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href="https://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/">Startup Tools</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-62"><a href="https://steveblank.com/secret-history/">Secret History</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-68"><a href="https://steveblank.com/books-for-startups/">Books for Startups</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-11025"><a href="https://steveblank.com/slides/">Slides/Videos</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-25609"><a href="https://steveblank.com/raising-money/">Raising Money</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </div>  <div class="narrowcolumnwrapper"><div class="narrowcolumn"> <div id="content" class="content"> <div class="post-30915 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-technology" id="post-30915"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/26/gordon-bell-r-i-p/" rel="bookmark">Gordon Bell R.I.P.</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">May 26, 2024</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Gordon Bell <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/21/technology/c-gordon-bell-dead.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed on</a> this month.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I was a latecomer in Gordon Bell’s life. But he made a lasting impact on mine.</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The first time I laid eyes on Gordon Bell was in 1984 outside a restaurant in a Boston suburb when he pulled up in a Porsche. I was the head of Marketing for <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/mips-computers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MIPS Computer</a>, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS_Technologies" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RISC chip startup</a>. The entire company (all of five of us) were out visiting the east coast to meet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Computer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prime Computer</a> who would become our first major customer. (When Gordon was CTO of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encore_Computer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Encore Computer</a> he encouraged the MIPS founders to start the company, thinking they could provide the next processor for his <a href="http://www.cpu-ns32k.net/Encore.html">Multimax</a> computer.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">My West Coast centric world of computing had been limited to custom <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_slicing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bit-sliced computers</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_2100" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HP 2100 and 21MX</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Interdata </a>8/32 minicomputers and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zilog" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zilog microprocessors</a>. Gordon was already a legend – as VP of Research and Development at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Equipment_Corporation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Digital Equipment Corporation</a> (DEC) he designed some of the early minicomputers and oversaw the creation of the <a href="https://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/Digital/Bell_Retrospective_PDP11_paper_c1998.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VAX 11-780</a>. His work at DEC revolutionized the computing industry, making powerful computing accessible.</p> <p><iframe title="Gordon Bell The Future of Computers MIT 1972" width="468" height="351" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8b5n0Wt4kiM?start=3232&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Even so, as we talked over dinner at first I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, until I realized that he had three or four levels of conversation going simultaneously, all interleaved. If you could keep them sorted it was fun to keep up with each thread. By dessert I became another member of the Gordon Bell fan club.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Two years later, on a lunch break in downtown Palo Alto I ran into Gordon again. He was out to attend a <a href="https://exhibits.stanford.edu/feigenbaum/catalog/jj609kc7028" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Teknowledge</a> board meeting. I invited him over to meet the founding team of <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/ardent/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ardent,</a> our new startup, whose founders he knew from DEC. By the end of the day Gordon had joined our team as founding VP of Engineering and another phase in my education was about to begin.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">As an entrepreneur in my 20’s and 30’s, I was lucky to have four extraordinary mentors, each brilliant in his own field and each a decade or two older than me. While <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-wegbreit-22192/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">others </a>taught me how to think, it was <a href="http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/bio.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gordon Bell</a> who taught me <em>what</em> to think about. He could see the destination clearer than anyone I’ve ever met. The best part of my day was hearing him tell me about 3 ideas at a time and me do the same back to him. He had an extraordinary instinct for guiding me away from the purely dumb paths that would lead nowhere and nudge me on to the <a href="https://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/CyberMuseum_contents/Ardent_New_Class_of_Computing_Poster_1988.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more productive roads</a>. (He had this warm laugh, a kind of a chuckle when he was listening to some of more dumber ideas.