Name: How Kodak’s Bankruptcy Affects Rochester
Uploaded: 2016-10-17
Duration: 13 min 11 s
Description: The camera business influenced the city’s economy

[ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ MUSIC ] George memorial, there it is [ MUSIC ] Lot of people used to hang out on these lawns eating lunches. Not anymore. It's all changed now. I don't even see the squirrels anymore. People used to feed the squirrels out of their hands. They're gone. Even the squirrels are gone. I kind of like George. He paid my salary for 30 years. It was a great job. Great company. Now it's just, I don't know. Not so great anymore. I worked in Building 58 when I first started here, film finishing. And then I became a mechanic there. Worked there about 19 years and then went to a coating machine, Building 29. We worked either 7 to 3, 3 to 11, or 11 to 7 in the morning, switched every week. You go in, and just work. It was a good job, paid good money It was good. Everything was good. [ MUSIC ] To me it was easy. When you get out of high school, you get a job. You're pretty much set for life. I bought a house after two years at Code Ex, I had lived on my own There. Probably 23 years old when I bought my first house. And then five years later got married, started raising kids. Went out got hired at Kodak. Thought I was going to get one job and then that would be it I would retire from Kodak like my father did. But everything's changed I'm interested in this Kodak pizza what is that? It's a pizza with italian sausage, roasted red peppers, basil and your mozeralla cheese and tomato sauce. Okay. Is it red and yellow? Is it... Is it red and yellow? [ LAUGH ] Yes. Ok, there it is. Yes, it is. It says Kodak right in the middle of it. [ LAUGH ] I'll take one of those. Thanks, a lot, guys. Do they serve a Kodak- eri? Wouldn't surprise me if they did. I... When I first came, I couldn't get over this place. I mean, first of all there was a lot of people working, and I remember most people worked at Kodak most of their lives. And I'll tell you it was unusual to ever know anybody who actually left the company voluntarily. They used to interview the outgoing people. Yeah what did we do wrong? Nobody left. Our job was to say what's the future and we pointe out in many cases. Exactly what it was. It's just the company could not get its head around it. I built the first digital camera playback system. And I demonstrated it to Kodak management in 1976. I could walk into a conference room, take available live photos, and show them on a TV set right there. No film, no paper. They didn't ask me how. They asked me why. Why would you want to do that? Why would anyone want to live with their picture on a television set? What's an electronic photo album gonna look like? There's no personal computers around. They didn't even think people would ever want it. Because think about it, prints were everything. That's how you kept your memories, were prints. Digital changed everything. Digital changed how people took pictures, how they used them, and what they did with them. And how they appreciated them. How customers used them. That really changed in a way that was uncomfortable for Kodiak. Hundred years, what is the important? Permanence, reliability, image quality, right? And all of a sudden, now, imaging is not that at all. It's a casual conversation that you're sharing, it's a throw away thing, it's an experience, right? That's a total redefinition of a fundamental thing that we used to do and we, Kodak, couldn't react because the profit was in the old way of thinking about it. I worked on pretty much every major consumer electronic product that people use today other than the computer. I remember him. I vividly remember you coming home and saying do you think it would work if We put a camera on phones. Do you think people would like that? Because Kodak was thinking about doing that, and even then I was like. I don't know if I want to pull out my phone and take a picture, but my God who doesn't use that as their main camera now? And when you were on that MC3 project, it was the first iPod, it took pictures, it took video and you played music on it and you were working on it and it launched and they told you they were gonna kill it before they even looked at the sales and year later Apple launches the iPod, they were so close so many times they just. It was the short term results versus the long term growth. [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] This is the old Kodak Park, business park. A lot of buildings imploded right here, so not as many buildings as once stood here. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] In a town like Rochester which has lost its main productive base With the demise of Kodak there is also the demise of these local service jobs. Construction jobs are gone, retail jobs are declining. And everything else in the local economy is shrinking due to the demise of what used to be their main engine. