I am actually surprised that Netflix hasn't made a documentary on their struggle. That board meeting where Blockbuster laughed them out would be so funny to watch.
How frustrating could have been for the engineers that developed the technology of the future at Xerox, with their bosses and directives having absolutely no clue of what they have in their hands.
I hope they got employed by apple and got their shares or something. Can't image thate apple would buy that technology but not the devs behind it aswell
@@-Timur1214 wasn't the guy that was talking about it one of the scientists at Xerox who then went to work at Apple? I assume Apple recruited more than just him from that team
@Oz for what are read, the executives, when presented the prototypes by their engineers at xerox, believed that nobody would use those devices and would be a failure. You have to understand the context, remember that back then even IBM believed that personal computers would be a failure.
@0.z In 1979 they had grey hair, meaning the were born in the 1910s-20s. Have you ever seen someone from that era on a PC. They could barely handle a touch tone telephone let alone a user interface like that. The oldest ones grew up on shop from home Sears catalogs and morse code telegrams.
A couple of these, like in the case of Netflix and Google, are pretty much "in hindslght" moments, where the reasoning at the time was sound, but then things took a turn they never expected. It's the ones like with Kodak and Xerox that are the real blunders. Seeing the Alto commercial and knowing that it was made in 1973 brought chills up my spine.
@@jasonhaynes2952 in the case of Netflix I'd agree in the case of Google it's harder to say for all we know they'd never become what they are now if the deal had happened
Exactly. Kodak and Xerox were already sitting of the developed product. Blockbuster with Netflix and excite with Google, were not. The product just wasn't there yet. In these latter cases it is possible that if the deals had happened we Netflix and Google would have never happened because the dynamics of the companies would have been very different.
Xerox and Kodak both from the same small city - Rochester, NY. It's incredible the technology that they came up with from such an unexpected location. Had things been different, Rochester would have been a huge global tech hub.
Kodak's history is so painful. They developed OLED technology back in the 1980's. They sold off the technology to LG in 2009. Less than a decade later, OLED screens became standard in the iPhone, the apple watch, and higher end tvs.
Hi there. I so happen to be a former member of the Xerox engineering team at the time that was responsible for the technology you speak of. Back then we knew we were sitting on gold, so we weren’t exactly thrilled after the fact. The problem was we didn’t have the means to bring it to consumer market, or to even market it. We were missing that connection. So we were under the impression that Apple was going to be this “connection” for us. So for that very moment, we were so excited. But once we found out they were taking everything and incorporating it into their product without our consent?! That was what led to myself, Owen Bader, Rajesh Dhundra and Charles Baker all leaving. Xerox was never the same after that, as this was half of the highest level team of engineers and the four top level ones at that. We actually get together once a year in Homestead, CA and spend a weekend together golfing, dinners, etc. just reminiscing on everything that was and could’ve been.
to be fair, i think once they got to be over-corportized they didn't have an original idea to save their lives, just copied what was working for other businesses. BB gets too much undeserved credit as it is when there were other preceding video chains around which they snapped up or basically ran into the ground (i have an example as that happened to a friend of mine who owned a video store). they ran the chain like they were bulletproof. they'd raise prices, have a great deal it would end in a month once it became popular, their distribution was laughable, and basically treated their store managers like they were idiots who couldn't *possibly* know more than the almighty regional mismanager. it really seemed as if they were trying to ruin their business, a model they didn't even create to begin with. you'd think these 'educated' upper mismanagers would have heard the old adage, 'innovate or die.' hubris, arrogance, baffling idiocy, unable to read the writing on the wall, never themselves innovating... it was inevitable. we look back on BB with fond and nostalgic memories, but we tend to forget just what assholes they very often were and how frustrating being a customer of theirs could be especially when they were almost the only game in town. the two old BBs i pass regularly are now a bar and small gym.
I knew Blockbuster messed up when they started to charge people late fees and fees for not re-winding those stupid VHS tapes. Dead technology even back then. Xerox story is min blowing....Easily the worst fail of the century. Dumbest bigshot executives of all times
Xerox basically gave away everything from the modern computing environment. The GUI interface, networking and email. The three things that created the modern information technology revolution.
Don't forget the mouse. E-mail already existed, they didn't invent it. But the management at Xerox had no idea how to mass produce, market and sell personal computers, whereas that was all Apple did.
While I love technology, I do miss a lot of things about life before it. Going to Blockbuster, searching for the videos, getting the popcorn, candy, and soda, running at the last minute to return the movie. It was good to get out of the house for mundane errands.
Netflix is part of the New World Order, that aims to make everyone obese and completely locked into their home, disconnected from other human beings. I also enjoyed going to the store and browse around for a movie to watch. Now I'm just a fat slob punching buttons.
@@mariuszj3826 Apple - or rather Jobs - is the one who knows who to go to for homework from each subject, and who not, plus how to manage group project... which is skill in itself. Recognizing genius is honestly THE skill someone in management position should have, and it's a lot less common than you'd guess.
+DVMovies1999 Apple used tech from Xerox not only the GUI, but they paid for the visit an interesting amount of money, but something that nobody tells is Apple did those technologies inexpensive, by example the mouse from Xerox cost more than a hundred bucks only to produce, the computer itself cost as much as a house in part for the uber expensive RAM and GUIs need a lot, original Mac came with 128KB and that is amazing for a computer running a GUI, Windows required 1MB to do something vaguely similar.
When did PCs start having notifications? Like holy shit, that shit was so advanced. I don't think before Windows 10, Windows could actually tell you that you have an anniversary or notify you about something important
Ummmm, Electronic Calander. Quite simple realy, many OS or Office suites have that built in usualy with the Email application. Personaly I still use Outlook Calander on private Exchange server.
Trouble was Xerox was built on photocopying. And being able to Send memos intra-office would have cut out alot of need for photocopies. Hence destabilising their core business. It would have been a big risk at the time. Silly in hindsight, but I can see how the conversation would've gone down.
Absolutely way too much imposing ads even offline ads is ridiculously trying to over controlling and needlessly interfering,I don't care what the hell the ad are for, if it interferes I don't want to see a again!!!!!!
I CANNOT understand this at all. How can one use the internet without adblock? I don't think I've ever in my life seen an ad on youtube because back then, when advertising reached the internet, there where still other online video platforms in common use besides youtube.
Very true. BB originally thought that the iPhone that Jobs demonstrated in 2007 was a mirage, a hoax, that no one could do all the things that Jobs demonstrated without some soft of behind-the-scenes trickery. Consequently, they ignored it. By the time Apple shipped it 6 months later, BB was already behind the times and never recovered.
@@demef758 actually, the first generation iphone was not so good device even in compare with mobile phones that era. So it's not wonder that apple's competitors didn't care about it. Touch screen wasn't something radically new as a technology back then and wasn't look so good at that time. Camera and internet connection in a phone also wasn't something mind-blowing. So actually first gen of iphone was looking something like a fail. But iphones becomes better every year, and that's is a thing. If apple stops after first or second iphone, they will fail in mobile devices.
underrating enemies is always stupid move in any companies or armies. Sony is the same case in road of smart phone market. If they realized that Android is a new wind in mobile phone products. I think they deserve to have a seat in top 5 biggest smart phone companies with market share. So sad for them.
That's my point. It very looks like 'Hey, Don. Here is this company which is making me suffocate. It is called Blockbuster. Yes, I will give you 20% of my company's shares
Sears could be on this list. They were the Amazon of their time. You could buy anything from them (houses, cars, anything). Instead of eliminating their printed catalog (where you could order anything delivered directly to your door), if they had merely converted it to an online catalog (basically what Amazon is now), they might still be the biggest retailer in America.
All the oldies in all this companies weren't just ready for the digital era, it's still yet not even over, everything will ho digital with snapchat (snap inc) metaverse creating virtual worlds, NFT painting sold for 75m dollars, cryptocurrency, everyone bringing their business online, it's only going to become worse from here on
I’ve said that over and over. You could buy ANYTHING from their catalog. At one time you could even buy a CAR called the Sears Allstate. It was simply a rebranded Henry J which was a lesser known cheap car at that time. You could also buy a HOUSE that would be shipped in parts that would be assembled on site. Sears thought that the catalog business would disappear once people got better transportation and were located near an actual store. They had no idea how much computers and cell phones would change the landscape. Like you said ,if they’d kept their catalogue, all they’d have had to do was digitize it. They already had the name recognition and reputation for mail order. Amazon wouldn’t have had a chance.
You have knowledge 43 years in the future of technology innovation. You lack the simple understanding of the environment back then. For one, the market wasn't in need of a home based computer. Second, the price was massively different. Even in 1985 the Amiga 1000, was $1300 and the capabilities are not even close to a modern $1300 computer... That is like saying a Tesla self driving car is stupid because in 43 years we will have jet packs...
Xerox is just a footnote in Apple's Wikipedia article. I do love the Copiers, quality, built and speed. We have two new bHubs at work and the older bHub never gave us issues.
One of my favorite memories growing up was going Friday nights to Blockbuster with my family to rent movies. I am bummed my kids will not get to have that experience.
New Releases at the video store were always Tuesday morning... we'd get them a week early and have to work late Monday night after closing to have the Wall ready for 10am open. (I think records/albums are the same schedule?) Theatrical releases were always Friday tho!
Tuesday mornings as an employee opening a video store was a nightmare. We used to call the customers ZOMBIES as they piled up at the door before we opened... Lol... Memories....
I went to a friend's house in 1976 (or '77) when I was 10 or 11 years old and his dad, a Xerox executive, had brought an ALTO home. I thought that was the. coolest thing ever. I was a poor kid, so we had no hope of getting one, but I spent a lot of nights over at his house, just playing around with that thing. Finally bought my first PC in 1980 with money I saved mowing lawns, for about 1/20th of the price of an ALTO.
You aren't tested until a company you own and believe in is down 30-40-50% from its highs. You will question your conviction, your strategy, your process. The market has a way of finding your breaking point. Nothing tests your conviction like falling stock prices
These days the best way to come into the market space is with patience and seeking guidance when necessary. For instance, due to the nature of my job, I can’t handle my portfolio so I just copy the market picks of ''Nicole Ann Sabin'', an Advisor i saw on Bloomberg business news. It’s been smooth since then. I have saved myself all the hassle that chaotic market causes.
@@Natalieneptune469 It'S not the first time someone had advised on this. I need guide in order to salvage what remains of my DOW stock wrecked by the massive dips. I'll appreciate if I get details with which I can reach Ms Nicole .
they deserved it, it was a MAJOR dumbass move, like, is a computer ignorant person gonna understand more coordinating an icon to the task or typing archaic style code bit by bit
@@letsmakegadgets6899 that is the perfect statement. I hated typing commands all the time too make a computer do something. Had a manager wipe out an entire operating system and all files on a harddrive by putting a command at the root directory.
hindsight is a wounderful thing. its easy to look back and think oh what a bunch of prats...if predicting the future was so simple we would all be millionaires by now right...cause its all so oviouse right....or theres no exsuses why we shouldnt all be millionaires in 5 years time right cause its so clear whats the right and wrong way....? if you could bottle hinesight and sell it you would be the richest person in the world thats all I do know.
I rarely watched UA-cam, except to see instruction manuals and laugh at... whatever, pirated movie clip were being shown. Your videos are incredibly researched, wonderfully narrated, and are more insightful and honest than podcasts. I admire how much effort you spend on each video and how you utilize this medium to express information.. You, singlehandedly matured UA-cam, continually raise the bar for educational narration and content, and make this medium better than college.
My father worked as an executive at Kodak. He was in the board room with the president, when the president announced that there is no future in digital photography, and Kodak will always be a film company. My father told us the story at dinner that evening. I was 14, and even I knew that was a horrible decision. In the 80's Rochester NY had 100,000 people working at Kodak. Now there are none. Very sad.
I had a Casio digital camera at the time, 1.3 megapixels, and was taking pictures all over the place. I loved it. People around me asking “where’s the film?”, and “what are you going to do with that?’I lived in Rochester and George Fischer was poo pooing digital and selling off non film parts of the company. I remember thinking, this is the beginning of the end. I been driving a Nissan Leaf since 2013 and at first the Car companies were doing the same sort of denial. I love cars and the combustion engines but as batteries get better and renewable energy grows it will do the same to oil. Range anxiety has never been an issue other than forgetting to plug it in. I’ve more range anxiety with my phone.