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">At Digital Equipment Gordon had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_law_of_computer_classes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">developed a heuristic</a> that attempted to <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4785818" target="_blank" rel="noopener">predict the evolution of the next class of computers</a>. And when he left DEC he created the <a href="https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=966806" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bell-Mason diagnostic</a> to help predict patterns in successful startups. The idea that there was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_startup#:~:text=Lean%20startup%20is%20a%20methodology,product%20releases%2C%20and%20validated%20learning." target="_blank" rel="noopener">pattern about startup success and failure</a> would stick in the back of my head for decades and shape the second half of my career. And as he was brainstorming about some of the early ideas about what became his My<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyLifeBits" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LifeBits</a> project I was inspired to start a <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/7hh55ult1io475l/Timelapse%201%20-%20Large%20Final.mov?dl=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">small version of my own</a>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">For the next 15 years Gordon would help me understand how to think critically about the possibilities over the horizon. Yet at the same time Gordon was looking forward, he was teaching us to <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Bell_Origin_of_the_Computer_History_Museum_v2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">respect and learn from the past</a>.</p> <p><iframe title="Computer Pioneers: Pioneer Computers Part 1" width="468" height="351" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qundvme1Tik?start=76&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Gordon and his wife Gwen started a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Museum,_Boston" target="_blank" rel="noopener">computer history museum</a> and by 1983 moved it into renovated warehouse next to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Children%27s_Museum" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Boston Children’s Museum</a>. In 1986 I spent two weeks making a short movie about the history of high-performance computing at the museum. Gordon and Gwen put me up in their guest bedroom overlooking Boston Harbor and a short walk across the Congress Street bridge to the museum. This not only began my long-term love affair with the museum but also made me realize that computer history and the history of innovation clusters were missing the story of <a href="https://steveblank.com/secret-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">how the military and intelligence community had shaped the trajectory of post WWII technology</a>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Seven years later, in <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/supermac/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">my next startup</a>, I would end up staying in their apartment again, this time with my wife and two young daughters, to attend the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macworld/iWorld" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MacWorld trade show</a>. I vividly remember the girls running around their living room decorated with many of the artifacts the museum didn’t have room to display (with Gwen patiently telling them that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmometer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Arithmometer</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napier%27s_bones" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Napier’s Bones</a> weren’t toys.) For the next few years, we’d return (with the artifacts safely hidden away.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">By the time I started my final startup <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/epiphany/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Epiphany</a>, Gordon was at Microsoft, and he became my most valuable advisor.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Gordon was not only a mentor and inspiration to me, but to countless engineers and computer scientists. It was a privilege to know him.</p> <div id="attachment_30917" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-30917" data-attachment-id="30917" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/26/gordon-bell-r-i-p/steve-blank-and-gordon/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?fit=2048%2C1360&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2048,1360" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"11","credit":"","camera":"Canon EOS 10D","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1092976686","copyright":"","focal_length":"60","iso":"100","shutter_speed":"0.016666666666667","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Steve Blank and Gordon" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?fit=300%2C199&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?fit=468%2C311&ssl=1" class="wp-image-30917 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?resize=300%2C199&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="199" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?resize=300%2C199&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?resize=1024%2C680&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?resize=150%2C100&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?resize=768%2C510&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?resize=1536%2C1020&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?w=2048&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Steve-Blank-and-Gordon.jpeg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-30917" class="wp-caption-text">2004</p></div> <p style="font-weight: 400;">I’ll miss him.</p> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="91" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1832572926&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/26/gordon-bell-r-i-p/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Gordon%20Bell%20R.I.P.