Kodak Invented the Digital Camera in 1975. Then It Hid It.

In December 1975, a young Kodak engineer named Steve Sasson built the first digital camera ever made. It was about the size of a toaster, captured a ten-thousand-pixel black and white image, and took twenty-three seconds to save it to a cassette tape. Thirty-seven years later, the company that invented digital photography filed for bankruptcy. This Paper Empires documentary covers Kodak's whole story. It starts with George Eastman's one-dollar Brownie and the 'You press the button, we do the rest' business model. It follows the huge film profits, the internal warnings about digital and the brief comeback in digital cameras. It ends with the rise of smartphones and the Chapter 11 filing in January 2012. It's a case study in the innovator's dilemma: how a company can see the future clearly and still be held back by its own success. This video is storytelling and business history only. It is not financial advice. #Kodak #BusinessHistory #InnovatorsDilemma #Documentary #DigitalCamera ⏱ Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:04 You Press the Button 3:01 The Toaster in the Lab 4:52 The Profit Trap 6:49 The Long Slide 9:10 Chapter Eleven 10:45 The Lesson