I have been a registered radiologic technologist since 1982. I trained and worked at a small 100 bed hospital and have been at a giant level 1 trauma center for 33+ years. At both hospitals I worked/work at, they exclusively bought Kodak X-ray film. Especially the level 1 trauma center at which I currently work, we literally bought gagillions of dollars worth of Kodak X-ray film. It was the best X-ray film out there bar none. Took absolutely beautiful X-rays with Kodak. The hospital decided to go cheap just around the time digital radiography started appearing on the seen and switched to fuji and even tried agfa. Compared to Kodak they were dogshit! Horrible contrast and resolution and very flat looking radiographs. Now, all is digital/computer imaging. It is astonishing to me to think of all the X-ray film Kodak sold around the world that they lost it all. Just awful.
Well most of what you say is true but in actuality Kodak Rochester peaked at around 65000 employees in 1984. I work there too from 1975 until 1994 we got sold to J&J. There's still about three to four thousand employees in Rochester but most of it is in the movie film business. Yes they are still making movie film because the movie industry screwed up and didn't go digital and now it's going to cost them shit ton of money to convert all the movie theaters to digital equipment so they're stuck with movie film.
Yes, because I'm sure you personally could have made a better judgment as far as who to hire. Easy for you to say considering you're looking into the past, hindsight is 20/20.
YUP! That's how managers are. The engineers see the future, but companies pay 7-figures to idiots because they figure they'll get what they paid for. But suits are as stupid and clueless as the rest of the non-STEM retards.
@@Miss__Understands Nah, I think you're just pissed about something, Luxi. I never thought managers were any worse than us motorheads. 'Course, that ain't saying much. There is one group I could exterminate, though: electronics engineers. I learned to hate every damn one of them I ever met.
+Black Vic What's wrong with them? Many of the ones I've came across are good people. I can't say the same thing about managers and other suits. Almost every non-Amazon-caused bankruptcy in recent times always goes back to the suits.
Right! Y'all saw it because y'all lived in the real world, on the ground. Your bosses in their ivory towers were busy dining and playing golf, and couldn't have cared less what y'all thought. Y'all were just worker ants, and Exec's almost NEVER listen to anyone below them, unless they're telling them how great they are.
its funny that, at the same interview, Jobs says that PARC showed him "a way to share files", but he was so amazed by the GUI that he simply didn't listen to that part of the meeting . That "way to share files" was nothing more than the Ethernet standard. So PARC simply developed everything that made computing viable to all today, and due to boardstupids didn't manage to get a piece of the cake they baked
They didn't want to evolve....they even put curtains in the adult section which made people felt awkward and like criminals. Unfortunately, Pornhub help put them out of business in that aspect.
"... when my EX..." The nostalgia of going to blockbuster to rent the new releases each week gave me a warm-fuzzy... mentioning the 'EX' burst that feeling with reminders of lonely nights with 2&4 year old toddlers asking where mommy was... If you are going to cheat, get a f'kin' divorce first before f'kin' your new corporate mexi-hire! Worst part, praised and promoted for hiring 'Carlos' to take on company paid 'business' conferences! Me, home taking care of toddlers after 10 hour corporate days while IBM was paying a mexi-hire to 'take care of' his boss, all on company expense accounts!
And sadly, Microsoft, who always made sure there would never be another Microsoft, did not see the Critical and endless possibilities of the Internet and smartphone functions. Now, it's Google who rules the world!
hey Child let me know when Google come up with a good OS for PC or MAC. LOL you where not in the time as a childhood in the 1980. WIFI access is Via GUI. P2P is Via GUI. Color Screen Display GUI. Touch Screen GUI. USB Storage or USB drive GUI. Windows 3.0 and 3.1 is Half GUI and half Command Based you never used it you dont Know. Early Digital Camera was on a (( Floppy Disc )) = SD Card. Lot of People invested ton of $$$$$$$ from Consumer to Government to improve todays Standards. macromedia flash player a Small flash player company > ADOBE created FLAC. Very Later Google created UA-cam in mid 2000. 20 Years ago most people dont used the Internet 15 - 25 % of the advance population people Such as : Computer Geeks and Advance High Tech Family had access to Internet. INTERNET was Luxury in 1998 if you had cable Internet or T1. uppper class. if you dont know. Dont Shit on the peoples around the World invested in Computer Upgrade and ETC to build the R&D. without Hardware. there is NO SOFTWARE. Hardware will always Be first Before any Software. A mid Age Adult giving you a Quick Education you Family dont know.
Larry Bundy Jr.......not sure about the mouse, but BT had the fax long before anything else similar came to market. The regional offices each had the forerunner to communicate documents. Can't remember what it was called though !
Innovation is basically theft and copycat with slight improvements. That’s why intellectual property law is so hilarious. All businesses and countries who eventually brought in intellectual property and trademark laws climbed the ladder on the backs of stealing from other people and then slam the door behind them saying, you can’t do this any more it’s illegal it’s called kicking the ladder
Hi there. I so happen to be a former member of the Xerox engineering team at the time that was responsible for the technology you speak of. Back then we knew we were sitting on gold, so we weren’t exactly thrilled after the fact. The problem was we didn’t have the means to bring it to consumer market, or to even market it. We were missing that connection. So we were under the impression that Apple was going to be this “connection” for us. So for that very moment, we were so excited. But once we found out they were taking everything and incorporating it into their product without our consent - and with no credit whatsoever given to us?! That was what led to myself, Owen Bader, Rajesh Dhundra and Charles Baker all leaving. Xerox was never the same after that, as this was half of the highest level team of engineers and the four top level ones at that. We actually get together once a year in Homestead, CA and spend a weekend together golfing, dinners, etc. just reminiscing on everything that was and could’ve been.
georgemitchel23 My guess is that it was a really expesive PC at the time. After all he say in the video that the company ware trying to find a way to make the computer cheaper so they can sell it
Remember the checkout lines at Blockbuster on the weekends? It was like a neighborhood block meeting saying high to everybody and talking about what was good to watch. Internet kind of gives but takes to.
Human interaction was the best part of Blockbuster. Now that's lost with stupid Netflix...but people don't care... we're headed into the abyss...but ....hey i have Netflix....right??
Oh cut that bullshit. People still communicate thanks to facebook and twitter. And I prefer the mom and pop video rental because they have stuff BB don't have.
It's so crazy how things can go from gold to bust in just a few years... I grew up in Rochester. We had Kodak & Xerox, not to mention GM plants & a plethora of other businesses & operations pouring many jobs into the area. One by one they all fell & the city is overran by goons. Xerox has gone down the shitter, so has Kodak, GM plant closed, etc etc. You can drive around the city, see these massive buildings that were once flourishing but now dormant & dead looking. It's a damn shame how they just couldn't make the right decisions even though they had literally everything going for them.
The problem with the "x failed company passed on the chance to buy y wildly successful company" thing is that there's no guarantee that y becomes successful under the management of x, or indeed that x wouldn't drive y into the ground like it did to itself.
I am totally upset after listening to Xerox story.. How many talented engineers' / programmers' would have created that Graphical User interface (GUI). All their skill, knowledge, talent & Hard work to the Xerox Company went in vein. I am very sad to hear..
Agree, but there must of been a very talented someone to warn against the deal but as usual got shouted down by arrogance and stupidity. Would have, should have, could have on a massive scale!!
You cannot 'literally' have the future in your hands. You literally don't know the meaning of 'literally'; you think it means 'metaphorically', which is the exact opposite.
Kodak also blew it with the copier market. The idea was shown to them but they said the resolution was to low, it had no practical application. Then the inventors started Xerox.
True but Kodak invented their own copier technology using film belts and had a huge copier business in it's day. Kodak still has a printer business using the core copier technology.
i'm noticing a trend with these companies. I wonder if the rejection from the big dog is what motivated all of these companies to be like, screw you, we'll do it ourselves and kick your ass. and they do. you see it a lot in sports too. this guy was passed by these teams in the draft and it motivates him to work even harder. had they taken those deals or that athlete was taken were he thought he should be would those companies/athletes be what they are/became?
Kodak was 1st and foremost a chemical company. I worked there for 28 years. They were not an equipment manufacturer that could compete with Canon, Nikon, Sony and the rest. Inevitable shift in technology and not at all related to mismanagement or blunders.
MY OPINION ON WORST BUSINESS BLUNDER! ATARI: MONETIZING BUSINESS MODEL! A SUPERPOWER JUGGERNAUT VIDEO GAME COMPANY UNLIKE SEEN IN THE EARLIER DAY'S WHO DOMINATE THE VIDEO GAME HOME GAMES AND MERCHANDISE. DESPITE ALMOST NO COMPETITION WITH MANY OF THEIR RIVAL DEFEATED IN THEIR CONQUEST. THE ATARI HAS DESTROYED ITSELF WHEN THEY DECIDED TO MAKE A DECISION TO CHANGE THEIR BUSINESS STRATEGY IN PROFITS. LIKE LYING AND DELIVERING BOMBED ATARI JAGUAR WITH IT'S WEAK MACHINE AND OUT-PERFORMING VIDEO GAMES CONSOLE DESPITES ITS VERY HIGHLY POTENTIAL THAT WOULD CATAPULT ITSELF INTO WORLD STAGE AND REVIVING THEIR GREAT STATUS AS A MOST POWERFUL VIDEO GAME COMPANY IN ITS HEYDAY!.
Unity happens in peacetime but there was a war declared by Apple that caused the divide. Even the iphone was created under internal struggle but they just happened to succeed.
Damn... so that's how blockbuster's went down. As a kid my dad would take me and my little brother down there to rent a movie every Friday night. He called them "popcorn-movie nights". Man, things were so simple and fun as a small child...
@@specialkaye3059 maybe we're distant relations? 😮 funny enough, my best mate is Ben Kaye and I often call him Special Kaye... there's a strange synchronicity there.
The Drewman No.. This is a case of David vs Goliath.. Goliath was blockbuster.. David was Netflix.. Ohh how the tables have turned.. If you want free video.. Kodi.
That CEO.. instead of giving someone good a chance...he almost ruined 7eleven and then got hired (!?!) at blockbuster and really ruined it... All while earning so much money and enjoying it (God knows how..) however he pleased. What a piece of trash that guy must've been/must be
In 1973 I was in junior high school and, in our typing classes, we still used a manual typewriter! (Glad I took those typing classes as I type at 100 wpm right now.) I got my first electric typewriter when I was in the workforce in 1978. Yes, I know, I'm old.
Interesting. I took typing in '65-'66 we had half IBM electric (with the keys not the ball) and half Royal's. I didn't live in a huge metro area either. I remember it well because we had one girl in class who could hit 90 with a few mistakes on the Royal but only 70 or so on the IBM because she was so fast the keys would jam. I worked on a JC newspaper in '73+ and we had the IBM Selectric (IIRC) with the interchangeable typing balls.
we used electric typewriters in typing class in 1994. So I have no idea why people think they were gone way before that. and I didn't go to a poor school or anything.It could have easily afforded other things. I think that school just adopted computers late,like right after I graduated.
Hey, I still used an electric typewriter in 1996! That's because my computer had no printer at the time, so any school assignments had to be typed out by typewriter.
Amazing how companies that dominated their markets could be so short sighted that they went out of existence. Successful companies realize changes and react to them quickly.
Actually in case of Nokia, it was Stephen Elop, the Microsoft mole that played a huge role in going with Windows Phone, which put an end to Nokia. This was the turning point, they could've either gone Android or Windows Phone and of course the mole picked Microsoft.
+Greg Zeng You don't have any proof of bribery, so stop saying that. But it is plainly obvious that he had very strong interests in bringing Nokia to Microsoft.
hmm, I personally love Windows Phone + Nokia phones more than Android or iOS. Nothing wrong in them since last 3-4 years. They couldnt create interest into the market and keep the customer base interested! There are other reasons for failure.
Bibasik7 it's only basically gone in America there's only 14 operating Blockbusters left here. however there is still close to 200 Blockbusters in Europe still in operation. Netflix and other streaming services are not as big in Europe as they are in North America.
I didn't loose a second of sleep when Blockbuster went bust. I hate that people were out of a job. But I despised that company and the way they treated their customers. When I bought a DVD player I remember stopping by a Blockbuster and having the manager all but laugh me out of the store when I asked when they might start carrying DVDs. I remember him telling me "they were a fad". "A flash in the pan". "They won't be around for long". "They aren't worth buying as they bring nothing new to the table". Good riddance to Blockbuster.