&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2024%2F05%2F26%2Fgordon-bell-r-i-p%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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data-src='https://widgets.wp.com/likes/?ver=14.1-a.3#blog_id=6599589&post_id=30915&origin=steveblank.com&obj_id=6599589-30915-674299579b9af&n=1' data-name='like-post-frame-6599589-30915-674299579b9af' data-title='Like or Reblog'><h3 class="sd-title">Like this:</h3><div class='likes-widget-placeholder post-likes-widget-placeholder' style='height: 55px;'><span class='button'><span>Like</span></span> <span class="loading">Loading...</span></div><span class='sd-text-color'></span><a class='sd-link-color'></a></div> <p class="postinfo"> Filed under: <a href="https://steveblank.com/category/technology/" rel="category tag">Technology</a> | <a href="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/26/gordon-bell-r-i-p/#comments">10 Comments »</a> </p> </div> </div> <div class="post-30888 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-venture-capital" id="post-30888"> <h2><a href="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/21/the-venture-mindset-worth-a-read/" rel="bookmark">The Venture Mindset – Worth A Read</a></h2> <div class="postinfo"> Posted on <span class="postdate">May 21, 2024</span> by steve blank </div> <div class="entry"> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Strebulaev" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ilya Strebulaev</a> at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Director of the <a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/labs-initiatives/vci" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stanford Venture Capital Initiative</a> just came out with a book that should be on your reading list – The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593714237/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Venture Mindset</a>.</p> <p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593714237/"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30896" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/21/the-venture-mindset-worth-a-read/screenshot-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Venture-Mindset-Cover-1.jpg?fit=512%2C782&ssl=1" data-orig-size="512,782" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"Screenshot","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"Screenshot","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Screenshot" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Screenshot</p> " data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Venture-Mindset-Cover-1.jpg?fit=196%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Venture-Mindset-Cover-1.jpg?fit=468%2C715&ssl=1" class="alignright wp-image-30896" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Venture-Mindset-Cover-1.jpg?resize=63%2C96&ssl=1" alt="" width="63" height="96" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Venture-Mindset-Cover-1.jpg?resize=98%2C150&ssl=1 98w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Venture-Mindset-Cover-1.jpg?resize=196%2C300&ssl=1 196w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Venture-Mindset-Cover-1.jpg?w=512&ssl=1 512w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 63px) 100vw, 63px" /></a></p> <p>The books premise is that Venture Capitalists (who were responsible for the launch of one-fifth of the 300 largest U.S. public companies) have a different mindset then that found in the rest of the business world (and I would add in government agencies.) All these startups could have come from inside an existing company—but they didn’t.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The book answers why that’s so. And why are venture firms good at finding start-ups that turn into unicorns – what are the skills that VC firms have that companies don’t? And most importantly, can you/your company learn those skills?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The Venture Mindset is built around 9 key ideas:</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9-key-principles-venture-mindset.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30891" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/21/the-venture-mindset-worth-a-read/9-key-principles-venture-mindset/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9-key-principles-venture-mindset.jpg?fit=478%2C436&ssl=1" data-orig-size="478,436" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="9 key principles venture mindset" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9-key-principles-venture-mindset.jpg?fit=300%2C274&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9-key-principles-venture-mindset.jpg?fit=468%2C427&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-30891 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9-key-principles-venture-mindset.jpg?resize=300%2C274&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="274" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9-key-principles-venture-mindset.jpg?resize=300%2C274&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9-key-principles-venture-mindset.jpg?resize=150%2C137&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/9-key-principles-venture-mindset.jpg?w=478&ssl=1 478w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you’re a founder looking to raise capital, this book will help you understand how VC’s are evaluating your company. (I wish I had read this book at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">If you’re in a large company or government agency this book will help you understand the difference between “fail-safe” bets needed in sustaining the core business, versus “safe-to-fail” bets, needed in creating new businesses and/or disruptive capabilities.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Definitely worth a read.</p> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/21/the-venture-mindset-worth-a-read/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20The%20Venture%20Mindset%20-%20Worth%20A%20Read&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2024%2F05%2F21%2Fthe-venture-mindset-worth-a-read%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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Then in an inexplicable turnabout Kodak decided to destroy Polaroid’s business. To this day, every story of why Kodak went to war with Polaroid is wrong.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The real reason can be found in the highly classified world of overhead reconnaissance satellites.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Here’s the real story.