08/11/2025
“Kodak could’ve been the Apple of photography… but they chose to bury their own invention.”
Sounds crazy, right? Let me tell you this story.
Back in 1888, a guy named George Eastman changed the photography game. Cameras used to be massive, film was expensive, and developing pictures was a hassle. Then Kodak came in with a small box camera and a slogan that was pure marketing gold: “You press the button, we do the rest.”
Boom. Everyone could take photos. Send your camera to Kodak, they’d send you back prints and a fresh roll of film. Easy money.
By the 1970s, Kodak was untouchable. They owned 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the US. In 1981, they made $10 billion a year with fat profit margins of 70% on film. Life was good.
Then in 1975, a young engineer at Kodak named Steven Sasson built the world’s first digital camera.
It was clunky. 0.01 megapixels. Black and white. Saved images on a cassette tape. But it worked.
He showed it to the bosses, expecting fireworks. Instead, they basically said: “Cute idea… but keep it quiet.”
Why? Digital cameras didn’t need film. No film meant no fat profits. Kodak was making a fortune from film, why kill their golden goose?
While they sat on the idea, the world moved on. Fuji started selling cheaper film in the US and stole the spotlight at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Sony and Canon were busy making digital cameras better and better.
Kodak? They doubled down on film. In 1996, they spent $500 million making the Advantix Preview: a “smart” film camera. Impressive tech, but the rest of the world was already all-in on digital.
By 2003, digital cameras outsold film cameras. Kodak joined late but still managed to be the #1 digital camera seller in the US by 2005.
But here’s the problem, selling cameras didn’t bring the same money as selling film. And just when they thought they’d caught up…
Smartphones happened.
The iPhone in 2007, Android soon after — everyone had a camera in their pocket. Standalone digital cameras started dying. Kodak had no phones, no apps, no partnerships.
By 2011, they were bleeding cash. In January 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy.
From $31 billion in value and 145,000 employees… to a fraction of their size. All because they couldn’t let go of the past.
The lesson: Sometimes the thing that kills your business isn’t the competition. It’s your own fear of change.