90% of their employees were douche bags, kind of like verzion is now. they are arrogant and think they can treat people like shit (customers) because "hey we're too big to fail" i AGREE good riddance!! i had one tell me the same thing about netflix HAHAA
I worked for Blockbuster from 2006-2008. The most important moment with this company was during the "Netflix" movement. We had so many company meetings on how we were going to match the competitor. The quotas for signing people up on the blockbuster at home program were astronomical. Some people lost their jobs because they weren't meeting the expectations the company sent forth. The last meeting I had with the company went something like this "We've matched netflix but now we have redbox. How do we compete with that?" Needless to say I left in 2008 and within 18 months both locations had closed in my town.
I was VP of R&D of a very large semiconductor company. We offered them exclusive use of a new chip technology...their response "we are a chemical company and therefore find no need to embrace digital technology." That's a direct quote...I still have my notes from that meeting in 1992.
I see now why executives are paid so much more than everyone else in a company: because if a low level employee does a bad job, the consequences are small. If exec's are bad at their jobs, they can bring an entire company down, depending upon how much power they have. That's why CEOs, CFOs, COOs, et al. are so important.
I just made a similar comment, seeing your neighbors in a "just right" place and time frame that let you catch up without being cornered for an hour, lol
Wow the Xerox Alto! So much respect for Xerox! I mean I already had a lot of respect for what their copiers can do but MAN, I had no idea! I love your work on making this Doco
Nokia: I think their plunder began when they had touch screen phone prototype ready almost 5 years before iPhone was revealed, but they didn't continue with that. They were thinking that everyone would want to have physical keyboard on their phones in the future.
The Xerox/Apple Fiasco was the biggest blunder in business history. Xerox could have been the first business in history to reach a one trillion dollar valuation... and they would have reached that by the end of the 80s.
The Dutch East India was actually the First company in history to reach $1 Trillion, in fact at one point they were worth $7.9 Trillion. According to the new cold fusion video
A lot of these failures have to do with the companies not knowing what need they were meeting in the marketplace. Kodak wasn't a film company, it was a memory storage company. Blockbuster wasn't a video rental company, it was an entertainment company. Xerox isn't a copier company, it's an information distribution company.
Actually, people are just good on hindsight but if you were handling a business venture, you will make mistakes because you may not be able to read the market properly. A few people are visionaries like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. They do not read the market but force the market to accept their visionary ideas because they made their ideas accessible to the public.
WHATEVER GOES FOR ME Steve Jobs was no visionary. He just found products he liked in the market, got his techies to copy them as far as possible, then marketed them to Apple employees and Apple fanboys as his own concepts. Say what you like about Gates, at least he got his hands dirty back in the day.
Actually, Kodak was mostly a chemical company by that point. They spun those assets off as Eastman Chemical and they are quite successful. I don't see how Kodak would have ever come out on digital cameras because film and film processing is where they made their money. Had Kodak gone all in on digital I still suspect other companies would have dominated it. Instead they sat on it and got another 20 years out of film.
I‘m really impressed with the XEROX Alto. I didn’t know that it was that much ahead of its time. I mean, we are talking about the early 70s and this computer was already able to to most stuff we are working with nowadays.
I know this was made in 2016 but if updated should now include Sears. Sears was the #1 catalogue shopping outlet. They had the staff, the storage, the shipping departments. They had everything they needed to be the first and the greatest ON LINE shopping retailer. It was in their hands and some one let it slip away.
not sure thay would have adopted amazons way of doing things. very very few people saw that coming. plus the way amazon gose about selling flys in the face of all other forms of selling.
The best comment from Blockbuster's CEO as everything was coming online and he was asked if he was worried, he said no not all, the company was gone within a year! I heard that at the time and actually LOL'd, how he could be so detached from reality.
In early 2000, we asked an AOL exec if they were going to push the broadband bandwagon since they were merged with Time Warner. The exec said something along the lines of, “we see no need as dial-up will be around for a long time.” By 2002, Steve Case was outed as CEO, and AOL was a fast sinking ship as Comcast and others pushed the high speed access, making dialup as extinct as the dinosaurs.
they brought a retail guy into a retail industry. it was fast becoming NOT retail on the ground. that's why new guys that think different often take over an old ZZZZZZ industry.
the artist The Problem with this companies is they think people will be doing all the family stuff the same way and they don’t see that family change as things change smh 🤦🏾♂️ blockbuster should of been here today
3:55 oh dear god, i remember watching Blockbuster and video rental stores die in real time, no joke i used to go to one monthly and we'd rent movies to watch on our TV, at that time a old tube TV as opposed to our 4k one, and i proceeded to quite literally watch it go out of business and die right infront of myself it was honestly quite strange to witness since it was such a big part of my childhood and all of a sudden it just vanished, their stores gradually turned into new developments or, in the case of one in Rotorua simply abandoned with noone to buy it.
Poor Kodak, my dad use to be one of their service technicians in canada. Worked there for over 25 years, and was laid off in 2008 or 2009? When things started to go downhill in 2000, they laid off a large number of employees and seriously overworked/overbooked the ones who were still around. Even with that being said, my dad never had a bad thing to say about them. Even to this day, He boasts of how great it was in the early years and how classy, etc they were. He use to travel all over the U.S for training (Dallas, new York, bufallo, Chicago etc.) Sad to see such a giant company, and really giant part of my childhood be pretty much obsolete today. Crazy to think how advanced they were, coming out with the first digital camera in the 70s and never growing upon it. Film was there bread and butter and they went down with the ship.
I have been a registered radiologic technologist since 1982. I trained and worked at a small 100 bed hospital and have been at a giant level 1 trauma center for 33+ years. At both hospitals I worked/work at, they exclusively bought Kodak X-ray film. Especially the level 1 trauma center at which I currently work, we literally bought gagillions of dollars worth of Kodak X-ray film. It was the best X-ray film out there bar none. Took absolutely beautiful X-rays with Kodak. The hospital decided to go cheap just around the time digital radiography started appearing on the seen and switched to fuji and even tried agfa. Compared to Kodak they were dogshit! Horrible contrast and resolution and very flat looking radiographs. Now, all is digital/computer imaging. It is astonishing to me to think of all the X-ray film Kodak sold around the world that they lost it all. Just awful.
The problem in the 70s and early 80s was the size of the images far exceeded the capacity of computer equipment available to most people. If Kodak had come up with the digital camera in 1990, or revived the plans in 1990 and made software to store images on floppy discs and by 1993, CD-ROMS (to be created by your local friendly Kodak film developer), they might still be around today. Imagine how the Commodore Amiga or 386/486 PCs would have benefitted from the earlier development of digital cameras- and Kodak could have been at the forefront in the early 90s.
Noflex T-Rexx Kodachrome was the best bang for your buck and you could buy it almost anywhere. Fujifilm tried to compete, but their film was way too unreliable. Always loved Kodak, great company dedicated to quality film 100%. My last Kodak purchase was an EasyShare digital point&shoot back in the 2000's.
@@sunnyoutdoors are you SURE that wasn't antifreeze? Antifreeze is more likely in the street. And it's green. Btw, its DEADLY to animals, including dogs and cats. Who ARE dumb enough to eat it.
DAJ they were business people not tech guys... if anything it was a failure of the tech people to explain the meaning of all that... but then again very few would believe that that was the future
Nothing lasts for ever. I witnessed the demises of Nokia, Blackberry, MySpace, and other big tech companies. Can I live long enough to see the demises of Google, Apple, Microsoft, or Facebook?
I'm not so sure about Microsoft, that company still making a whole a lot of profit as of recently. Even when they failed in mobile phone market. Their OS still the king in computer software market, and their hardware/video gaming market doing just fine. Same with Google.
You can definitely see the demise of Facebook and Twitter, both rely on one thing (social media) and both are starting to censor people with their fake news filter (with proven DNC cooperatives ABC and Snoops being the checkers) and shadow banning of anyone who is not a SJW nut. People hate being censored and if they can leave they will!
To be fair Google and Microsoft are the only companies I've seen that have become bigger and bigger since their inception. Yes they have had their bad moments (Vista) but overall they always get better. Apple was a disaster without Jobs, the iPod saved their asses and now without Jobs again they have been lacking innovation. And I think Adam explained why social media could reach their demise sooner or later.
Moral of the story: "Don't think of your current customers as some dumb sheeps who would keep buying your outdated products for brand loyalty, eventually they'd move on and find better alternatives." I'm looking at you Apple.
I would love to see a better (more affordable) alternative to Apple! They intentionally construct their computers to stop working after 5 or 6 years, and cease to offer essential system updates. They cost way more than PCs. And now, they went 64-bit which rendered my printer and scanner obsolete, as well as many applications! I can't wait for a competitor to come along with a computer that is as user-friendly as my iMac, but that is affordable and lasts for a decade at the very least; I would switch in a heartbeat!
Lol at captions around 14:55 or so, “Xerox grabbed the feet from victory...” it’s grabbed Defeat from Victory. Or rather “snatched defeat from the jaws of victory” a reversal on a common phrase about winning at the last second when defeat is inevitable.
I used to work in blockbuster. I'm not surprised by any of the decisions they made. They were arrogant and they didn't think they had to change with technology. Their computers were embarrassingly outdated. The computers and software was straight out of 1985. I remember a customer in around 2008 saying 'look at these old monitors!'. It was funny and embarrassing at the same time.
That blockbuster just looks exactly like a situation whereby experienced people rather refuse to move with the times or just don't know how to adapt to a new age. And it's that stubbornness that fucks them.
I dig the vid but there's 1 glaring flaw. This is based on the assumption that the companies would have been just as successful under the new owners. When you take an innovative company and hand it over to corporate ass hats, things rarely get better. I think a more accurate way to look at it is to be appreciative of the companies that made it without being gobbled up and spit out by the big corporations. For every Facebook and Google success story, there's hundreds of "next big thing" failures, you just don't hear about them. Think about it, would Netflix be even remotely the same company if Blockbuster would have bought them out? And consequently, would they have been as successful? I think not. Still a fun video, I dig this kind of History.
i agree, i thought of the same thing... if blockbuster would buy netflix, it would probably just shelf it, same for the others.... so its actually good that innovation killed these dinosaurs
There's actually existing proof of this... Electronic Arts. They're a huge corrupt gaming company that buy innovative and creative game companies and kill them.
mind blown man i wish windows had that kind of feature (they do but complicated) to improve typing maybe i should get a girtual box of lunix for coding
The sad part about#3 is that science has been using exclusive metric for decades. How L&M could have allowed imperial units in its design and how in the final stages of testing this was this not discovered before launch.
The "reasons why Kodak went bankrupt" always miss "the reason" Kodak went bankrupt - and it's not because of digital photography. George Eastman invented roll film, as we all know, in the late 1800s. He was a very astute businessman and realized, "if I make a product that's full of chemicals, I can make this product cheaper if I make the chemicals myself." He went to Tennessee where land was very cheap, bought thousands of acres of land next to a river in the Knoxville area, and founded the Eastman Chemical Company. He bought an abandoned glue factory in Massachusetts (glue was made by boiling animal hides in those days), converted it into a gelatine factory, and founded Eastman Gelatine. He also constructed a paper mill at his industrial site in Rochester, NY. With these factories supplying raw materials for his photo products, he could make a very good product at a very good price. For what it's worth, the other film companies did pretty much the same thing: Agfa, Ferrania, GAF, Fuji, Ilford, Foma, Konica and all the others were (or are) chemical companies that made photo products as one of their offerings. Eastman then did a very smart thing: he told the people running those companies to drum up business from outside Kodak. The Eastman Gelatine Company started doing business with drugmakers - every capsule-style pill made in the US is made out of Eastman's gelatin. Eastman Chemical started selling the hell out of acetate, which Kodak uses as film base; it became a popular synthetic silk and was widely used as cigarette filter material. Eastman Chemical also became the biggest maker of explosives in the world. Here's the problem: in the 1990s, a new management style swept America: "core competency." The idea was to get rid of everything that wasn't part of your core business. Eastman's new managers decided they could just buy chemicals and gelatine, and sold those two business units - not realizing the biggest part of Eastman's profits were from chemicals and gelatine.