</p> <hr /> <p style="font-weight: 400;">In April 1969 Kodak tore up a 20-year manufacturing partnership with Polaroid. In a surprise to everyone at Polaroid, Kodak declared war. They terminated their agreement to supply Polaroid with negative film for Polacolor – the only color film Polaroid had on the market. Kodak gave Polaroid two years’ notice but immediately raised the film price 10% in the U.S. and 50% internationally. And Kodak publicly announced they were going to make film for Polaroid’s cameras – a knife to the heart for Polaroid as film sales were what made Polaroid profitable. Shortly thereafter, Kodak announced they were also going to make instant cameras in direct competition with Polaroid cameras. In short, they were going after every part of Polaroid’s business.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">What happened in April 1969 they caused Kodak to react this way?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">And what was the result?</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong><em>Read the sidebar</em></strong><em> for a Background on Film and Instant Photography </em></p> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 5px;"> <p>Today we take for granted that images can be seen and sent instantaneously on all our devices — phone, computers, tablets, etc. But that wasn’t always the case.</p> <p><strong>Film Photography<br /> </strong>It wasn’t until the mid-19<sup>th</sup> century that it was possible to permanently capture an image. For the next 30 years photography was in the hands of an elite set of professionals. Each photo they took was captured on individual glass plates they coated with chemicals. To make a print, the photographers had to process the plates in more chemicals. Neither the cameras nor processing were within the realm of a consumer. But in 1888 Kodak changed that when they introduced a real disruptive innovation – a camera preloaded with <a href="https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/eastman-kodak.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a spool of strippable paper film with 100-exposures that consumers</a>, rather than professional photographers, could use. When the roll was finished, the entire camera was sent back to the Kodak lab in Rochester, NY, where it was reloaded and returned to the customer while the first roll was being processed. But the real revolution happened in 1900 when Kodak introduced <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Brownie">the Brownie camera</a> with replaceable film spools. This made photography available to a mass market. You just sent the film to be developed, not the camera.</p> <p>Up until 1936 consumer cameras captured images in black in white. That year Kodak introduced <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodachrome">Kodachrome</a>, the first color film for slides. In 1942, they introduced <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodacolor_(still_photography)">Kodacolor</a> for prints.</p> <p>While consumers now had easy-to-use cameras, the time between taking a picture and seeing the picture had a long delay. The film inside the camera needed to be developed and printed. After you clicked the shutter and took the picture, you sent the film to a drop-off point in a store. They sent your film to a large <a href="https://youtu.be/hFyM_26E40U?feature=shared&t=40" target="_blank" rel="noopener">regional photo processing lab</a> that developed the film (using a bath of chemicals), then printed the photos as physical pictures. You would get your pictures back in days or a week. (In the late 1970s, mini-photo processing labs dramatically shortened that process, offering 1-hour photo development.) Meanwhile…</p> <p><strong>Instant Photography<br /> </strong>In 1937 Edwin Land co-founded Polaroid to make an optical filter called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarizer" target="_blank" rel="noopener">polarizers</a>. They were used in photographic filters, glare-free sunglasses, and products that gave the illusion of 3-D. During WWII Polaroid made anti-glare goggles for soldiers and pilots, gun sights, viewfinders, cameras, and other optical devices with polarizing lenses.</p> <p>In 1948 Polaroid pivoted. They launched what would become synonymous with an “Instant Camera.” In its first instant camera — the<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBoOjxEN6r0" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Model 95</a> – the film contained all the necessary chemicals to “instantly” develop a photo. The instant film was made of two parts – a negative sheet that lined up with a positive sheet with the chemicals in between squeezed through a set of rollers. <em>The negative sheet was manufactured by Kodak</em>. Instead of days or weeks, it now took less than 90 seconds to see your picture.</p> </div> </div> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30865" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/16/secret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid/polaroid-camera-ad/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?fit=1410%2C1126&ssl=1" data-orig-size="1410,1126" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Polaroid camera ad" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?fit=300%2C240&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?fit=468%2C374&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-30865" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?resize=468%2C374&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="374" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?resize=1024%2C818&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?resize=300%2C240&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?resize=150%2C120&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?resize=768%2C613&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?w=1410&ssl=1 1410w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polaroid-camera-ad.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 5px;"> <p>For the next 30 years Polaroid made evolutionary better Instant Cameras. In 1963 Polacolor Instant color film was introduced. In 1973 the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_SX-70" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Polaroid SX-70 Land Camera</a> was introduced with a new type of instant film that no longer had to be peeled apart.