The $10 Billion Mistake

Steve Sasson stood in a Kodak conference room, holding a clunky grey box built from spare parts.

It looked like a toaster.

It sounded like a fax machine having a panic attack.

And it could do something no other device on Earth could:

Take a photo… without film.

It was 1975.

Steve was 24. He was nervous. Sweaty. Wired with excitement.

He’d just invented the world’s first digital camera.

He clicked the shutter. The image appeared—black and white, pixelated, delayed by 23 seconds.

And when it finally popped up on the screen, he looked around the room, waiting for a reaction.

Silence.

Then, one executive leaned in and asked:

“That’s… interesting. But where do we put the film?”

Steve smiled. “There is no film.”

More silence.

And in that five-second moment? Everything shifted.

The executives realized what this meant.

• No film.

• No development.

• No prints.

• No more trips to Walgreens.

And their billion-dollar business?

Obsolete.

So they did what most people do when faced with a future that threatens their present:

They buried it.

For the next 20 years, Kodak sat on the patent. They shelved the innovation. They told themselves the story that digital photography would never catch on.

And when it did?

It was Canon. Sony. Nikon. Everyone but them…leading the charge.

By the time Kodak tried to catch up?

It was 2012. Instagram was booming. And Kodak filed for bankruptcy.

Now here’s the punchline no one tells you:

Kodak wasn’t killed by technology.

They were killed by fear.

They weren’t replaced by digital cameras. They were replaced by the people who used digital cameras better than them.

And right now?

We’re at that same moment again.

AI is today’s “digital camera.”

Most people see it and say, “That’s cute, but where do I put the film?”

They write it off. Dismiss it as clunky. Insist it will “never replace the real thing.”

But while they’re busy mocking it?

Other people are mastering it.

They’re not getting replaced by AI. They’re winning because they use it.

You won’t be replaced by a robot. But you will be replaced by someone who uses one.

And here’s the insight that matters:

You don’t have to be the best.

You just have to be one of the first.

Early adopters are those who experience the most upside.

• Just like the engineers who left Kodak to join Canon.

• Just like the photographers who learned Lightroom before their competition.

• Just like you, reading this email, before the rest of your industry wakes up.

Happy Friday,

Your Canadian friend,

Dakota “The Last AI Bender” Robertson

P.S.

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