You'd be surprised. Look at HP. In the Good Old Days Hewlett-Packard had two market segments: professional test equipment (divided into medical equipment and electronic test equipment) and business automation (divided into PCs and printers). In the test equipment field, HP was at the top and sold at a premium. That business unit was the smaller of the two but produced the most profit per unit sold. The office automation field moves a lot of units but the profit per unit is very small because there is a lot of competition there. At the time, HP wasn't selling anything bigger than a 11x17 laser printer. The logical thing to do would have been to keep both divisions and allow them to make money for the company, but no...they spun off the test equipment division as Agilent Technologies, which later spun off the electronic testing company to be Keysight Technologies. Here's where it gets fun: When HP hired Carly Fiorina as CEO, HP made computers, printers, medical equipment and electronics test equipment, had $42 billion in sales and $3.1 billion in profit - . Very few people would bitch about either number. Fiorina spun off the expensive stuff and bought Compaq. When she got canned in 2005, they had $87 billion in sales but only $2.4 billion in profit. What happened is very simple: they kept the low-profit business. Sales are good, m'kay, but profit is also good. Which is better: John selling 10 $100 widgets that cost you $90 apiece to make, or Frank selling 100 $50 widgets that cost you $49 apiece? Both men earned the same amount of money, but Frank had to work 10x as hard for it. I could give you hundreds of examples of companies shedding very profitable divisions because "oh, we don't make that." General Motors used to be the biggest manufacturer of locomotives in the world. Chrysler used to make boating products, Army tanks, and HVAC equipment. (The government is responsible for Chrysler getting out of those businesses - when Chrysler went bankrupt the first time the government required them to get rid of all "non-core" businesses in exchange for loan guarantees. What the government SHOULD have done is to tell them to sell off their God-awful line of cars!) IBM used to make weighing scales. Ford used to make missiles - they invented the Sidewinder missile. One of the few companies not to succumb to that, at least until recently, was General Electric...who made among other things light bulbs, refrigerators to screw those light bulbs into, airplane engines to deliver the refrigerators, and nuclear reactors to power them. They recently shed their appliance business to the Chinese Haier company. There are reasons to get rid of a division but "that's not what we make" isn't a good one.
It is funny at the time Kodak spun off Eastman Chemical I suspect they thought they were just unloading some environmental libabites. Turns out Eastman Chemical has been very successful and expanded since the spin off. They bought Solutia (the chemical assets of Monsanto minus Roundup).
Sadly GE is going to sell their locomotive division. I hope Haier doesn't buy it. GM used to make refrigerators and was one of the largest manufacturers of Diesel engines.
jmowreader but Kodak does still have a business. They use their name for x-ray prints in hospitals. It's not something the public could buy or use for themselves, but nevertheless, they still have a business.
Exactly the point. It wasn't until 1994 when Apple released the Quicktake digital camera was when the whole "Modern" Digital Camera era started. I was visiting the Eastman house back in November of 2017 and Kodak was working with Nikon or Cannon in the 80's to help make the DSLR type camera. By 1991 Kodak released the first consumer DLSR. But there are things that Kodak has done in the past 100 years that they where slowly working on about 10 years before the consumer version came out. I remember my moms first digital camera was a Kodak Easyshare camera and it worked well. But around the time when Kodak was at it's lowest point almost bankrupted I went got the Kodak Playsport but it had one thing wrong with it the charging port was broken I even had the same issue with a replacement one before I went to the Sony Handycam line of cameras. Besides the point Kodak is one of the main innovators in the camera industry and without Kodak most modern cameras that Hollywood and the home consumers use wouldn't be the same today.
I am actually surprised that Netflix hasn't made a documentary on their struggle. That board meeting where Blockbuster laughed them out would be so funny to watch.
Especially since Netflix got the last laugh.
It would of course be poetic justice to watch that documentart streamed on Netflix...ijs
@@professorjphillips That's just cold😂😂
There is a book by Netflix founder Marc Randolph "The Will Never Work" telling his side of the story, the Blockbuster story was mentioned.
troy neenan and how the blockbuster CEO’s be Netflix and chillin now 😂
How frustrating could have been for the engineers that developed the technology of the future at Xerox, with their bosses and directives having absolutely no clue of what they have in their hands.
I hope they got employed by apple and got their shares or something. Can't image thate apple would buy that technology but not the devs behind it aswell
@@-Timur1214 wasn't the guy that was talking about it one of the scientists at Xerox who then went to work at Apple? I assume Apple recruited more than just him from that team
@Oz for what are read, the executives, when presented the prototypes by their engineers at xerox, believed that nobody would use those devices and would be a failure. You have to understand the context, remember that back then even IBM believed that personal computers would be a failure.
They had an atom bomb
@0.z In 1979 they had grey hair, meaning the were born in the 1910s-20s. Have you ever seen someone from that era on a PC. They could barely handle a touch tone telephone let alone a user interface like that. The oldest ones grew up on shop from home Sears catalogs and morse code telegrams.
A couple of these, like in the case of Netflix and Google, are pretty much "in hindslght" moments, where the reasoning at the time was sound, but then things took a turn they never expected. It's the ones like with Kodak and Xerox that are the real blunders. Seeing the Alto commercial and knowing that it was made in 1973 brought chills up my spine.
True, but really, they simply lacked visionaries.
@@jasonhaynes2952 in the case of Netflix I'd agree in the case of Google it's harder to say for all we know they'd never become what they are now if the deal had happened
Exactly. Kodak and Xerox were already sitting of the developed product. Blockbuster with Netflix and excite with Google, were not. The product just wasn't there yet. In these latter cases it is possible that if the deals had happened we Netflix and Google would have never happened because the dynamics of the companies would have been very different.
Xerox and Kodak both from the same small city - Rochester, NY. It's incredible the technology that they came up with from such an unexpected location. Had things been different, Rochester would have been a huge global tech hub.
That's what happens when you have people on the top with an old mindset.
Kodak's history is so painful. They developed OLED technology back in the 1980's. They sold off the technology to LG in 2009. Less than a decade later, OLED screens became standard in the iPhone, the apple watch, and higher end tvs.
@@talllankywhiteboy I'd rather see it being taken care of by LG rather than the technology being killed off by Kodak.
They are! Amazing ...
Hi there. I so happen to be a former member of the Xerox engineering team at the time that was responsible for the technology you speak of. Back then we knew we were sitting on gold, so we weren’t exactly thrilled after the fact.
The problem was we didn’t have the means to bring it to consumer market, or to even market it. We were missing that connection. So we were under the impression that Apple was going to be this “connection” for us. So for that very moment, we were so excited.
But once we found out they were taking everything and incorporating it into their product without our consent?! That was what led to myself, Owen Bader, Rajesh Dhundra and Charles Baker all leaving.
Xerox was never the same after that, as this was half of the highest level team of engineers and the four top level ones at that. We actually get together once a year in Homestead, CA and spend a weekend together golfing, dinners, etc. just reminiscing on everything that was and could’ve been.
For Blockbuster it's amazing how much damage one person with one stupid mind-frame can cause.
That guy singlehandedly killed every 80's kids favorite business with one poor decision lol
to be fair, i think once they got to be over-corportized they didn't have an original idea to save their lives, just copied what was working for other businesses. BB gets too much undeserved credit as it is when there were other preceding video chains around which they snapped up or basically ran into the ground (i have an example as that happened to a friend of mine who owned a video store).
they ran the chain like they were bulletproof. they'd raise prices, have a great deal it would end in a month once it became popular, their distribution was laughable, and basically treated their store managers like they were idiots who couldn't *possibly* know more than the almighty regional mismanager. it really seemed as if they were trying to ruin their business, a model they didn't even create to begin with.
you'd think these 'educated' upper mismanagers would have heard the old adage, 'innovate or die.' hubris, arrogance, baffling idiocy, unable to read the writing on the wall, never themselves innovating... it was inevitable. we look back on BB with fond and nostalgic memories, but we tend to forget just what assholes they very often were and how frustrating being a customer of theirs could be especially when they were almost the only game in town.
the two old BBs i pass regularly are now a bar and small gym.
I knew Blockbuster messed up when they started to charge people late fees and fees for not re-winding those stupid VHS tapes. Dead technology even back then. Xerox story is min blowing....Easily the worst fail of the century. Dumbest bigshot executives of all times
One person who is in upper management....
sounds familiar now (Mr. Trump)?
Xerox basically gave away everything from the modern computing environment. The GUI interface, networking and email. The three things that created the modern information technology revolution.
Sad. Smh.
Don't forget the mouse. E-mail already existed, they didn't invent it. But the management at Xerox had no idea how to mass produce, market and sell personal computers, whereas that was all Apple did.
ua-cam.com/video/b7aUJyJbJMw/v-deo.html
Here Steve Jobs explains failure of Xerox.
Lol you just regurgitated what the video said.
They also have the mouse
Xerox,the photocopier company, got its technology copied... isn’t that irony or what?
It's like raaaeeeyaaaain, on your wedding day!.
Haha i think so
😂 👍 😎
No, Xerox LICENSED it to Apple. And Microsoft, as well.
Funny thing: in Russia the word for photocopier is "xerox". And verb for copying paper is "to xero-copy"
While I love technology, I do miss a lot of things about life before it. Going to Blockbuster, searching for the videos, getting the popcorn, candy, and soda, running at the last minute to return the movie. It was good to get out of the house for mundane errands.
Netflix is part of the New World Order, that aims to make everyone obese and completely locked into their home, disconnected from other human beings. I also enjoyed going to the store and browse around for a movie to watch. Now I'm just a fat slob punching buttons.
The good old days, yes sir!
I dated a couple of chicks that I met on Block buster.
@@felipesalazar942 Yep, it was hard not to meet chicks out and about back in the day. Now they have their faces glued to their phone screens 24/7.
I feel the same way about going cd shopping. It was a rite of passage lost to time
@@Zamolxes77 i dont get y everyone uses netflix. like u can watch movies/series for free on 123movies
What I wan't to know is who the Engineers were that created that Xerox computer because they are the real genius here.
Yeah we need to know
right? that OS was better than say windows NT, almost as good as a windows 95, just windows had color. IN 1973!
The really sad part is that, by all accounts, the engineers knew EXACTLY what they had... the Boardroom Bozos just couldn't see it.
H: As opposed to... say... the marketing guys (!).
You can look them up. Xerox also gave away the Fax machine.
Xerox is just that kid who does all the work in the projects but isn't mentioned in the presentations.
It's all about how you "sell it"!
Apple is the one that always cheats off of others and takes all the credit for being smart.
I know rite! Email in the 70s!
IKR
@@mariuszj3826 Apple - or rather Jobs - is the one who knows who to go to for homework from each subject, and who not, plus how to manage group project... which is skill in itself. Recognizing genius is honestly THE skill someone in management position should have, and it's a lot less common than you'd guess.
They had a computer like that... In 1973 ?????!!!
Mind completely blown....
Yep and it cost more than a house, also mind blowing 😂
+Dave M. You should compare it to a quantum computer in terms of cost haha
+DVMovies1999
Apple used tech from Xerox not only the GUI, but they paid for the visit an interesting amount of money, but something that nobody tells is Apple did those technologies inexpensive, by example the mouse from Xerox cost more than a hundred bucks only to produce, the computer itself cost as much as a house in part for the uber expensive RAM and GUIs need a lot, original Mac came with 128KB and that is amazing for a computer running a GUI, Windows required 1MB to do something vaguely similar.
When did PCs start having notifications? Like holy shit, that shit was so advanced. I don't think before Windows 10, Windows could actually tell you that you have an anniversary or notify you about something important
Ummmm, Electronic Calander. Quite simple realy, many OS or Office suites have that built in usualy with the Email application. Personaly I still use Outlook Calander on private Exchange server.
Holy crap! Xerox's "computer" was amazing! Far ahead of its times! They were sitting on a goldmine!!!
If Exite had bought GOOGLE ,it does not mean it would be the same GOOGLE today.
@@simonwang1061 Yeah true, but you can literally see the Xerox computer. No way this wouldn't have been big.
Trouble was Xerox was built on photocopying. And being able to Send memos intra-office would have cut out alot of need for photocopies. Hence destabilising their core business. It would have been a big risk at the time. Silly in hindsight, but I can see how the conversation would've gone down.