</p> </div> </div> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>A Secret Grudge Match</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;">To understand why Kodak tried to put Polaroid out of business you need to know some of most classified secrets of the Cold War.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Project GENETRIX and The U-2</strong><em> – Balloon and Airplane Reconnaissance over the Soviet Union<br /> </em>During the Cold War with the Soviet Union the U.S. intelligence community was <a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/1960-08-19b.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">desperate for intelligence</a>. In the early 1950s the U.S. sent <a href="https://steveblank.com/2010/01/28/balloon-wars/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unmanned reconnaissance balloons</a> over the Soviet Union.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Next, from 1956-1960 the CIA flew the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2">Lockheed U-2</a> spy plane over the Soviet Union on 24 missions, taking <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB54/st04.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">photos of its military installations</a>. (The U-2 program was <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB74/U2-03.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">kicked off by a 1954 memo from Edwin Land (Polaroid CEO) to the director of the CIA</a>.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The U-2 cameras used Kodak film, processed in a secret Kodak lab codenamed <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/history/csnr/programs/docs/Bridgehead%20Eastman%20Kodak%20Company.pdf?ver=2019-03-29-1031353-233&timestamp=1553870223588" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bridgehead</a>. In May 1960 a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident">U-2 was shot down</a> inside Soviet territory and the U.S. stopped aircraft overflights of the Soviet Union. But luckily in 1956 the U.S. intelligence community had concluded that the future of gathering intelligence over the Soviet Union would be with spy satellites orbiting in space.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Air Force – SAMOS – </strong><em> 1<sup>st</sup> Generation Photo Reconnaissance Satellites<br /> </em>By the late 1950s the Department of Defense decided that the future of photo reconnaissance satellites would be via an Air Force program codenamed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samos_(satellite)" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SAMOS</a>.<a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/BIMAT-Scanner.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30838" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/16/secret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid/bimat-scanner/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/BIMAT-Scanner.jpg?fit=195%2C122&ssl=1" data-orig-size="195,122" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="BIMAT Scanner" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/BIMAT-Scanner.jpg?fit=195%2C122&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/BIMAT-Scanner.jpg?fit=195%2C122&ssl=1" class="size-full wp-image-30838 alignright" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/BIMAT-Scanner.jpg?resize=195%2C122&ssl=1" alt="" width="195" height="122" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/BIMAT-Scanner.jpg?w=195&ssl=1 195w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/BIMAT-Scanner.jpg?resize=150%2C94&ssl=1 150w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The first <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA606620.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SAMOS</a> satellites would have a camera that would take pictures and develop them while orbiting earth using special <a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP33-02415A000500120032-7.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kodak Bimat film</a>, then scan the negative and transmit the image to a ground station. After multiple rocket failures and realization that the resolution and number of images the satellite could downlink would be woefully inadequate for the type and number of targets (it would take 3 hours to downlink the photos from a single pass), the film read-out SAMOS satellites were canceled.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong><em>Sidebar</em></strong><em>– Kodak Goes to The Moon<br /> </em></p> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 5px;">While the Kodak Bimat film and scanner <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/824.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">never made it</a> as an intelligence reconnaissance system around the earth, it did make it to the moon. <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/lunar-orbiters/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA’s Lunar Orbiter</a> program to map the moon <a href="https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar_orbiter/book/introduction.shtml#:~:text=Kodak%20Bimat%20film%20consists%20of,contact%20on%20the%20processing%20drum." target="_blank" rel="noopener">got their Kodak <u>Bimat film</u> and scanner camera</a>s from the defunct SAMOS program. In 1966 and ‘67 NASA successfully launched 5 Lunar Orbiters around the moon developing the film onboard and transmitting a total of 3,062pictures to earth. (The resolution of the images and the fact that it took <a href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19660009057/downloads/19660009057.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">40 minutes to send each photo</a> back was fine for NASA’s needs.)</div> </div> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>CIA’s CORONA – </strong><em>2<sup>nd</sup> Generation Photo Reconnaissance Satellites<br /> </em>It was the CIA’s <a href="https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/exhibit/corona-americas-first-imaging-satellite-program/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CORONA film-based photo reconnaissance satellites</a> that first succeeded in returning intelligence photos from space. Designed as a rapid cheap hack, it was intended as a stopgap until more capable systems entered service. Fairchild built the first few CORONA cameras, but ultimately <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/CAL-Records/Cabinet2/DrawerA/2%20A%200090.