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Ask HN: Other examples like “Kodak missed digitization” for presentations?

9 points by FabianBeiner ↗ HN
When you listen to a presentation about digitization, innovation, or something like that, there is a massive chance that the speaker will mention Kodak as an example of a company that slept through the digital revolution and, therefore, no longer exists.

I'm looking for more handy examples, metaphors, etc. that could be used in presentations. It doesn't even have to be about digitalization. It could be about anything. But they should not be boring and worn out.

Thanks. :)

17 comments

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pinewurst
DEC missing the PC
sloaken
That was Ken Olsen, founder of DEC. Did not think people would want a computer in their house.
helph67
How about the fact that Xerox PARC invited Steve Jobs into their labs to see what Xerox had been working on? Talk about the chickens inviting the fox to lunch!
muzani
This seems to be only two points in history and interestingly, at the same time. It's statistically unlikely that a 20 year old will build a trillion dollar company that destroys yours.
leejoramo
True, but it was a larger issue than just Steve Jobs. If you read the histories of those who did great work at PARC, it appears that Xerox had NO way to commercialize their work:

* Apple, Microsoft, GEM, Amiga, etc, etc all shipped the GUI

* 3Com, Cisco, etc, etc, all shipped Ethernet

* HP, Canon, etc, etc all shipped laser printers. (Xerox did too on the VERY hight end, mostly as part of a copier)

PARC's Team actively moved to or started firms that shipped their ideas.

leejoramo
And to the original question, I have read that the leadership of Xerox was resistant to technology that could hurt photocopier sales. The Wikipedia page on PARC gives a good overview of the technologies they helped develop, including hardware, software, and development methods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PARC_%28company%29

matt_s
Counterpoint is that they picked one thing (laser printing) out of the dozens of ideas coming out of PARC and capitalized on it to the point that they were found to be a monopoly [0] and forced to license their patents [1].

Watch Alan Kay's "How to Invent The Future" talks from Stanford about this [2] and he talks in more depth.

I don't think any company could have built products around all of the ideas that came out of there and been successful, they would have been focused on too many things.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/1978/07/11/archives/jury-finds-monop...

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1975/07/31/archives/xerox-settlement...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id1WShzzMCQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e8VZlPBx_0

helph67
You might also consider Big Blue passing their need for an O.S. for the first P.C. to Microsoft!
sloaken
If I recall correctly, a neighbor who worked for IBM said they only part they did not outsource was the keyboard.
solomatov
Google the innovator's dilemma. There's an excellent book on the topic with the same name.
pravj
Nokia can be an example for missing the smartphone movement.
oicu812
IMO, Blackberry was the bigger loser in the smartphone movement. Read the book "Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry" for a really interesting analysis of this company's failure.
kratom_sandwich
I would say there's an equally massive chance that the speaker will mention Sears who dominated the mail-order business until Amazon came along :D
decasteve
Two examples you might look into:

Typewriter maker Olivetti. Beautiful mechanical design and innovation right up until the end of the typewriter era. They successfully made computers for a while but couldn't compete in the long run.

Coleco. From leather maker to Cabbage Patch dolls to video game consoles. Then bankrupt after the disaster that was the Coleco Adam computer.

sethammons
In Only the Paranoid Survive, former CEO of Intel Andy Grove talks about companies needing to see “strategic inflection points” and adapt or die. Examples abound in the book: IBM and the personal PC, Charlie Chaplin and Talkie Movies, and craftsmen and the rise of factories. The book is still considered important by those in business leadership some twenty five years later.
keiferski
Microsoft and the Internet. While they're doing okay now with Bing and other tech, they really missed much of the early Internet land-grabbing. It's hard to picture now, but at one point Windows was synonymous with computers.
sloaken
In 1943 the president of IBM believed there was a need for no more that 5 computers in total. To be fair, at the time they were huge.