If Exite had bought GOOGLE ,it does not mean it would be the same GOOGLE today.
exactly what I thought
Totally agree with that
Thats i was thinking as well
I´m thinking in the same way, we don´t KNOW what would have happened with different choices... it is not automatically a success.
It would mean that Google didn't put them out of business though
UA-cam is going to do this to themselves with the relentless advertising during videos.
Absolutely way too much imposing ads even offline ads is ridiculously trying to over controlling and needlessly interfering,I don't care what the hell the ad are for, if it interferes I don't want to see a again!!!!!!
use some king of adblock
Not to mention getting political. Jesus turned down kingship because He knows that politics is a lose-lose activity.
Haven't watched a single ad on youtube since 2009 caus we has adblock..........
I CANNOT understand this at all. How can one use the internet without adblock? I don't think I've ever in my life seen an ad on youtube because back then, when advertising reached the internet, there where still other online video platforms in common use besides youtube.
Blackberry sort of went down the same road as Nokia did.
Very true. BB originally thought that the iPhone that Jobs demonstrated in 2007 was a mirage, a hoax, that no one could do all the things that Jobs demonstrated without some soft of behind-the-scenes trickery. Consequently, they ignored it. By the time Apple shipped it 6 months later, BB was already behind the times and never recovered.
@@demef758 actually, the first generation iphone was not so good device even in compare with mobile phones that era. So it's not wonder that apple's competitors didn't care about it. Touch screen wasn't something radically new as a technology back then and wasn't look so good at that time. Camera and internet connection in a phone also wasn't something mind-blowing. So actually first gen of iphone was looking something like a fail. But iphones becomes better every year, and that's is a thing. If apple stops after first or second iphone, they will fail in mobile devices.
underrating enemies is always stupid move in any companies or armies. Sony is the same case in road of smart phone market. If they realized that Android is a new wind in mobile phone products. I think they deserve to have a seat in top 5 biggest smart phone companies with market share. So sad for them.
and Palm
seemed like every one had a Palm Pilot in 2000.
That's my point. It very looks like 'Hey, Don. Here is this company which is making me suffocate. It is called Blockbuster. Yes, I will give you 20% of my company's shares
Man, its just mindblowing to see how clear opportunities sliped past the fingers of such powerful companies!
Sears could be on this list. They were the Amazon of their time. You could buy anything from them (houses, cars, anything). Instead of eliminating their printed catalog (where you could order anything delivered directly to your door), if they had merely converted it to an online catalog (basically what Amazon is now), they might still be the biggest retailer in America.
All the oldies in all this companies weren't just ready for the digital era, it's still yet not even over, everything will ho digital with snapchat (snap inc) metaverse creating virtual worlds, NFT painting sold for 75m dollars, cryptocurrency, everyone bringing their business online, it's only going to become worse from here on
I’ve said that over and over. You could buy ANYTHING from their catalog. At one time you could even buy a CAR called the Sears Allstate. It was simply a rebranded Henry J which was a lesser known cheap car at that time. You could also buy a HOUSE that would be shipped in parts that would be assembled on site. Sears thought that the catalog business would disappear once people got better transportation and were located near an actual store. They had no idea how much computers and cell phones would change the landscape. Like you said ,if they’d kept their catalogue, all they’d have had to do was digitize it. They already had the name recognition and reputation for mail order. Amazon wouldn’t have had a chance.
They had a PC like that in 1973 and didn't release it? Bastards! i was typing miles of DOS code in 1990!
How old are you now
He told me he is 72
@I C Who said they're 72? Not me. You should never tell your age on social media... i don't. You must be 80 and too old to know that...
lolol I was only joking
@@bigic302 she must be on her 60's
I thought why the hell nokia wasn't number 1. then he explained xerox. and then . . . oh FUCK . . .
yaa .. a trillion dollar industry😂😂😂
+Sushant S Nair I thought it was me
You have knowledge 43 years in the future of technology innovation. You lack the simple understanding of the environment back then. For one, the market wasn't in need of a home based computer. Second, the price was massively different. Even in 1985 the Amiga 1000, was $1300 and the capabilities are not even close to a modern $1300 computer...
That is like saying a Tesla self driving car is stupid because in 43 years we will have jet packs...
thinking the same thing
Xerox is just a footnote in Apple's Wikipedia article. I do love the Copiers, quality, built and speed. We have two new bHubs at work and the older bHub never gave us issues.
One of my favorite memories growing up was going Friday nights to Blockbuster with my family to rent movies. I am bummed my kids will not get to have that experience.
What d
Blockbuster was dope. Miss those days. Having to get there as early as possible after school to get the new release on friday nights.
Now it's Redbox and Tuesdays.
I miss it to but can't deny the convenience now.
New Releases at the video store were always Tuesday morning... we'd get them a week early and have to work late Monday night after closing to have the Wall ready for 10am open. (I think records/albums are the same schedule?) Theatrical releases were always Friday tho!
Dope? Overprized, old movies or very bad ones, too slow.
Tuesday mornings as an employee opening a video store was a nightmare. We used to call the customers ZOMBIES as they piled up at the door before we opened... Lol... Memories....
Damn, Xerox was waaayyyy ahead of its time for it to be so far back. It could've been so big and successful. Tragic.
I went to a friend's house in 1976 (or '77) when I was 10 or 11 years old and his dad, a Xerox executive, had brought an ALTO home. I thought that was the. coolest thing ever. I was a poor kid, so we had no hope of getting one, but I spent a lot of nights over at his house, just playing around with that thing. Finally bought my first PC in 1980 with money I saved mowing lawns, for about 1/20th of the price of an ALTO.
Amazing story, I didn't get to see that technology until 1995 at University. Xerox must be kicking themselves in the balls now.
What was the name of the executive?
in the early 90s my parent bought us a mac for 2000
mario parra I bought an early Pentium with 8MB RAM and 75MHz, and I thought I was cool. The 486’s were lame compared to it
@@Kokopilau77 15 years from now our computers will be a joke :)
You aren't tested until a company you own and believe in is down 30-40-50% from its highs. You will question your conviction, your strategy, your process. The market has a way of finding your breaking point. Nothing tests your conviction like falling stock prices
The key is knowing what you own and getting the best price possible. Falling prices give you the opportunity to lower your average cost. It’s a gift.
The deeper the correction the greater the chances of new positions and hence clarifications.
These days the best way to come into the market space is with patience and seeking guidance when necessary. For instance, due to the nature of my job, I can’t handle my portfolio so I just copy the market picks of ''Nicole Ann Sabin'', an Advisor i saw on Bloomberg business news. It’s been smooth since then. I have saved myself all the hassle that chaotic market causes.
@@Natalieneptune469 It'S not the first time someone had advised on this. I need guide in order to salvage what remains of my DOW stock wrecked by the massive dips. I'll appreciate if I get details with which I can reach Ms Nicole .
@@PhilipMurray251
Her details are well on her web page. she's with Wells Fargo Inc. Look up her name.
I had no idea Xerox had that technology. I'm so depressed for them...
Sad is the word you're looking for
they deserved it, it was a MAJOR dumbass move, like, is a computer ignorant person gonna understand more coordinating an icon to the task or typing archaic style code bit by bit
@@letsmakegadgets6899 that is the perfect statement. I hated typing commands all the time too make a computer do something. Had a manager wipe out an entire operating system and all files on a harddrive by putting a command at the root directory.
Dont be depressed.
If you ever feel depressed, just email me.
Gorgeous woman like you shouldn't be depressed. 😍😎
Well, Most Xerox employees are probablly still alive, while Steve Jobs is dead.
A paperless office, from a copier company.
It was doomed from the start.
Exactly; even in the Xerox promotional video the [non]pointy haired boss is printing out his emails for no real reason.
@jm gee I don't think water is going out of style anytime soon so that part of your company will be ok :)
Jesus
Sandy BoleYT Word
yeah but they also sell the printer, why not sell the whole PCs... lul I guess that's the definition of being short-minded
As somebody who started and runs a business, videos like this are a useful warning to everyone in business.
The side of the road is full of wrecks of companies without vision.
hindsight is a wounderful thing. its easy to look back and think oh what a bunch of prats...if predicting the future was so simple we would all be millionaires by now right...cause its all so oviouse right....or theres no exsuses why we shouldnt all be millionaires in 5 years time right cause its so clear whats the right and wrong way....? if you could bottle hinesight and sell it you would be the richest person in the world thats all I do know.
Sucking dick for money is not a business.
@@---ml4jd Speak for yourself
I'm not sure the IRS shares that position, so I'd suggest reporting the income.
I rarely watched UA-cam, except to see instruction manuals and laugh at... whatever, pirated movie clip were being shown. Your videos are incredibly researched, wonderfully narrated, and are more insightful and honest than podcasts. I admire how much effort you spend on each video and how you utilize this medium to express information.. You, singlehandedly matured UA-cam, continually raise the bar for educational narration and content, and make this medium better than college.
This is your firs time here? this kind of videos are subpar compare to others. He didn't singlehandedly the maturity of this site.
My father worked as an executive at Kodak. He was in the board room with the president, when the president announced that there is no future in digital photography, and Kodak will always be a film company. My father told us the story at dinner that evening. I was 14, and even I knew that was a horrible decision. In the 80's Rochester NY had 100,000 people working at Kodak. Now there are none. Very sad.
I had a Casio digital camera at the time, 1.3 megapixels, and was taking pictures all over the place. I loved it. People around me asking “where’s the film?”, and “what are you going to do with that?’I lived in Rochester and George Fischer was poo pooing digital and selling off non film parts of the company. I remember thinking, this is the beginning of the end. I been driving a Nissan Leaf since 2013 and at first the Car companies were doing the same sort of denial. I love cars and the combustion engines but as batteries get better and renewable energy grows it will do the same to oil. Range anxiety has never been an issue other than forgetting to plug it in. I’ve more range anxiety with my phone.
Paul Klem sony Xperia Samsung lg need
Kodak good
I have been a registered radiologic technologist since 1982. I trained and worked at a small 100 bed hospital and have been at a giant level 1 trauma center for 33+ years. At both hospitals I worked/work at, they exclusively bought Kodak X-ray film. Especially the level 1 trauma center at which I currently work, we literally bought gagillions of dollars worth of Kodak X-ray film. It was the best X-ray film out there bar none. Took absolutely beautiful X-rays with Kodak. The hospital decided to go cheap just around the time digital radiography started appearing on the seen and switched to fuji and even tried agfa. Compared to Kodak they were dogshit! Horrible contrast and resolution and very flat looking radiographs. Now, all is digital/computer imaging. It is astonishing to me to think of all the X-ray film Kodak sold around the world that they lost it all. Just awful.
Well most of what you say is true but in actuality Kodak Rochester peaked at around 65000 employees in 1984. I work there too from 1975 until 1994 we got sold to J&J. There's still about three to four thousand employees in Rochester but most of it is in the movie film business. Yes they are still making movie film because the movie industry screwed up and didn't go digital and now it's going to cost them shit ton of money to convert all the movie theaters to digital equipment so they're stuck with movie film.
Lesson for companies: Dont hire dumbhead executives.
Clifford Correa, 😂😂
Yes, because I'm sure you personally could have made a better judgment as far as who to hire. Easy for you to say considering you're looking into the past, hindsight is 20/20.
> Dont hire dumbhead executives.
*THAT'S THE ONLY KIND.*
Gates and Jobs weren't executives; they were geeks that owned businesses.
And if they are financial concerns the govt will bail them out, AND allow them to enrich the exec's!!
lesson for you. executives dont get hired
I worked for Kodak for 13 years in Rochester... we saw disaster coming as it happened and couldn't understand WTF management was thinking....
YUP! That's how managers are. The engineers see the future, but companies pay 7-figures to idiots because they figure they'll get what they paid for. But suits are as stupid and clueless as the rest of the non-STEM retards.
@@Miss__Understands Nah, I think you're just pissed about something, Luxi. I never thought managers were any worse than us motorheads. 'Course, that ain't saying much.
There is one group I could exterminate, though: electronics engineers. I learned to hate every damn one of them I ever met.
+Black Vic What's wrong with them? Many of the ones I've came across are good people.
I can't say the same thing about managers and other suits. Almost every non-Amazon-caused bankruptcy in recent times always goes back to the suits.
I temped at Kodak and told the boss and his secretary but nobody would listen to me.