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Itek became the camera system s</a>upplier. CORONA sent the exposed film back to earth in reentry vehicles that were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdsn4snbzjo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recovered in mid-air</a>. The film was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_processing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">developed</a> by Kodak at their secret <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/history/csnr/programs/docs/Bridgehead%20Eastman%20Kodak%20Company.pdf?ver=2019-03-29-1031353-233&timestamp=1553870223588" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bridgehead</a> lab and sent to intelligence analysts in the <a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81M00980R001900010055-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center</a> (NPIC) who examined the film. (While orbiting 94 miles above the earth the cameras achieved 4 ½-foot resolution.) CORONA was kept in service from 1960 to 1972, completing 145 missions.</p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CORONA-Recon-Systems.png?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30857" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/16/secret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid/corona-recon-systems-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CORONA-Recon-Systems.png?fit=310%2C365&ssl=1" data-orig-size="310,365" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="CORONA Recon Systems" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CORONA-Recon-Systems.png?fit=255%2C300&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CORONA-Recon-Systems.png?fit=310%2C365&ssl=1" class="aligncenter wp-image-30857 size-medium" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CORONA-Recon-Systems.png?resize=255%2C300&ssl=1" alt="" width="255" height="300" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CORONA-Recon-Systems.png?resize=255%2C300&ssl=1 255w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CORONA-Recon-Systems.png?resize=127%2C150&ssl=1 127w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CORONA-Recon-Systems.png?w=310&ssl=1 310w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 255px) 100vw, 255px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Film recovery via reentry vehicles would be the standard for the next 16 years.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Sidebar</strong> – <em>The CIA versus the National Reconnaissance Office</em> (NRO)</p> <div style="background-color: #ededed;"> <div style="border: 2px solid black; padding: 5px;"> <p>With the CIA’s success with CORONA, and the failure of the Air Force original SAMOS program, the Department of Defense felt the CIA was usurping its role in Reconnaissance. In 1961 it was agreed that all satellite Reconnaissance would be coordinated by a single <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB35/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Reconnaissance Office</a> (the NRO). For 31 years satellite and spy plane reconnaissance was organized as four separate covert programs:</p> <p>Program A – Air Force satellite programs: SAMOS, GAMBIT, DORIAN…<br /> Program B – CIA satellite programs: CORONA, HEXAGON, KEENAN…<br /> Program C – Navy satellite programs: GRAB, POPPY …<br /> Program D – CIA/Air Force reconnaissance Aircraft: U-2, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_A-12">A-12</a>/SR-71, ST/POLLY, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21">D-21</a>…</p> <p>While this setup was rational on paper, the CIA and NRO would have a <a href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/monograph/nro/nromono.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decades -long political battle over who would specify, design, build and task reconnaissance satellites</a>. The CIA’s outside expert on imaging reconnaissance satellites was… Edwin Land CEO of Polaroid.</p> <p>The NRO’s existence wasn’t even acknowledged until 1992.</p> </div> </div> <p><strong>Air Force/NRO – GAMBIT</strong> – <em>3<sup>rd</sup> Generation Film Photo Reconnaissance Satellites<br /> </em>After the failure of the SAMOS on-orbit scanning system, the newly established National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) regrouped and adopted film recovery via reentry vehicles.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Prodded by the NRO and Air Force, <a href="https://archive.org/details/nro-gamhex-docs/4%20-%20Eastman%20Kodak%20Blanket%20Proposal/mode/2up?view=theater" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Kodak</em> put in an “unsolicited” proposal</a> for a next-generation imaging satellite codenamed <a href="https://www.thespacereview.com/article/1279/2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GAMBIT</a>. Kodak cameras on GAMBIT had <em>much</em> better resolution than the Itek cameras on CORONA. In orbit 80 miles up, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUIakZq0JGk&t=314s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GAMBIT</a> had high-resolution spotting capability – but in a narrow field of view. This complemented the CORONA broad area imaging. GAMBIT-1 (KH-7) produced images of 2-4 feet in resolution. It flew for 38 missions from July 1963 to June 1967. The follow-on program, GAMBIT-3 (KH-8), provided even sharper images with resolution measured in inches. GAMBiT-3 flew for 54 missions from July 1966 to August 1984. The resolution of GAMBITs photos wouldn’t be surpassed for decades.</p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30836" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/16/secret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid/satellite-recon-systems-gambit/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?fit=2880%2C1620&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2880,1620" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Satellite Recon Systems GAMBIT" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-30836" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?resize=2048%2C1152&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-GAMBIT.