Kodak Invented The Digital Camera In 1975 Then Locked It In A Cupboard

In 1975, a 24-year-old Kodak engineer named Steven Sasson built the first digital camera out of spare parts. It took 23 seconds to record one black-and-white image. When he showed it to Kodak's management, one objection stood out from the rest: if this works, it replaces film and processing, which is where Kodak made its money. Thirty-seven years later, Kodak filed for bankruptcy. The story everyone tells is that Kodak was too slow to see digital coming. That's backwards. Kodak saw it before anyone on Earth, because Kodak built it, and did the analysis correctly. The correct analysis said no. --- SOURCES ▸ Eastman Kodak's Chapter 11 petition, January 2012 ▸ Kodak 10-K filings (film-to-digital revenue transition) ▸ Steven Sasson's own published account of the 1975 demonstration ▸ US patent filings for the 1975 electronic camera Corrections are pinned in the comments. If you find an error, post it. I'd rather be right than uncorrected. --- Terminal Value — forensic autopsies of companies that destroyed themselves. New episode Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. ▸ Subscribe:    / @terminalvaluedocs   Narration in this video is AI-assisted. Research, analysis, scripting and editorial judgement are human. #businessdocumentary #corporatecollapse #kodak #stevensasson #businesscasestudy