[HN Gopher] Kodak says it might have to cease operations
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Kodak says it might have to cease operations
Author : mastry
Score : 84 points
Date : 2025-08-12 12:15 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| physicsguy wrote:
| It's not really the same company it was... just a name now.
| kotaKat wrote:
| There's a bunch of Kodaks.
|
| * Eastman Kodak
|
| * Kodak Alaris
|
| * at least four separate Kodak licensees or more all also
| making photographic products among other plastic sludge:
| https://www.engadget.com/general/a-tale-of-four-kodaks-17304...
| compsciphd wrote:
| kodak spun off Eastman Chemical decades ago (my dad owned
| some of their stock and held it to their bankruptcy).
|
| But looking at it, kodak shareholders were given 1 share of
| Eastman chemical for every 4 shares of Kodak they had.
| Eastman chemical has split once since then. Eastman chemical
| is now $60. Kodak ended 1993 (the new company was created jan
| 1 1994 I believe) at $56 a share.
|
| So that would imply that eastman chemical, that was viewed as
| 1/5th the value of the combined company in 1994 is now the
| value of the parent that was left over then (and no longer
| really exists).
| throw0101a wrote:
| Destin from _SmarterEveryDay_ did a series of videos on making
| film at a Kodak plant:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjHf9jaFs8XXcmtNSUxoa...
| moomin wrote:
| It's sad to see. As I understand it, digital photography forced
| camera companies to decide if they were principally about film or
| about photos and imaging. The competition in the image space was
| brutal, which phones winning the mass market by a huge margin.
| Those that quietly moved into recondite but valuable areas of
| technical specialisation did much better, but they're not camera
| companies anymore.
| seanhunter wrote:
| Kodak give the world the first digital camera[1]. It took
| mismanagement on a gargantuan scale for them to fail in this
| manner.
|
| [1] https://www.kodak.com/en/company/page/photography-history/
| bbatha wrote:
| Kodak managed the film and camera market about as well as
| they could. The mismanagement was a failure to diversify. The
| total digital camera market excluding cell phones, would be a
| fraction of Kodak's film business back in the film era. The
| film and camera story is a popular one but is fundamentally
| wrong. The shrinkage of the camera/film market was
| inevitable. You can look at Fujifilm who does sell cameras
| and basically owns the remaining film market with instax,
| however neither of those sustain the business they are
| effectively a chemical and medical manufacturer who dabbles
| in photography now.
|
| Kodak on the other hand attempted to diversify to those
| markets in the 80s and 90s but made some terrible investments
| that they managed poorly. That forced them to leave those
| markets and double down on film just in time for the point
| and shoot boom of the 90s and the early digital market. Kodak
| was a heavy player in the digital camera market up to the
| cell phone era: they had the first dSLR and were the dSLR
| market for most of the 90s, they had the first commercially
| successful lines of digital point and shoots, they had the
| first full frame dSLR in the early 00s and jockeyed for
| positions 1-3 in the point and shoot market until the smart
| phone era. They continued to make CCD sensors for everyone
| during this time. Ya they missed the CMOS change over and
| smarthphone sensor market, but that was well after they were
| already in the drain.
| heeton wrote:
| We all know that being first does not mean success, and it's
| not "gargantuan" mismanagement.
|
| It's rare to be first AND the leader 20 years later.
| dtagames wrote:
| Kodak itself was the first to demonstrate a digital camera in
| 1975.[0] There is no one else to blame for any decisions.
|
| [0] https://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/kodak-engineer-
| ha...
| jljljl wrote:
| From the article it sounds like they had strong market share
| in Digital Cameras in the early 2000's. What really killed
| then was phones becoming the dominant form factor
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| It's true. I chose Kodak digital cameras and was happy with
| them. They were simple, well-priced and pretty nice all
| around.
|
| It's just that the cell phones took over that job. (And a
| dozen other ones too.)
| DerekL wrote:
| But switching to making digital cameras wouldn't have helped
| much, because selling cameras was never really their
| business. Their main business was selling film, photo paper,
| developer, etc.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| And the mass market consumer digital camera market didn't
| last terribly long either and is effectively dead. It is
| now a high end hobby with low volume high margin
| production.
|
| Smartphone cameras and digital distribution of images would
| have killed them 10-20 years later anyway.