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] There's no question that the demise of Kodak and the decline of Rochester has to do with new technologies. Kodak was slow at embracing digital photography. And these new technologies essentially disrupted It's business success. [ MUSIC ] There's also no question that the epicenter of the tech boom is San Francisco. The San Francisco labor market is one of the strongest right now in the U. S. San Francisco county has reached the top employment in its history. The main driver of the strength of the liberal market in San Francisco is of course the tech sector. [ MUSIC ] I've been shooting since I was about six years old. I moved here in 2009. With about 40 bucks, and I ended up working in Silicon Valley, for several years. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] When Instagram came out, I was in tech. And for me personally, Instagram ended up being a little bit of a gateway for me back into photography. So, I quit my job in April of 2013, with the hopes of being A photography fulltime. And I had a hunch that there was a market in Silicon Valley that no one had really looked at yet, that being branding and photography in tech. [ MUSIC ] Hi. How are you? I'm Helena. Enrico, very nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming. Yes, I'm glad we get to do this. And what fraction of your clients is from the valley of- 99 % of them. They're all from tech. Yeah. There's this whole new ecosystem that didn't even exist. Yes. Two years ago. Which is wild. It's exciting, and also kind of terrifying. And what's fortunate is that it includes jobs that are very, very fun. Like an artist job like yours, or you know The person who was serving us lunch in the restaurant. Jobs that didn't exist. Including jobs that didn't exist. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I think, I mean, it'll be really interesting to see what happens in the next two to five years, even in the next year, to see what new jobs are created and what new jobs are lost. And I think as a person on the fringes, all I can do is just watch it like a hawk. I think we are into the new economy. And the new economy is one that is much more driven by technological change And I think people are gonna have to move around a lot more in their jobs. And maybe even have to do it in their careers. These are trends that are very strong and what it means is rapid change. Uncertainty and inperminance .>> Julia, ready to go hun? Let's roll. [ LAUGH ] Okay. Bye hun .>> Bye, have a good day .>> You too. I work for Rochester Regional Health System now. I work as a project manager and I'm managing large implementations of electronic medical records. All right, bye sweetie. Have a good day. Love you. We're switching over basically from paper systems to electronic And I'm helping to roll out these new programs. [ MUSIC ] It's my life after Kodak. [ CROSSTALK ] Thank you thank you. You're welcome. It was very nice seeing you guys. Good to see you too, thank you. As always. Terry assists the customers in pretty much anything they need. Terry is pretty much in perpetual motion. He has like the best work ethic ever, he's constantly moving. Anyone down there. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Copy. 813, 813. Are you coming in? Sometimes Terry's the difference between how comfortable your grandmother is if she's going in for bypass surgery and if she's uneasy. When they see a face like Terry's and he's smiling and he's friendly, it puts them at ease as they go in to what's, a lot of times, a difficult situation. Come join us. I'm much happier doing this job than Kodak but you know the money, it's a trade off. You know the money was better at Kodak but this is a more rewarding job. You know, you're helping people, you feel good at the end of the day .>> Where to? I really care for people. I enjoy helping them. This floor? Now do you want to pile on this unto a wheel chair? I think employment's changed because people can't predict The stability of their career, let alone their job. I gotcha. It's my favorite Yankee fan. And it's what makes it frustrating for people because people actually like certainty, and they'd rather have permanent jobs. Especially over the age of 35, 40. And with a 9 to 5 job with benefits, that they know's gonna be there tomorrow. And that's not America today. That's America from the 1950s. It's been changing gradually, and it's accelerated in the last 15 to 20 years. I think, at the end of the day, this is such an exciting time for people. The economy's changing so much, especially in this city. And if you are hungry to learn and you're ready to work your **** off and you're ready to play by no one's rulebook but your own, I think you can just make it work. That's a very optimistic view. I know. [ LAUGH ] Here, you sit down. I got [ INAUDIBLE ] [ MUSIC ] Yes I don't think I can ever make the Kodak music but I believe everything happens for a reason. We'll get you inside where it's warm. But it was good while it lasted. I'll say that. It was good. [ MUSIC ]

The camera business influenced the city’s economy