Right! Y'all saw it because y'all lived in the real world, on the ground. Your bosses in their ivory towers were busy dining and playing golf, and couldn't have cared less what y'all thought. Y'all were just worker ants, and Exec's almost NEVER listen to anyone below them, unless they're telling them how great they are.
its funny that, at the same interview, Jobs says that PARC showed him "a way to share files", but he was so amazed by the GUI that he simply didn't listen to that part of the meeting . That "way to share files" was nothing more than the Ethernet standard. So PARC simply developed everything that made computing viable to all today, and due to boardstupids didn't manage to get a piece of the cake they baked
It's so surreal how Blockbuster Video vanished. To me it's like yesterday when my ex and I used to go there every Friday night to get movies.
They didn't want to evolve....they even put curtains in the adult section which made people felt awkward and like criminals. Unfortunately, Pornhub help put them out of business in that aspect.
Yea it's over its over get over it... You had no boyfriend since blockbuster end 🤣🤣😔🤣
"... when my EX..."
The nostalgia of going to blockbuster to rent the new releases each week gave me a warm-fuzzy... mentioning the 'EX' burst that feeling with reminders of lonely nights with 2&4 year old toddlers asking where mommy was... If you are going to cheat, get a f'kin' divorce first before f'kin' your new corporate mexi-hire! Worst part, praised and promoted for hiring 'Carlos' to take on company paid 'business' conferences! Me, home taking care of toddlers after 10 hour corporate days while IBM was paying a mexi-hire to 'take care of' his boss, all on company expense accounts!
Xerox had the key to heaven, but they just sitting at the entrance gate looking like confused Neanderthal over the key on their hands.
"You want Xerox to consider using a mouse, and a graphic interface?" Xerox executives, 1975
And sadly, Microsoft, who always made sure there would never be another Microsoft, did not see the Critical and endless possibilities of the Internet and smartphone functions. Now, it's Google who rules the world!
Halpin2006
They've gotten in on the action with bing.com/Microsoft rewards and Windows phones.
hey Child let me know when Google come up with a good OS for PC or MAC. LOL
you where not in the time as a childhood in the 1980.
WIFI access is Via GUI. P2P is Via GUI. Color Screen Display GUI. Touch Screen GUI.
USB Storage or USB drive GUI.
Windows 3.0 and 3.1 is Half GUI and half Command Based you never used it you dont Know.
Early Digital Camera was on a (( Floppy Disc )) = SD Card.
Lot of People invested ton of $$$$$$$ from Consumer to Government to improve todays Standards. macromedia flash player a Small flash player company > ADOBE created FLAC. Very Later Google created UA-cam in mid 2000.
20 Years ago most people dont used the Internet
15 - 25 % of the advance population people Such as : Computer Geeks and Advance High Tech Family had access to Internet. INTERNET was Luxury in 1998 if you had cable Internet or T1. uppper class.
if you dont know. Dont Shit on the peoples around the World invested in Computer Upgrade and ETC to build the R&D. without Hardware. there is NO SOFTWARE.
Hardware will always Be first Before any Software. A mid Age Adult giving you a Quick Education you Family dont know.
Whats even worse is that Xerox didn't even invent the mouse, BT did and did the exact same thing to Xerox what Xerox did to Apple.
Dapper Don ... no clue what he means by BT. The mouse was invented by Douglas Carl Engelbart.
Dapper Don
British Telecom
Larry Bundy Jr.......not sure about the mouse, but BT had the fax long before anything else similar came to market. The regional offices each had the forerunner to communicate documents. Can't remember what it was called though !
Innovation is basically theft and copycat with slight improvements. That’s why intellectual property law is so hilarious. All businesses and countries who eventually brought in intellectual property and trademark laws climbed the ladder on the backs of stealing from other people and then slam the door behind them saying, you can’t do this any more it’s illegal it’s called kicking the ladder
How come I see you everywhere I go?
Hi there. I so happen to be a former member of the Xerox engineering team at the time that was responsible for the technology you speak of. Back then we knew we were sitting on gold, so we weren’t exactly thrilled after the fact.
The problem was we didn’t have the means to bring it to consumer market, or to even market it. We were missing that connection. So we were under the impression that Apple was going to be this “connection” for us. So for that very moment, we were so excited.
But once we found out they were taking everything and incorporating it into their product without our consent - and with no credit whatsoever given to us?! That was what led to myself, Owen Bader, Rajesh Dhundra and Charles Baker all leaving.
Xerox was never the same after that, as this was half of the highest level team of engineers and the four top level ones at that. We actually get together once a year in Homestead, CA and spend a weekend together golfing, dinners, etc. just reminiscing on everything that was and could’ve been.
Why is nobody replying to this? Xerox employees didn't get their credit then, they need to now!
@@greggeverman5578 that is very kind of you, Gregg.
@@ronnieturner6820 👍
I guess that is where a leader with vision comes in. Some engineers can't do all the job.
I feel like this could be a movie.
1973? a computer like that? with those graphics!???
OMGF...!!!
Search "The mother of all demos". You're welcome.
And the first video game console was made a year before.
georgemitchel23 My guess is that it was a really expesive PC at the time.
After all he say in the video that the company ware trying to find a way to make the computer cheaper so they can sell it
They should have terminate an employee who important to that project...
It's "OMFG," you dunce
Remember the checkout lines at Blockbuster on the weekends? It was like a neighborhood block meeting saying high to everybody and talking about what was good to watch. Internet kind of gives but takes to.
Human interaction was the best part of Blockbuster. Now that's lost with stupid Netflix...but people don't care... we're headed into the abyss...but ....hey i have Netflix....right??
Jeff T saying "high" to everybody LMAO
wbutlers u got it lol
That still happens at my local grocery store.
Oh cut that bullshit. People still communicate thanks to facebook and twitter. And I prefer the mom and pop video rental because they have stuff BB don't have.
That 1973 Xerox Alto is almost proof of time travel. That was almost 10 years before Atari!
Your avatar pic is fitting
The Atari 2600 was release in 1977! That was the game system when I was a kid.
When nokia part i was like "serves you right, that's the price for your arrogant!". But when xerox part i actually feel so bad for them.
It's so crazy how things can go from gold to bust in just a few years... I grew up in Rochester. We had Kodak & Xerox, not to mention GM plants & a plethora of other businesses & operations pouring many jobs into the area. One by one they all fell & the city is overran by goons. Xerox has gone down the shitter, so has Kodak, GM plant closed, etc etc. You can drive around the city, see these massive buildings that were once flourishing but now dormant & dead looking. It's a damn shame how they just couldn't make the right decisions even though they had literally everything going for them.
Don't think all CEOs are smart just because they are paid handsomely.
Milano They all got million dollar bonuses or severance pay for running the company into the ground... sign me up!
@@jasong9502 I worked for a company the ceo wrecked. He made out well on his stock options of course.
Exhibit A, Tim Sweeney
Exhibit B, Randy Bitchford
@Alexander Paul just like kenyon obammy
Just like Ron Johnson at JC Penney and Dick Brown at EDS
In the year 3000 you will find a working Nokia 3310 somewhere out there with battery life.
Samantha Nel Haha no doubt. I still have a Nokia 3310 in my draw somewhere pretty sure it’s not out of battery yet
@@redhot663 lol the old faithful.
@OAT351 hahahahaha they are!!
Samantha Nel too bad smartphones don’t have batteries like old faithful!!!!
@@ChevyZ28K10 even the screens. My phone dropped out my pocket the other day and the screen shattered.
The problem with the "x failed company passed on the chance to buy y wildly successful company" thing is that there's no guarantee that y becomes successful under the management of x, or indeed that x wouldn't drive y into the ground like it did to itself.
I am totally upset after listening to Xerox story.. How many talented engineers' / programmers' would have created that Graphical User interface (GUI). All their skill, knowledge, talent & Hard work to the Xerox Company went in vein. I am very sad to hear..
No, it didn't. It changed the fucking world.
Agree, but there must of been a very talented someone to warn against the deal but as usual got shouted down by
arrogance and stupidity. Would have, should have, could have on a massive scale!!
It didn't go in vain, Steve Jobs used the idea later. They did play an important part in the development of modern computers.
What he means is that, those original inventors of the tech eventually didn't get recognized because of the arrogance of some button pushers.
Well as the clip showed, a lot of those talented engineers jumped ship to Apple in the coming months.
"Push a button and the images you see on the screen appear on paper"
Well, that'll never catch on.
Xerox litterally had the future in their hands, but ultimately it takes a person to comprehend the potential to make it big.
You cannot 'literally' have the future in your hands. You literally don't know the meaning of 'literally'; you think it means 'metaphorically', which is the exact opposite.
Blockbuster in 2007 - "WE'RE GONNA MAKE IT!"
James Keyes - "Hello, I'm here to ruin your entire career."
Kodak also blew it with the copier market. The idea was shown to them but they said the resolution was to low, it had no practical application. Then the inventors started Xerox.
It's kind of sad the lack of vision Kodak had.
True but Kodak invented their own copier technology using film belts and had a huge copier business in it's day. Kodak still has a printer business using the core copier technology.
re you kidding me?
i'm noticing a trend with these companies. I wonder if the rejection from the big dog is what motivated all of these companies to be like, screw you, we'll do it ourselves and kick your ass. and they do. you see it a lot in sports too. this guy was passed by these teams in the draft and it motivates him to work even harder. had they taken those deals or that athlete was taken were he thought he should be would those companies/athletes be what they are/became?
Kodak was 1st and foremost a chemical company. I worked there for 28 years. They were not an equipment manufacturer that could compete with Canon, Nikon, Sony and the rest. Inevitable shift in technology and not at all related to mismanagement or blunders.
The lesson from Nokia: Unity within the company is most important.
You can have a healthy debate, but not crippling infighting that makes you lose sight of the goal.
MY OPINION ON WORST BUSINESS BLUNDER!
ATARI: MONETIZING BUSINESS MODEL!
A SUPERPOWER JUGGERNAUT VIDEO GAME COMPANY UNLIKE SEEN IN THE EARLIER DAY'S WHO DOMINATE THE VIDEO GAME HOME GAMES AND MERCHANDISE. DESPITE ALMOST NO COMPETITION WITH MANY OF THEIR RIVAL DEFEATED IN THEIR CONQUEST. THE ATARI HAS DESTROYED ITSELF WHEN THEY DECIDED TO MAKE A DECISION TO CHANGE THEIR BUSINESS STRATEGY IN PROFITS.
LIKE LYING AND DELIVERING BOMBED ATARI JAGUAR WITH IT'S WEAK MACHINE AND OUT-PERFORMING VIDEO GAMES CONSOLE DESPITES ITS VERY HIGHLY POTENTIAL THAT WOULD CATAPULT ITSELF INTO WORLD STAGE AND REVIVING THEIR GREAT STATUS AS A MOST POWERFUL VIDEO GAME COMPANY IN ITS HEYDAY!.
Unity happens in peacetime but there was a war declared by Apple that caused the divide. Even the iphone was created under internal struggle but they just happened to succeed.
Read about the iPhone story of apple. You might want to change your view
Yeah, and not hiring an idiot with American education to lead our company.
Damn... so that's how blockbuster's went down.
As a kid my dad would take me and my little brother down there to rent a movie every Friday night.
He called them "popcorn-movie nights".
Man, things were so simple and fun as a small child...
Those were the days 😊
@@nickbritten8132 Hi, my maiden name is BRITTEN🙂
@@specialkaye3059 maybe we're distant relations? 😮 funny enough, my best mate is Ben Kaye and I often call him Special Kaye... there's a strange synchronicity there.
@@nickbritten8132 Wow! That's so interesting😲I have been experiencing SYNCHRONICITY for a year or 2. Their maybe some relations☺You never know
@@specialkaye3059 it's a small world eh 😊
My uncle found a blockbuster card when I was younger. He rented a SNES and some games from Blockbuster. That's how I got my SNES as a kid :)
Blockbuster would have drove Netflix into the ground with their mismanagement. Netflix dodged a bullet.
The Drewman No..
This is a case of
David vs Goliath..
Goliath was blockbuster..
David was Netflix..
Ohh how the tables have turned..
If you want free video..
Kodi.
agree. and askjeeves would not be the technology institute and robot army fleet that google has become.
Andew70 1 year ago,"Blockbuster would ...." *have driven just sayin' a year late but said...