| fragmede wrote:
| Given that Sony and Samsung make, basically, every
| smartphone cellphone camera sensor, it doesn't seem
| inconceivable that a more agile Kodak could have fully
| pivoted to producing cellphone camera sensors, and fully
| owned that segment, as well as adding value add services
| that took advantage of their printing expertise. Sending
| digital photos to Kodak for them to print and mail them
| back to you wouldn't have saved all of the company, but
| if we handwave that it were successful at that, the brand
| could have kept going for a lot longer. Following that, a
| prescient, adaptible Kodak could also have created a
| photo sharing service, like Flickr or Instagram.
|
| The question of why is CEO and executive pay so high
| always comes up, and between Kodak and RIM/Blackberry,
| it's easy to argue the good ones are worth what they're
| paid, as the ones who tank the company clearly are not.
| regnull wrote:
| I always thought that this story is probably more nuanced,
| and indeed it is:
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kodak-digital-camera-
| inven...
|
| In particular:
|
| "While this may have been a motivating factor to some at
| Kodak, such concerns did not stop Kodak -- or even Sasson --
| from further developing digital cameras and making several
| technical developments that led to Kodak's first publicly
| available digital camera in 1991, the Digital Camera System."
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Yes, this is a classic case of "innovator's dilemma". [1][2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
|
| [2] https://innovationmanagement.se/2017/05/24/the-innovators-
| di...
| NuclearPM wrote:
| With
| intrasight wrote:
| Kodak could rightfully lay claim to having been the first tech
| platform company. With the Brownie camera - released in 1900.
|
| My father worked there for 33 years. I did an internship in
| 1984. My boss took me on a tour of one of the buildings at our
| site - where all disc cameras were manufactured. When I did my
| internship, the single site where I worked employed 14,000
| people. Our start and end times were staggered in five minute
| increments to manage traffic.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| Kodak's failure to capitalize on their invention of the digital
| camera is so often cited as the cause of their downfall that it
| has taken on the air of truth. Whether it really was the cause
| of their demise or not, I'm not so sure. Suppose theyd come out
| with a line of digital cameras. Would that have saved them?
| That seems unlikely.
|
| Looking around at similar companies, Nikon and Zeiss became
| specialist lens makers, for (eg) medical devices, specialist
| optics like binoculars, and yes, phones. Fuji got into medical
| imaging, x rays etc. Its almost like they all realized they
| were in the image business but in different ways.
|
| One peer I find especially interesting is Corning as they were
| a similar one-trick pony (glass) in upstate New York. But
| Corning survived, and Kodak didnt. Gorilla glass for phones,
| fiber optics, etc are a million miles away from pyrex and
| labware. Why were Corning able to pivot and thrive, and not
| Kodak?
| myrmidon wrote:
| One important point I think is that Kodak, at its core, was a
| huge company specialized in photography related _chemistry_.
|
| Not easy to turn a company around when the
| knowledge/qualifications/experience of most of your employees
| becomes almost worthless.
|
| Thats also what made it easier for others (like Corning) to
| pivot (presumably).
| philipkglass wrote:
| Kodak spun off the chemical business as Eastman Chemical
| Company in 1994, seven years before the main film business
| went into permanent decline:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Chemical_Company
|
| Eastman Chemical Company is still doing fine.
| mastry wrote:
| > Kodak aims to conjure up cash by ceasing payments for its
| retirement pension plan.
|
| I assume this means payments to retirees. It's a good reminder
| that (if you can help it) you should not rely 100% on any
| external source (including the government) for your retirement
| income.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I assume this means payments to retirees._
|
| You assume wrong. From November 2024:
|
| > _According to the company, the plan's liabilities to
| qualifying participants would be satisfied through a
| combination of lump sum distributions and an annuity purchased
| from an insurance company to cover existing obligations. Kodak,
| like many corporate pension plans, is in a funding surplus; it
| has significantly more assets than liabilities owed to plan
| beneficiaries and participants._
|
| * https://www.ai-cio.com/news/kodak-considers-terminating-
| over...
|
| > _Kodak retirees would receive an annuity from an insurance
| company. Current employees, as well as former employees who
| haven't yet reached retirement, would be given an option to
| either receive a lump sum of their balance, or an annuity once
| they retire. Plan participants wouldn't see a change in the
| value of the benefits that have been promised to them,
| executives said._
|
| > _Kodak expects to put a new retirement plan in place for
| current employees if it terminates the pension. The company
| hasn't yet determined whether it would provide a defined-
| benefit or defined-contribution plan, such as a 401(k). The
| company would need to have a new plan designed and in place
| within about a year, executives said._
|
| * https://www.wsj.com/articles/kodak-prepares-to-terminate-
| u-s...