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>CIA – HEXAGON</strong> – <em>4<sup>th</sup> Generation Film Photo Reconnaissance Satellites<br /> </em>Meanwhile the CIA decided <u>it</u> was going to build the next generation reconnaissance satellite after GAMBIT. Hexagon represented another technological leap forward. Unlike GAMBIT that had a narrow field of view, the CIA proposed a satellite that could photograph a 300-nautical-mile-wide by 16.8-nautical-mile-long area in a single frame. Unlike GAMBIT whose cameras were made by Kodak, <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/GAMHEX/GAMBIT%20and%20HEXAGON%20Histories/2.PDF" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HEXAGON’s</a> cameras would be made by Perkin Elmer.</p> <p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30837" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/16/secret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid/satellite-recon-systems-hexagon/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?fit=2880%2C1620&ssl=1" data-orig-size="2880,1620" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Satellite Recon Systems hexagon" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?fit=468%2C263&ssl=1" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-30837" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?resize=468%2C263&ssl=1" alt="" width="468" height="263" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?resize=150%2C84&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?resize=1536%2C864&ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?resize=2048%2C1152&ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?w=936&ssl=1 936w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Satellite-Recon-Systems-hexagon.jpg?w=1404&ssl=1 1404w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 468px) 100vw, 468px" /></a></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>CIA Versus NRO – HEXAGON versus DORIAN<br /> </strong>In 1969 the new Nixon administration was looking to cut spending and the intelligence budget was a big target. There were several new, very expensive programs being built: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-9_Hexagon">HEXAGON</a>, the CIA’s school bus-sized film satellite; and a military space station: the NRO/Air Force <a href="https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2560/1">Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL)</a> with its <a href="https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4654/1">DORIAN KH-10 film-based camera</a> (made by Kodak). There was also a proposed high-resolution GAMBIT-follow-on satellite called FROG (Film Read Out GAMBIT) – again with a Kodak <a href="https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP33-02415A000500120032-7.pdf">Bimat camera</a> and a laser scanner.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">In March 1969, President Nixon canceled the CIA’s HEXAGON satellite program in favor of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manned_Orbiting_Laboratory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Manned Orbiting Laboratory</a> (MOL), the Air Force space station with the Kodak DORIAN camera. It looked like Kodak had won and the CIA’s proposal lost.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">However, the CIA fought back.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The next month, in April 1969, the Director of the CIA used the recommendation of CIA’s reconnaissance intelligence panel – <em>headed by Edwin Land (Polaroid’s CEO)</em> to get President Nixon to reverse his decision. Land’s panel argued that HEXAGON was essential to monitoring arms control treaties with the Soviet Union. Land said <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/705.pdf">DORIAN would be useless because astronauts on the military space station could only photograph small amounts of territory, missing other things that could be a few miles away</a>. In contrast, HEXAGON covered so much territory that there was simply no place for the Soviet Union to hide any forbidden bombers or missiles.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Land’s reconnaissance panel recommended: 1) canceling the manned part of the NRO/Air Force <a href="https://www.thespacereview.com/article/2560/1">Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL)</a> and 2) using the DORIAN optics in a robotic system (which was ultimately never built) and 3) urging the President to instead start “highest priority” development of a “simple, long-life imaging satellite, using an array of photosensitive elements to convert the image to electrical signals for immediate transmission.” (This would become the KH-11 KEENAN, <em>ending the need for film-based cameras in space.)</em></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The result was:</p> <ul> <li>Nixon <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/698.pdf">canceled</a> NRO/Air Force <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/mol/800.pdf">Manned Orbiting Laboratory</a> (MOL) and its Kodak <a href="https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4654/1">DORIAN film-based camera</a>,</li> <li>Nixon told the CIA to build the HEXAGON satellite with its Perkin Elmer camera.</li> </ul> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Over the next two years, Land <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/foia/declass/MAJOR%20NRO%20PROGRAMS%20&%20PROJECTS/NRO%20EOI/SC-2016-00001_C05093212.pdf">lobbied against the GAMBIT follow-on called FROG and after a contentious fight effectively killed it</a> in 1971. But most importantly Nixon gave the go-ahead to build the CIA’s KH-11 KEENAN electronic imaging satellite – <em>dooming film-based satellites – and all of Kodak’s satellite business.</em></p> <h3 style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Why Did Kodak Go to War With Polaroid?</strong></h3> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Finally we can now understand why Kodak was furious at Polaroid. <em><u>The CEO of Polaroid killed Kodak’s satellite reconnaissance business.</u></em></p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Kodak’s 1970 annual report said, “Government sales dropped precipitously from $248 million in 1969 to $160 million in 1970, a decline of nearly 36 percent.” (That’s <em>¾’s of a billion dollars</em> in today’s dollars.)