That CEO.. instead of giving someone good a chance...he almost ruined 7eleven and then got hired (!?!) at blockbuster and really ruined it... All while earning so much money and enjoying it (God knows how..) however he pleased. What a piece of trash that guy must've been/must be
No doubt. That one turned out as it should have.
In 1973 I was in junior high school and, in our typing classes, we still used a manual typewriter! (Glad I took those typing classes as I type at 100 wpm right now.) I got my first electric typewriter when I was in the workforce in 1978. Yes, I know, I'm old.
We used electric typewriters in typing class in 1983. That year was also the first time they offered any kind of computer class at my high school.
Interesting. I took typing in '65-'66 we had half IBM electric (with the keys not the ball) and half Royal's. I didn't live in a huge metro area either. I remember it well because we had one girl in class who could hit 90 with a few mistakes on the Royal but only 70 or so on the IBM because she was so fast the keys would jam. I worked on a JC newspaper in '73+ and we had the IBM Selectric (IIRC) with the interchangeable typing balls.
we used electric typewriters in typing class in 1994. So I have no idea why people think they were gone way before that. and I didn't go to a poor school or anything.It could have easily afforded other things. I think that school just adopted computers late,like right after I graduated.
Hey, I still used an electric typewriter in 1996! That's because my computer had no printer at the time, so any school assignments had to be typed out by typewriter.
@ It's WENCH you stupid millennial.
WOW!! Xerox was sitting on a gold mine and yet did not do anything with it. Those GUI are so advanced even back in the 70s!!!
Steve Job was such a visionary must Admit what a great loss to mankind.
Amazing how companies that dominated their markets could be so short sighted that they went out of existence. Successful companies realize changes and react to them quickly.
Truth is, even if company is successful now, all it takes is a couple of years and a couple of bad decisions.
@@88Nieznany88 You are right. Success today guarantees nothing. Companies need to keep progressing. Grow or die.
@@88Nieznany88l
@@88Nieznany88l
Jl
Cold fusion is so great he doesn't even have haters
Correction, he has 81 at the time of this comment
Probably all the board members of the companies in the vid :)
79 are dyslexic and the other two can't read
they have malfunction mouse
jeremy rocker
Im going to smash his face in when i see him
I was working at Xerox from 1999 to 2003. So much talents in that company so much wasted with poor management decisions.
Actually in case of Nokia, it was Stephen Elop, the Microsoft mole that played a huge role in going with Windows Phone, which put an end to Nokia. This was the turning point, they could've either gone Android or Windows Phone and of course the mole picked Microsoft.
Mole? He was personally bribed by Microsoft, to try to rescue Microsoft from a very bad product, Microsoft CE.
+Greg Zeng You don't have any proof of bribery, so stop saying that. But it is plainly obvious that he had very strong interests in bringing Nokia to Microsoft.
yes, i still love symbian. i can't imagine how big if symbian still developed. ovi store and paid apps can be hacked at that time. android too
hmm, I personally love Windows Phone + Nokia phones more than Android or iOS. Nothing wrong in them since last 3-4 years. They couldnt create interest into the market and keep the customer base interested!
There are other reasons for failure.
Xerox missed 320billion
The Nokia story makes me wanna cry. I miss Nokia so much.
Heartbroken line "Sad thing is Xerox never get mention for anyone of this"
But it does, doesn't it? It's mentioned in this video and more importantly in the film that some of those scenes are taken from.
@@seneca983 I think a lot of people in tech know Xerox' story
I remember the demise of blockbuster. It was sad to see it go.
Bibasik7 it's only basically gone in America there's only 14 operating Blockbusters left here. however there is still close to 200 Blockbusters in Europe still in operation. Netflix and other streaming services are not as big in Europe as they are in North America.
I worked for Blockbuster in the 90s and it was evident then it wasn't going to survive. The lack of competent management was painfully obvious.
I hated Blockbuster! They didn't rent porn movies.
I didn't loose a second of sleep when Blockbuster went bust. I hate that people were out of a job. But I despised that company and the way they treated their customers.
When I bought a DVD player I remember stopping by a Blockbuster and having the manager all but laugh me out of the store when I asked when they might start carrying DVDs. I remember him telling me "they were a fad". "A flash in the pan". "They won't be around for long". "They aren't worth buying as they bring nothing new to the table".
Good riddance to Blockbuster.
90% of their employees were douche bags, kind of like verzion is now. they are arrogant and think they can treat people like shit (customers) because "hey we're too big to fail" i AGREE good riddance!!
i had one tell me the same thing about netflix HAHAA
Xerox Exec to R&D team: WTF, this doesn't even make copies! FIRED! All of you! And take your gerbil thing with you!
I worked for Blockbuster from 2006-2008. The most important moment with this company was during the "Netflix" movement. We had so many company meetings on how we were going to match the competitor. The quotas for signing people up on the blockbuster at home program were astronomical. Some people lost their jobs because they weren't meeting the expectations the company sent forth. The last meeting I had with the company went something like this "We've matched netflix but now we have redbox. How do we compete with that?" Needless to say I left in 2008 and within 18 months both locations had closed in my town.
I was VP of R&D of a very large semiconductor company. We offered them exclusive use of a new chip technology...their response "we are a chemical company and therefore find no need to embrace digital technology." That's a direct quote...I still have my notes from that meeting in 1992.
History in the making and you were in the middle of it.
Wow... form of pride and arrogance possibly
I see now why executives are paid so much more than everyone else in a company: because if a low level employee does a bad job, the consequences are small. If exec's are bad at their jobs, they can bring an entire company down, depending upon how much power they have. That's why CEOs, CFOs, COOs, et al. are so important.
@@michelesims8619 or just have 10 brillant minds instead and pay them a million each
rather than 1 bozzo.....after all 2 minds are better than 1
I still remember standing in line at block buster for our family movie nights
And the joy you feel when your movie is in stock
I just made a similar comment, seeing your neighbors in a "just right" place and time frame that let you catch up without being cornered for an hour, lol
YES LOL@@TofuCate
Family movie nights were awesome!
I've never even heard of Excite before this video. Now I know why.
Also I still have a Kodak digital camera. :D
The Xerox commercial is like someone went back in time and told them how offices work in the 2000's.
Since then, Xerox stock has fallen to near Xero
wtf is a xerox lol.
I vaguely remember them selling printer paper at some point.
Ha ha ..Good one
It's 24 a share....
MrBrander they have that paper at my school I knew I’d seen that logo somewhere
You know you feel smart after watching a Coldfusion video.
IKR
ikr
.....well i am thinking of well.....
this guys voice is a panty dropper, he probably gets a lot of panocha when he spits game.
+Alfred Munoz haha pancha didn't expect that
"Typing lines of text is now a thing of the past" said no programer ever
We write over 1000 lines some days in a week.. lol
@@niravarora9887 You type so we don't have to.
@@grumpyoldman3458 hahaha.. just wish that i become such a good programmer.
Iam Theone 90% of my day-to-day work is done on the command line.
Except LabVIEW programmers....sort of.
Wow the Xerox Alto! So much respect for Xerox! I mean I already had a lot of respect for what their copiers can do but MAN, I had no idea! I love your work on making this Doco
Nokia: I think their plunder began when they had touch screen phone prototype ready almost 5 years before iPhone was revealed, but they didn't continue with that. They were thinking that everyone would want to have physical keyboard on their phones in the future.
kimnice they could have been the apple of the mobile phone world.
The Xerox/Apple Fiasco was the biggest blunder in business history. Xerox could have been the first business in history to reach a one trillion dollar valuation... and they would have reached that by the end of the 80s.
It wasn't a fiasco for Steve Jobs though. Think how much longer that technology would have been delayed if he had not been exposed to it.
And now Xerox is owned by Fuji. They blundered so much they can't even keep their business afloat alone.
Xerox made a TON of money back in those days. Don't feel sorry for them.
The Dutch East India was actually the First company in history to reach $1 Trillion, in fact at one point they were worth $7.9 Trillion.
According to the new cold fusion video
And they collapsed because of corruption. I don't cry for them though they gained that trillion by exploiting South East Asian countries.
A lot of these failures have to do with the companies not knowing what need they were meeting in the marketplace. Kodak wasn't a film company, it was a memory storage company. Blockbuster wasn't a video rental company, it was an entertainment company. Xerox isn't a copier company, it's an information distribution company.
Why not step into the common market and take a look at what your product is doing in the public eye and how people are using it.
Actually, people are just good on hindsight but if you were handling a business venture, you will make mistakes because you may not be able to read the market properly. A few people are visionaries like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. They do not read the market but force the market to accept their visionary ideas because they made their ideas accessible to the public.
WHATEVER GOES FOR ME
Steve Jobs was no visionary. He just found products he liked in the market, got his techies to copy them as far as possible, then marketed them to Apple employees and Apple fanboys as his own concepts. Say what you like about Gates, at least he got his hands dirty back in the day.
Captain McDog , very well put
Actually, Kodak was mostly a chemical company by that point.
They spun those assets off as Eastman Chemical and they are quite successful.
I don't see how Kodak would have ever come out on digital cameras because film and film processing is where they made their money.
Had Kodak gone all in on digital I still suspect other companies would have dominated it.
Instead they sat on it and got another 20 years out of film.
I love your selection of music to the video and the fact you are listing what has been played. Excellent job!
I‘m really impressed with the XEROX Alto. I didn’t know that it was that much ahead of its time. I mean, we are talking about the early 70s and this computer was already able to to most stuff we are working with nowadays.
Man with your profile pic I thought I had a hair under my screensaver... Thanks a lot bro
I agree!!
www.mac-history.net/computer-history/2012-03-22/apple-and-xerox-parc0
I know this was made in 2016 but if updated should now include Sears. Sears was the #1 catalogue shopping outlet. They had the staff, the storage, the shipping departments. They had everything they needed to be the first and the greatest ON LINE shopping retailer. It was in their hands and some one let it slip away.
Yes, and Sears was even a partner in eXcite, an early search engine. They could have owned online shopping.
not sure thay would have adopted amazons way of doing things. very very few people saw that coming. plus the way amazon gose about selling flys in the face of all other forms of selling.
@@stevegreen9460 - Yeah? How's that?
Yes Sears, the original Amazon!
@@lindamackenzie5833... umm...
K (O'd) Mart?
The best comment from Blockbuster's CEO as everything was coming online and he was asked if he was worried, he said no not all, the company was gone within a year!
I heard that at the time and actually LOL'd, how he could be so detached from reality.
Baby Boomer mentality. Also, a lot of businesses are one trick ponies..
Probably said that just to give him time to dump any stock he might have in the sinking ship
In early 2000, we asked an AOL exec if they were going to push the broadband bandwagon since they were merged with Time Warner. The exec said something along the lines of, “we see no need as dial-up will be around for a long time.”
By 2002, Steve Case was outed as CEO, and AOL was a fast sinking ship as Comcast and others pushed the high speed access, making dialup as extinct as the dinosaurs.
they brought a retail guy into a retail industry. it was fast becoming NOT retail on the ground. that's why new guys that think different often take over an old ZZZZZZ industry.
the artist The Problem with this companies is they think people will be doing all the family stuff the same way and they don’t see that family change as things change smh 🤦🏾♂️ blockbuster should of been here today
3:55 oh dear god, i remember watching Blockbuster and video rental stores die in real time, no joke i used to go to one monthly and we'd rent movies to watch on our TV, at that time a old tube TV as opposed to our 4k one, and i proceeded to quite literally watch it go out of business and die right infront of myself it was honestly quite strange to witness since it was such a big part of my childhood and all of a sudden it just vanished, their stores gradually turned into new developments or, in the case of one in Rotorua simply abandoned with noone to buy it.
Poor Kodak, my dad use to be one of their service technicians in canada. Worked there for over 25 years, and was laid off in 2008 or 2009? When things started to go downhill in 2000, they laid off a large number of employees and seriously overworked/overbooked the ones who were still around. Even with that being said, my dad never had a bad thing to say about them. Even to this day, He boasts of how great it was in the early years and how classy, etc they were. He use to travel all over the U.S for training (Dallas, new York, bufallo, Chicago etc.) Sad to see such a giant company, and really giant part of my childhood be pretty much obsolete today. Crazy to think how advanced they were, coming out with the first digital camera in the 70s and never growing upon it. Film was there bread and butter and they went down with the ship.
