Kodak built the world's first digital camera in 1975 — and then put it away. Every year after that, waiting looked like the sensible choice.
Harder version: read this lesson at C1 level →
Look at each word. Say what you think it means. Then tap the card.
Tap a card to see the meaning.
Write one word from the cards in each gap.
1. The shop made no last year, so the owner closed it.
2. It isn't to drive when you are so tired.
3. We had to the meeting because two people were ill.
4. Email has almost completely the paper letter.
5. The factory will next year and 400 people will lose their jobs.
6. Our main opened a bigger shop across the road.
1. profit · 2. sensible · 3. delay · 4. replaced · 5. shut down · 6. rival
Read each part. Then answer the questions before you read the next part.
In December 1975, a young engineer called Steven Sasson finished a strange machine. He worked for Kodak, in New York. He was twenty-five years old.
His machine was as big as a toaster. It weighed four kilos. It took twenty-three seconds to record one picture, and the picture was black and white and very small.
It was useless. It was also the first digital camera in the world.
Sasson showed it to the bosses. Their answer became famous. They said: that's nice — but don't tell anybody about it.
They were not stupid. Kodak was one of the most famous companies on earth, and its business was beautiful. Cameras were cheap. Film was not. Every birthday, every holiday, every wedding — people bought film, and then they paid to print the photographs.
Sasson was showing them a future with no film in it.
True or false? Click your answer.
1. The first digital camera was invented by a company that competed with Kodak.
2. The first digital camera took very good colour pictures.
3. Kodak made most of its money from selling cameras.
Here is the part most people do not know: Kodak did not ignore digital. It kept inventing. It built better sensors. It sold digital cameras in the 1990s. For thirty years, Kodak knew more about digital photography than almost anybody.
The problem was not the technology. The problem was the numbers.
Film made about sixty or seventy cents of profit in every dollar. Electronics made a few cents. So every dollar Kodak earned from digital destroyed several dollars from film.
And there was something worse. The damage to film hurt only Kodak. But the digital market was open to Sony, Canon and everybody else.
One phrase went around the company for years: we are trading high-margin dollars for low-margin pennies.
So every single year, waiting one more year looked sensible. And the people deciding how fast digital should come were the same people whose skills digital would destroy.
Film sales kept growing until about the year 2000. That growth became the argument for staying calm.
True or false? Click your answer.
1. Kodak stopped inventing digital technology after 1975.
2. Film made much more profit than electronics.
3. Film sales were already falling in the 1990s.
Around 2000 the market turned, and it turned fast. Film sales fell by half. Then by half again.
Kodak cut jobs, shut down factories and sold parts of the company. In January 2012 it went bankrupt. The company that gave photography to ordinary people, and that put the words Kodak moment into a dozen languages, could not pay its bills.
Now here is the part that makes this story so useful. There was another company in exactly the same situation.
Fujifilm was Kodak's oldest rival. Same industry, same product, same problem, same year. But Fujifilm decided something early and hard: film is finished, whatever we do.
So it took the money from the dying film business and put it into anything its chemistry knowledge could reach — medicines, skin care, materials for flat screens. Today Fujifilm is a large healthcare and materials company.
Same wave. One company drowned. One learned to surf.
Kodak said, "we are a film company." Fujifilm said, "we are a chemistry company." That one sentence decided everything.
So the question is not whether a company can see the future. Kodak saw it first, in 1975. The question is who is allowed to say out loud that the old money is already gone.
True or false? Click your answer.
1. Kodak went bankrupt in 2012.
2. Fujifilm had a completely different business from Kodak.
3. Fujifilm decided early that film had no future.
This story is all about reasons and results. Kodak did something because of the money, so something happened, but the end was bad. These three little words do most of the work when you explain a business decision.
because + a reason. It answers why? → "Kodak waited because film made more profit."
so + a result. It answers what happened next? → "Film made more profit, so Kodak waited."
but + a surprise or a difference. → "Kodak invented the camera, but it did not sell it."
The most useful thing to notice: because and so say the same thing in opposite directions. Learn to turn one into the other and you can say any idea two ways.
| Word | It introduces… | Example |
|---|---|---|
| because | the reason (why) | Kodak delayed because film was profitable. |
| so | the result (what happened) | Film was profitable, so Kodak delayed. |
| but | a contrast (a surprise) | Kodak had the technology, but it lost anyway. |
| although | a contrast, at the start | Although Kodak had the technology, it lost. |
Write because, so or but in each gap. Read the whole sentence before you choose.
1. Kodak invented the digital camera, it did not want to sell it.
2. Film was very profitable, every year Kodak waited one more year.
3. The bosses were worried digital would destroy their best business.
4. Fujifilm and Kodak had the same problem, only one of them survived.
5. Fujifilm moved into medicine and cosmetics it understood chemistry.
1. but · 2. so · 3. because · 4. but · 5. because
Each sentence uses because. Say it again with so — the meaning must stay the same. Then check.
1. Kodak delayed because film made more money.
2. The bosses said nothing because they were afraid of the future.
3. Fujifilm survived because it changed early.
4. Film sales fell because people bought digital cameras.
5. Kodak went bankrupt because it changed too late.
1. Film made more money, so Kodak delayed.
2. The bosses were afraid of the future, so they said nothing.
3. Fujifilm changed early, so it survived.
4. People bought digital cameras, so film sales fell.
5. Kodak changed too late, so it went bankrupt.
Take your time. Short sentences are fine.
Tell me the story of Kodak in your own words. Six or seven sentences is enough.
Tell me about something you waited too long to do. Why did you wait?
Use because and so at least twice each.
Kodak and Fujifilm had the same problem and did different things.
Tell me the difference between them, and say which one you would have worked for.
Is it possible for a very successful company to change before it has to?
What would have to be true inside the company? Give one example.