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The New York Times published a story about a young Kodak engineer's development of the first practical digital camera:
Imagine a world where photography is a slow process that is impossible to master without years of study or apprenticeship. A world without iPhones or Instagram, where one company reigned supreme. Such a world existed in 1973, when Steven Sasson, a young engineer, went to work for Eastman Kodak.
Two years later he invented digital photography and made the first digital camera.
Mr. Sasson, all of 24 years old, invented the process that allows us to make photos with our phones, send images around the world in seconds and share them with millions of people. The same process completely disrupted the industry that was dominated by his Rochester employer and set off a decade of complaints by professional photographers fretting over the ruination of their profession.
The camera he created looked rather odd (there is a picture in the article):
The final result was a Rube Goldberg device with a lens scavenged from a used Super-8 movie camera; a portable digital cassette recorder; 16 nickel cadmium batteries; an analog/digital converter; and several dozen circuits — all wired together on half a dozen circuit boards.
The article points out that Kodak owned the patent for the digital camera and made a fortune from it until it expired in 2007. Three years later Kodak itself expired, filing bankruptcy because it failed to properly utilize the technology it invented.
It may be an error to say that Mr. Sasson invented digital photography. Wasn't NASA doing it with its Mariner and Pioneer space probes?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday August 13 2015, @05:24AM
And yet CEOs claim that they should be paid the big bucks because of their impact on the bottom line. Here, one person makes a huge contribution to the bottom line, but, at best, he perhaps got a $100 check and maybe somewhat accelerated promotion.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @06:23AM
I would not be surprised to hear Mr. Sasson got chewed out for wasting so much money "re-inventing the wheel".
My whole experience with the corporate world is the guy who owns the place has gotta be "on fire" to get anything done.
Once a company gets big enough to hire an executive management team, its a real pain in the ass to get anything done at the engineering level anymore.
Engineers simply get assigned to massage executive egos. Stuff like this would simply be seen as "re-inventing the wheel". Anyway, one place I used to work seemed to act that way toward any innovative efforts. After a while, one learns to "not rock the boat" in the corporate cubicle. If you have any innovation to do, do that at home and get your jollies off releasing it as open source.
On the job, one is paid to tolerate a ridiculous suit, meticulous corporate etiquette, and office politics, not to create anything new.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Thursday August 13 2015, @04:48PM
A little more context from TFA reveals the value of management:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:59PM
A promotion? Why would you promote an successful engineer? He's a known quantity where he is now, and may be a failure in another position.
That is what I see in the corporate world.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday August 13 2015, @04:53PM
But world-class CEOs are needed to put the structures in place to find, hire, motivate and retain the talent that maximises share-holder return. You don't pay a CEO, you invest in one. Any schmuck can innovate! Schmucks are a cost base to be controlled.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].