</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">The DORIAN camera on the Manned Orbiting Laboratory and the very high-resolution GAMBIT FROG follow-on <em>were all Kodak camera systems</em> built in Kodak’s K-Program, a highly classified segment of the company. In April 1969 when MOL/DORIAN KH-10 was canceled, Kodak laid off 1,500 people from that division.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Kodak also had 1<a href="https://rbj.net/2012/11/23/undercover-covert-photographic-operations-center-existed-at-kodak-plant/">,400 people in a special facility that developed the film</a> codenamed <a href="https://www.nro.gov/Portals/135/documents/history/csnr/programs/docs/Bridgehead%20Eastman%20Kodak%20Company.pdf?ver=2019-03-29-1031353-233&timestamp=1553870223588">Bridgehead</a>. With film gone from reconnaissance satellites, only small amounts were needed for U-2 flights. Another 1,000+ people ultimately would be let go.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Louis Eilers had been Kodak president since 1967 and in 1969 became CEO. He had been concerned about Land’s advocacy of the CIA’s programs that shut out Kodak of HEXAGON. But he went ballistic when he learned of the role Edwin Land played in killing the Manned Orbiting Lab (MOL) and the Kodak DORIAN KH-10 camera.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Kodak’s Revenge and Ultimate Loss<br /> </strong>In 1963 when Polaroid launched its first color instant film — Polacolor – Kodak manufactured Polacolor’s film negative. By 1969 Polaroid was paying Kodak $50 million a year to manufacture that film. (~$400 million in today’s dollars.) Kodak tore up that manufacturing relationship in 1969 after the MOL/DORIAN cancelation.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Kodak then went further. In 1969 they started two projects: create their own instant cameras to compete with Polaroid and create instant film for Polaroid cameras – Polaroid made their profits on selling film.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">In 1976 Kodak came out with two instant cameras — the EK-4 and EK-6 –and instant film that could be used in Polaroid cameras. Polaroid immediately sued, claiming Kodak had infringed on Polaroid patents. <a href="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Kodak-EK-4.jpg?ssl=1"><img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" decoding="async" data-attachment-id="30842" data-permalink="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/16/secret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid/kodak-ek-4/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Kodak-EK-4.jpg?fit=680%2C540&ssl=1" data-orig-size="680,540" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Kodak EK-4" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Kodak-EK-4.jpg?fit=300%2C238&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Kodak-EK-4.jpg?fit=468%2C372&ssl=1" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-30842" src="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Kodak-EK-4.jpg?resize=300%2C238&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="238" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Kodak-EK-4.jpg?resize=300%2C238&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Kodak-EK-4.jpg?resize=150%2C119&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/steveblank.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Kodak-EK-4.jpg?w=680&ssl=1 680w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>The lawsuit went on for 9 years. Finally, in 1985 a court ruled that Kodak infringed on Polaroid patents and Kodak was forced to pull their cameras off store shelves and stop making them. Six years later, in 1991, Polaroid was awarded $925 million in damages from Kodak.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;"><strong>Epilogue<br /> </strong>1976 was a landmark year for both Kodak and Polaroid. It was the beginning of their 15-year patent battle, but it was also the beginning of the end of film photography from space. <a href="https://steveblank.com/2024/04/30/the-secret-history-of-silicon-valley-the-secret-life-of-polaroid-ceo-edwin-land-part-1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">That December the first digital imaging satellite, KH-11 KEENAN, went into orbit</a>.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">After Land’s forced retirement in 1982, Polaroid never introduced a completely new product again. Everything was a refinement or repackaging of what it had figured out already. By the early ’90s, the alarms were clanging away; bankruptcy came in 2001.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Kodak could never leave its roots in film and missed being a leader in digital photography. It filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012, exited legacy businesses and sold off its patents before re-emerging as a sharply smaller company in 2013.</p> <p style="font-weight: 400;">Today, descendants of the KH-11 KENNEN continue to operate in orbit.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>Read all the Secret History posts <a href="https://steveblank.com/secret-history/#Secret%20History%20Backstory" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></strong></p> <iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="91" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1825626108&width=false&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&visual=false&show_comments=false&color=false&show_user=false&show_reposts=false"></iframe> <div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><h3 class="sd-title">Share this:</h3><div class="sd-content"><ul><li class="share-print"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-print sd-button" href="https://steveblank.com/2024/05/16/secret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid/" target="_blank" title="Click to print" ><span>Print</span></a></li><li class="share-email"><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" data-shared="" class="share-email sd-button" href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Secret%20History%20%E2%80%93%20When%20Kodak%20Went%20to%20War%20with%20Polaroid&body=https%3A%2F%2Fsteveblank.com%2F2024%2F05%2F16%2Fsecret-history-when-kodak-went-to-war-with-polaroid%2F&share=email" target="_blank" title="Click to email a link to a friend" data-email-share-error-title="Do you have email set up?" data-email-share-error-text="If you're having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. 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