Explainer · Business stories
Why did Kodak miss its own invention?
In 1975 a Kodak engineer, Steve Sasson, built the first digital camera. In January 2012 Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Kodak saw digital coming and even led U.S. digital camera sales in 2005; one way to read its fall is that the hard part was letting go of the film business that paid.
Key points
- Sasson's 1975 prototype weighed about 8 pounds, took 10,000-pixel black-and-white pictures and needed 23 seconds to save each one to cassette tape (IEEE Spectrum).
- Sasson later recalled that his bosses were convinced no one would want to look at their pictures on a television (The New York Times, 2015).
- Film paid Kodak at almost every step, from the roll to the print; a digital photo needs no film. Kodak still led U.S. digital camera sales in 2005 (IDC data, via AP).
- Kodak's workforce fell from about 145,000 in 1988 to 17,100 at the end of 2011. It filed for Chapter 11 on 19 January 2012, said in February it would stop making digital cameras, and left bankruptcy in September 2013 as a much smaller company.
- In December 2012 a group including Apple, Google and Samsung paid about $525 million for Kodak's digital imaging patents. Former Kodak executive Willy Shih says its leaders were acutely aware digital was coming.
Sources
Educational · Not financial advice Made with AI tools (AI voices and visuals), checked by a person
