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Founders: #264 The Story of Edwin Land and Polaroid

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What I learned from rereading Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Christopher Bonanos. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- (0:01) The most obvious parallel is to Apple Computer. Both companies specialized in relentless, obsessive refinement of their technologies. Both were established close to great research universities to attract talent. Both fetishized superior, elegant, covetable product design. And both companies exploded in size and wealth under an in-house visionary-godhead-inventor-genius. At Apple, that man was Steve Jobs. At Polaroid, the genius was Edwin Land. Just as Apple stories almost all lead back to Jobs, Polaroid lore always seems to focus on Land. (1:22) Both men were college dropouts; both became as rich as anyone could ever wish to be; and both insisted that their inventions would change the fundamental nature of human interaction. (1:37) Jobs expressed his deep admiration for Edwin Land. He called him a national treasure. (3:12) All the podcasts on Edwin Land: Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg (Founders #263)A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak

[00:00:00] Polaroid followed a path that has since become familiar in Silicon Valley. Tech genius founder has a fantastic idea and finds like-minded colleagues to develop it. They pull a ridiculous number of all-nighters to do so, with as much passion for the problem-solving as for the product. Venture capital and smart marketing follows. Everyone gets rich, but not for the sake of getting rich. The possibilities seem limitless. The most obvious parallel is to Apple. Both companies specialized in relentless, obsessive refinement of their [00:00:31] technologies. Both were established close…

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