|
| The money in the pension fund, at least up to an amount needed
| to satisfy current liabilities, is the property of employees
| and Kodak has no right to it. It is the _surplus_ that was
| taken back by Kodak last year, and _future_ payments are the
| ones that are ceasing. Per _WSJ_ above another retirement plan
| system will be setup for current employees.
| mastry wrote:
| Ah - that's good to hear. Thanks for the extra information.
| TomMasz wrote:
| It was Rochester's largest employer for so long. Now it's become
| a bit of local trivia, much like Xerox. Both of them struggled to
| deal with changing markets.
| beardyw wrote:
| Even my DSLR is gathering dust.
| genman wrote:
| The most important aspect is to save/conserve the equipment and
| knowledge so it would be possible for somebody else to take over.
| Something like this happened with Polaroid - a group of
| enthusiasts got Polaroid equipment and managed to partially
| restore the development of Polaroid integral instant film (the
| one where everything is packed into single package).
| Unfortunately the much more beautiful and photo like "peel apart"
| instant film was already scraped by both Polaroid and Fuji. I
| would even consider this a cultural vandalism, similar to
| destroying important cultural artifacts.
| ddoolin wrote:
| My grandpa (father's father) grew up in Rochester and that was
| the first time I visited New York for a family reunion, way back
| in the early aughts. Kodak was the major employer in town then;
| he and practically everyone he knew either worked there, had
| dealings with them in some form, or knew many others who did.
| When we went, I had the pleasure of touring the place and hearing
| plenty of stories from my gramps and our family. Good times.
| specproc wrote:
| Interesting to compare the tech companies of last century with
| those of this era.
|
| Kodak employed a whole town, and many more people besides. We're
| now waiting on a one-person unicorn.
|
| The number of people benefiting from an enterprise has shrunk
| considerably, with the benefits accruing more tightly within an
| already wealthy class.
| squigz wrote:
| I don't deny wealth disparity is very much a thing, but this
| doesn't seem the point to make it. How many people does Google
| employ? Amazon? Apple? Probably as much or more than a small
| town.
| specproc wrote:
| Fair point, see my response to the commenter above.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| How many Kodak workers had to pee in bottles, or needed
| suicide nets around their company dorms?
| solardev wrote:
| Hard to say for sure, but I think we can all agree it was a
| company full of negatives...
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _Interesting to compare the tech companies of last century
| with those of this era._
|
| The 'tech companies' (equivalent) of the past tended to deal
| with physical goods, and so needed physical means of scaling to
| become as large as they did.
|
| More recent tech companies are often software goods and
| services, where physical means of scaling may not be as
| important (though see perhaps with Moore and Dennard). Though
| those which deal with physical stuff do seem to have higher
| counts; see below.
|
| > _The number of people benefiting from an enterprise has
| shrunk considerably, with the benefits accruing more tightly
| within an already wealthy class._
|
| Not sure if this is completely accurate. Kodak topped out at
| 145,000 employees in 1988:
|
| * https://rbj.net/2017/09/13/kodaks-decades-of-decline/
|
| Apple has 164,000; Microsoft has 228,000; Amazon has 1,610,000.
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers
| specproc wrote:
| Heh, I was musing on something I'd read recently that had
| Kodak as a case study. It was compared with Instagram which
| had about 10-15 staff when it was bought for USD 1bn.
| WhatsApp similarly small.
|
| I hear tech can be big employers, maybe I'm overselling my
| point a bit there. That said, the trend is very much towards
| smaller operations, and a large headcount is not at all
| required for large money.
|
| My overall point is that profits that at one time would
| require a town, or be a major part of a city's economy, can
| be made with a small office's worth of staff.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _My overall point is that profits that at one time would
| require a town, or be a major part of a city 's economy,
| can be made with a small office's worth of staff._
|
| This has been true for most industries even 'with-in
| themselves': it's called productivity growth.
|
| The number of employees (or man-hours) needed to create
| (say) a tonne of steel has dropped a lot, so where
| previously you had 'steel towns', now a plant may just have
| a very few (and produce more tonnage than they've ever
| done).
