Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975, then buried it to protect film

In December 1975, Kodak engineer Steven Sasson finished a toaster-sized prototype that captured a 0.01-megapixel black-and-white image to cassette tape in 23 seconds. It was the world's first digital camera, built inside the company with the most to lose from it. Management's reaction, as Sasson later told The New York Times: 'that's cute — but don't tell anyone about it'.

Kodak wasn't blind; it was trapped. Film, paper and chemicals carried margins near 70%, and every digital advance threatened to cannibalize them. The company kept researching digital imaging — it even earned billions licensing Sasson's patent — but it consistently positioned digital as a way to protect film, not replace it, betting the transition would be slow enough to manage. The 1981 internal assessment said it had about ten years. It did, and it spent them defending the old business.

Digital arrived on schedule, then phones arrived on top of digital. Kodak's film revenue collapsed through the 2000s, and in January 2012 — 37 years after its own engineer showed it the future — Kodak filed for bankruptcy. The patent that proved it saw everything coming expired in 2007, five years before the end.