[cloudbonsai]

> I'd love to be corrected if I'm misreading this, but the reports of Kodak's death seem greatly exaggerated

The basic background here is that Kodak has been pivotting at least for last 40 years.

- 1980s: Kodak tried to become a Chemical magnate. This strategy was abandoned in 1990s.

- 1990s: Kodak tried to become a Digital Imaging company. While it saw a brief success, Kodak lost the competition.

- 2000s: Kodak tried to become an Inkjet Printer company, which was doomed and eventually pushed it into bankruptcy.

- 2010s: Kodak tried to become a Blockchain company, issuing KodakCoin. It was a flop.

- 2020s: Kodak tried to become a Pharmaceutical company amid Covid-19 pandemic.

As of today, Kodak is focusing on its chemical business (such as manifacturing KODALUX, a fabric coating material) and borrowed $477M (at 12% p.a.) in order to expand that business line.

That loan is due in 2026. Kodak is basically saying "I have no idea how to repay that money. In fact, I only have $155M in cash. Maybe it's time to talk with the creditors?".

[bawolff]

> - 2010s: Kodak tried to become a Blockchain company, issuing KodakCoin. It was a flop.

Its hard not to laugh at that. At least the pivots before that point kind of made sense. I guess 2010 came along and the executives just decided to yolo.

[close04]

> At least the pivots before that point kind of made sense.

But was this even a real pivot? They "rented" out their name to a company with an already failed crypto coin project, who thought they'll make it if they use a bigger brand. A pivot implies some effort to change the business model, not just literally throwing your name out there and hoping money follows.

[coldpie]

I do not miss the zero-interest-rate days and I hope they never return.

[enaaem]

Interestingly, Fujifilm has pivoted to a like a dozen other industries successfully and it's now a full blown conglomerate.

[kalleboo]

And yet right now they’re back to chemical photography film being over 50% of their revenue due to the breakout success of the instax instant cameras. Being able to charge a dollar per photo remains an unbeatable business to be in.

[nixass]

Maybe they should pivot into human robots, self-driving and robo-taxis next. I heard it pays out well regardless of whether your product being sub-par or non existing at all

[FMecha]

Might as well mention generative AI as well.

[notfromhere]

The chemical thing kinda worked out. Eastman Chemical is the spinout from that and they're a $9B annual business.

The folks running Kodak kind of forgot that Kodak was really a chemicals company that supported photography, not a photography company. Hence why the pivot into that was ill-fated and doomed.

[Suppafly]

It's even worse, other than blockchain, their whole history is having successes and going out of their way to hand that success to their competitors.

[busterarm]

> - 2000s: Kodak tried to become an Inkjet Printer company, which was doomed and eventually pushed it into bankruptcy.

Those were actually dye sublimation thermal printers and...they still sell them!