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Disagree. It's not a small office worth of staff. You're
| not counting all the jobs involved in providing the data
| centers.
| siva7 wrote:
| Those aren't employees of instagram or whatsapp
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's a challenging comparison, though, as Instagram never
| had to do fundamental research. They wrote an app. One that
| has to scale to enormous traffic, to be sure, but that came
| after they were a 10-15 person company. Meanwhile, Kodak
| was inventing lens technology and film chemistry and
| manufacturing processes and distribution channels.
|
| Similarly, Ford has more employees than Gran Turismo, but
| they're not in the same industry.
| randombits0 wrote:
| You are describing CraigsList. No ads, no salesmen, just a
| small staff.
| DonsDiscountGas wrote:
| Apple and Microsoft are the 2nd and 3rd largest companies in
| the US (by market cap), Kodak never came close to that
| glimshe wrote:
| Many tech companies still deal with physical goods and employ
| enough people to fill a city - but no longer in the US and
| Europe, generally. Whether we want them back is up to us.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| People talk about physical goods and differences in scaling
| needs, one thing that bothers or excites me is noticing what
| the market tolerates.
|
| Many companies employed (and still employ) orders of magnitude
| more people than necessary just to be taken seriously. The
| executive team and board is stacked and diluting ownership just
| to get in rooms for more support and investors.
|
| This was arguably never necessary, and in many markets people
| still believe they need to stack the deck and print employment
| numbers for any incorporated idea they have. The market reality
| changes far faster than the culture and I love seeing evolution
| of markets where individuals test a theoretical reality and do
| it.
|
| I'm glad that people noticed and tried to keep ownership with
| parallel voting classes, and smaller personnel. I think there
| are some negatives and that exchanges can go back to enforcing
| listing guidelines which factor in ownership structure. But
| even amongst private companies and family offices, I think its
| interesting when people approach wealth acquisition in ways
| that match the liquidity of the markets more than the culture,
| for example, most billionaires stop trading or trying anything
| because they are afraid of losing money. While the liqiudity
| from the central bank and market reforms has gotten so much
| higher over just the last 10 years, that it was only a matter
| of time before someone tried to trade up to a $60bn portfolio
| size in the public markets (Bill Hwang). Its still only a
| matter of time before someone does it successfully and takes it
| to far larger amounts. Elon Musk sold nearly $40bn of Tesla
| shares in his court forced acquisition of Twitter, and that's
| just one stock ticker. Just a matter of time before someone
| leverages the liquidity in a more diverse portfolio of momentum
| stocks and has hundreds of billions without any personnel
| around them. I'm excited to see this capability.
|
| Being able to convert assets to another asset at this speed and
| scale is something state actors and even Mansa Musa could never
| do. And the goal isn't done until everything can be valued
| within milliseconds and its value transferred to another owner,
| fractionally, with derivatives for future delivery on top.
|
| Liquidity is the game. Just move to the next idea if liquidity
| isn't there as companies like Kodak from days of old are not
| necessary.
| impish9208 wrote:
| Pitbull (Mr. Worldwide) will be sad to hear this. Picture that
| with a Kodak.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| And for us a little older, Paul Simon. After all, Kodachrome
| gives us those nice bright colors, and the greens of summers.
| mikewarot wrote:
| There are lots of hidden dependencies in the world, who knows
| what depends on the reliable production of polymer/emulsion
| products.
|
| It could be that we stop being able to make chips, or printers,
| or something else because of this as a second or third order
| effect.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Presumably they wouldn't torch the equipment and shoot the
| engineers when shutting down. If some business unit within
| Kodak is producing something the world needs, then there will
| be money to restart that particular production back up again,
| either as a spun off entity or as new production by a different
| firm.
|
| Losing a technological capability requires it to go decades
| without being practiced - long enough that those with the key
| knowledge die off. This can and has happened under the right
| circumstances, but probably wouldn't from a company going out
| of business.
| siva7 wrote:
| I'm confused. Isn't kodak a printer company?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| They literally invented the digital camera
| yieldcrv wrote:
| and fumbled
| kfor wrote:
| As well as many of the key innovations for OLEDs (patents they
| later sold to LG)
| hu3 wrote:
| Well Nokia had a touch screen smartphone 4 years before iPhone.
|
| First movers advantage only gets you so far.
| siavosh wrote:
| I remember when they tried to make a crypto currency a few years
| ago I knew it was well past a shadow of its former self.
| williamscales wrote:
| Dang, this would suck. I really like Kodak film, like Portra 400
| and Ektar 100.
|
| Writing's been on the wall for quite a while though. I'm not
| surprised.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The MBAs that outsourced camera production to APEC are long
| retired.
| 1over137 wrote:
| nicer link: https://lite.cnn.com/2025/08/12/business/kodak-
| survival-warn...
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