I have been a registered radiologic technologist since 1982. I trained and worked at a small 100 bed hospital and have been at a giant level 1 trauma center for 33+ years. At both hospitals I worked/work at, they exclusively bought Kodak X-ray film. Especially the level 1 trauma center at which I currently work, we literally bought gagillions of dollars worth of Kodak X-ray film. It was the best X-ray film out there bar none. Took absolutely beautiful X-rays with Kodak. The hospital decided to go cheap just around the time digital radiography started appearing on the seen and switched to fuji and even tried agfa. Compared to Kodak they were dogshit! Horrible contrast and resolution and very flat looking radiographs. Now, all is digital/computer imaging. It is astonishing to me to think of all the X-ray film Kodak sold around the world that they lost it all. Just awful.
The problem in the 70s and early 80s was the size of the images far exceeded the capacity of computer equipment available to most people. If Kodak had come up with the digital camera in 1990, or revived the plans in 1990 and made software to store images on floppy discs and by 1993, CD-ROMS (to be created by your local friendly Kodak film developer), they might still be around today. Imagine how the Commodore Amiga or 386/486 PCs would have benefitted from the earlier development of digital cameras- and Kodak could have been at the forefront in the early 90s.
Noflex T-Rexx
Kodachrome was the best bang for your buck and you could buy it almost anywhere. Fujifilm tried to compete, but their film was way too unreliable. Always loved Kodak, great company dedicated to quality film 100%. My last Kodak purchase was an EasyShare digital point&shoot back in the 2000's.
I was at Rochester NY, I saw a small pond of green chemicals in the street. I guess they were proud of it since it was kodak country.
@@sunnyoutdoors are you SURE that wasn't antifreeze? Antifreeze is more likely in the street. And it's green. Btw, its DEADLY to animals, including dogs and cats. Who ARE dumb enough to eat it.
XEROX WTF
ikr
they got a slice in apple that was still smart... let them do all the work
that GUI alone, dam...what limited foresight and lack of awareness of accessibility/intuitiveness
DAJ
they were business people not tech guys... if anything it was a failure of the tech people to explain the meaning of all that... but then again very few would believe that that was the future
+Lone Wolf But now ot is just a small company i dont even know if they exist anymore
Nothing lasts for ever. I witnessed the demises of Nokia, Blackberry, MySpace, and other big tech companies. Can I live long enough to see the demises of Google, Apple, Microsoft, or Facebook?
Well Nokia is 151 years old, so maybe not.
Really? Cool. What were they making back then? Two cans connected with a string?
I'm not so sure about Microsoft, that company still making a whole a lot of profit as of recently. Even when they failed in mobile phone market. Their OS still the king in computer software market, and their hardware/video gaming market doing just fine. Same with Google.
You can definitely see the demise of Facebook and Twitter, both rely on one thing (social media) and both are starting to censor people with their fake news filter (with proven DNC cooperatives ABC and Snoops being the checkers) and shadow banning of anyone who is not a SJW nut. People hate being censored and if they can leave they will!
To be fair Google and Microsoft are the only companies I've seen that have become bigger and bigger since their inception. Yes they have had their bad moments (Vista) but overall they always get better. Apple was a disaster without Jobs, the iPod saved their asses and now without Jobs again they have been lacking innovation. And I think Adam explained why social media could reach their demise sooner or later.
0:36 Kodak
1:52 Excite
3:01 Blockbuster
5:35 NASA
6:27 Nokia
9:13 Xerox
I miss walking into a blockbuster as a kid to rent a video game and a movie, good times.
Moral of the story: "Don't think of your current customers as some dumb sheeps who would keep buying your outdated products for brand loyalty, eventually they'd move on and find better alternatives."
I'm looking at you Apple.
Right! With their $1,000 phones. Incredible arrogance...just like Blockbuster.
I would love to see a better (more affordable) alternative to Apple! They intentionally construct their computers to stop working after 5 or 6 years, and cease to offer essential system updates. They cost way more than PCs. And now, they went 64-bit which rendered my printer and scanner obsolete, as well as many applications! I can't wait for a competitor to come along with a computer that is as user-friendly as my iMac, but that is affordable and lasts for a decade at the very least; I would switch in a heartbeat!
I never thought there would be such an identical computer to ours back in 1973!!
Xerox
Lol at captions around 14:55 or so, “Xerox grabbed the feet from victory...” it’s grabbed Defeat from Victory. Or rather “snatched defeat from the jaws of victory” a reversal on a common phrase about winning at the last second when defeat is inevitable.
I used to work in blockbuster. I'm not surprised by any of the decisions they made. They were arrogant and they didn't think they had to change with technology. Their computers were embarrassingly outdated. The computers and software was straight out of 1985. I remember a customer in around 2008 saying 'look at these old monitors!'. It was funny and embarrassing at the same time.
holy shit your channel blew up... I remember back at 50k subs thinking that you deserved way more.... nice going man
You can check out lots more stats about the channel's growth here: vidstatsx.com/ColdfusTion/youtube-channel
it'll get there soon
Exactly
You are one of the very few channels I get so hyped to see a video in my sub box. I just know I'm about to hear a great story from a great narrator.
That blockbuster just looks exactly like a situation whereby experienced people rather refuse to move with the times or just don't know how to adapt to a new age. And it's that stubbornness that fucks them.
PARC spelled backwards is what the Xerox execs said when the Mac took off
Wow, this video ended up in my recommendations list today.. never knew that Xerox was the inventor of the GUI! Great story how it launched Apple..
I dig the vid but there's 1 glaring flaw. This is based on the assumption that the companies would have been just as successful under the new owners. When you take an innovative company and hand it over to corporate ass hats, things rarely get better. I think a more accurate way to look at it is to be appreciative of the companies that made it without being gobbled up and spit out by the big corporations. For every Facebook and Google success story, there's hundreds of "next big thing" failures, you just don't hear about them. Think about it, would Netflix be even remotely the same company if Blockbuster would have bought them out? And consequently, would they have been as successful? I think not. Still a fun video, I dig this kind of History.
i agree, i thought of the same thing... if blockbuster would buy netflix, it would probably just shelf it, same for the others.... so its actually good that innovation killed these dinosaurs
Agreed. Excite would have run google into the ground in a year and we'd all probably be using Alta Vista right now.
There's actually existing proof of this... Electronic Arts. They're a huge corrupt gaming company that buy innovative and creative game companies and kill them.
You cannot help but be nostalgic for Blockbuster and sad at how these companies declined so badly, or missed golden opportunities.
"Typing lines of text is now a thing in the past." Tell *that* to Linux users.
gnome 4 lyfe
mind blown man i wish windows had that kind of feature (they do but complicated) to improve typing maybe i should get a girtual box of lunix for coding
or even some windows users! I use cmd.exe + mingw & other gnu software all the time for screwing around while programming
For consumer, it it indeed a thing in the past
well, he meant our world. linuxoids live in their own pocket dimension with their own space-time continuum and laws of nature.
The sad part about#3 is that science has been using exclusive metric for decades. How L&M could have allowed imperial units in its design and how in the final stages of testing this was this not discovered before launch.
The "reasons why Kodak went bankrupt" always miss "the reason" Kodak went bankrupt - and it's not because of digital photography.
George Eastman invented roll film, as we all know, in the late 1800s. He was a very astute businessman and realized, "if I make a product that's full of chemicals, I can make this product cheaper if I make the chemicals myself." He went to Tennessee where land was very cheap, bought thousands of acres of land next to a river in the Knoxville area, and founded the Eastman Chemical Company. He bought an abandoned glue factory in Massachusetts (glue was made by boiling animal hides in those days), converted it into a gelatine factory, and founded Eastman Gelatine. He also constructed a paper mill at his industrial site in Rochester, NY. With these factories supplying raw materials for his photo products, he could make a very good product at a very good price.
For what it's worth, the other film companies did pretty much the same thing: Agfa, Ferrania, GAF, Fuji, Ilford, Foma, Konica and all the others were (or are) chemical companies that made photo products as one of their offerings.
Eastman then did a very smart thing: he told the people running those companies to drum up business from outside Kodak. The Eastman Gelatine Company started doing business with drugmakers - every capsule-style pill made in the US is made out of Eastman's gelatin. Eastman Chemical started selling the hell out of acetate, which Kodak uses as film base; it became a popular synthetic silk and was widely used as cigarette filter material. Eastman Chemical also became the biggest maker of explosives in the world.
Here's the problem: in the 1990s, a new management style swept America: "core competency." The idea was to get rid of everything that wasn't part of your core business. Eastman's new managers decided they could just buy chemicals and gelatine, and sold those two business units - not realizing the biggest part of Eastman's profits were from chemicals and gelatine.
You'd be surprised. Look at HP. In the Good Old Days Hewlett-Packard had two market segments: professional test equipment (divided into medical equipment and electronic test equipment) and business automation (divided into PCs and printers). In the test equipment field, HP was at the top and sold at a premium. That business unit was the smaller of the two but produced the most profit per unit sold. The office automation field moves a lot of units but the profit per unit is very small because there is a lot of competition there. At the time, HP wasn't selling anything bigger than a 11x17 laser printer. The logical thing to do would have been to keep both divisions and allow them to make money for the company, but no...they spun off the test equipment division as Agilent Technologies, which later spun off the electronic testing company to be Keysight Technologies.
Here's where it gets fun: When HP hired Carly Fiorina as CEO, HP made computers, printers, medical equipment and electronics test equipment, had $42 billion in sales and $3.1 billion in profit - . Very few people would bitch about either number. Fiorina spun off the expensive stuff and bought Compaq. When she got canned in 2005, they had $87 billion in sales but only $2.4 billion in profit. What happened is very simple: they kept the low-profit business. Sales are good, m'kay, but profit is also good. Which is better: John selling 10 $100 widgets that cost you $90 apiece to make, or Frank selling 100 $50 widgets that cost you $49 apiece? Both men earned the same amount of money, but Frank had to work 10x as hard for it.
I could give you hundreds of examples of companies shedding very profitable divisions because "oh, we don't make that." General Motors used to be the biggest manufacturer of locomotives in the world. Chrysler used to make boating products, Army tanks, and HVAC equipment. (The government is responsible for Chrysler getting out of those businesses - when Chrysler went bankrupt the first time the government required them to get rid of all "non-core" businesses in exchange for loan guarantees. What the government SHOULD have done is to tell them to sell off their God-awful line of cars!) IBM used to make weighing scales. Ford used to make missiles - they invented the Sidewinder missile. One of the few companies not to succumb to that, at least until recently, was General Electric...who made among other things light bulbs, refrigerators to screw those light bulbs into, airplane engines to deliver the refrigerators, and nuclear reactors to power them. They recently shed their appliance business to the Chinese Haier company.
There are reasons to get rid of a division but "that's not what we make" isn't a good one.
It is funny at the time Kodak spun off Eastman Chemical I suspect they thought they were just unloading some environmental libabites.
Turns out Eastman Chemical has been very successful and expanded since the spin off.
They bought Solutia (the chemical assets of Monsanto minus Roundup).
Sadly GE is going to sell their locomotive division.
I hope Haier doesn't buy it.
GM used to make refrigerators and was one of the largest manufacturers of Diesel engines.
jmowreader but Kodak does still have a business. They use their name for x-ray prints in hospitals. It's not something the public could buy or use for themselves, but nevertheless, they still have a business.
Exactly the point. It wasn't until 1994 when Apple released the Quicktake digital camera was when the whole "Modern" Digital Camera era started. I was visiting the Eastman house back in November of 2017 and Kodak was working with Nikon or Cannon in the 80's to help make the DSLR type camera. By 1991 Kodak released the first consumer DLSR. But there are things that Kodak has done in the past 100 years that they where slowly working on about 10 years before the consumer version came out. I remember my moms first digital camera was a Kodak Easyshare camera and it worked well. But around the time when Kodak was at it's lowest point almost bankrupted I went got the Kodak Playsport but it had one thing wrong with it the charging port was broken I even had the same issue with a replacement one before I went to the Sony Handycam line of cameras. Besides the point Kodak is one of the main innovators in the camera industry and without Kodak most modern cameras that Hollywood and the home consumers use wouldn't be the same today.
I honestly miss going into blockbuster as a kid. 😭
A time long before the stress of adulting