> It's really hard to say. I think most folks here have missed it so far: They had shitty management. For god's sake, they hired Pat Russo as President and C

> It's really hard to say. I think most folks here have missed it so far: They had shitty management. For god's sake, they hired Pat Russo as President and COO. Hilariously, Lucent hired her back as CEO; her performance was so miserable that Lucent had to sell itself (Alcatel bought it). Let me repeat that: Kodak installed a top-level person who later killed a company that invented the transistor, solid-state laser, Unix, and information theory. In another anecdote: Through a circuitous route, I got involved with a presentation to George Fisher (Kodak CEO) around 1996. They were looking for how to allot their $400M research budget between old-fashioned silver-halide films and digital photography. Suffice to say: They absolutely saw the writing on the wall and were pouring money into the digital imaging revolution. They had very serious engineering talent, which brings me to my original point: Their management sucked. Edit: Search for Kodak on the list of all-time worst CEOs here: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worst-ceos-in-american-history-2010-5?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worst-ceos-in-american-hi... (Side note: Guess who is Lead Director of the Board at GM? Just how badly do you need to fuck up in the corner office before people go find someone good?)