Eastman Kodak

George Eastman's slogan was 'You press the button, we do the rest.' Kodak didn't just sell film; it sold the idea that ordinary people should take photographs. The company dominated photography for a century, at one point controlling 90% of film sales and 85% of camera sales in the United States. 'Kodak moment' entered the English language.

In 1975, Kodak engineer Steve Sasson built the first digital camera. It was the size of a toaster and took 23 seconds to record an image. Kodak's management response, as Sasson later recalled: 'That's cute, but don't tell anyone about it.' They saw digital as a threat to their film business, which had margins of 60-70%. They were right. They just couldn't bring themselves to cannibalize their own golden goose.

By the time Kodak committed to digital in the 2000s, Canon, Nikon, and Sony had a decade head start. Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012, shed 47,000 jobs, and emerged in 2013 as a tiny commercial printing company. The entity called Kodak still exists, but it's a rounding error compared to the company that once employed 145,000 people and defined how humanity captured its memories.