I told…

I had never really put much thought into it, but you're totally right- the expectation was that a chemical company (essentially) would transform itself into a Hardware & software manufacturer. That's a might, mighty leap. That Fuji was actually able to do it is even more impressive. I worked for a company that did some work for Kodak - both directly and indirectly - around some of their software initiatives & partner…

Certainly Kodak did a lot of things wrong but there's a common meme straight out of Marketing Myopia [1] that, had they only thought of themselves as a photography company rather than a film company, all would have been well. This is basically nonsense.

Even had Kodak been more aggressive about cannibalizing its film sales with digital, it's unclear how much of its expertise and competitive advantage would have carried over. In any case, it wouldn't have nearly replaced the film consumables business in terms of revenue and profit.

Fujifilm did do better--mostly, current camera line notwithstanding--by branching out into other areas of chemistry. Good read from The Economist here [2] but Fujifilm had tough times too and I believe that they were also significantly smaller.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_myopia

[2] http://www.economist.com/node/21542796?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/the...

[Second link fixed.]

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