#263 Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It

What I learned from rereading Land's Polaroid: A Company and the Man Who Invented It by Peter C. Wensberg. ---- Get access to the World’s Most Valuable Notebook for Founders at Founders Notes.com ---- [0:01] Why is Polaroid a nutty place? To start with, it’s run by a man who has more brains than anyone has a right to. He doesn’t believe anything until he’s discovered it and proved it for himself. Because of that, he never looks at things the way you and I do. He has no small talk. He has no preconceived notions. He starts from the beginning with everything. That’s why we have a camera that takes pictures and develops them right away. [1:33] More books on Edwin Land:  Insisting on The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land by Victor McElheny  The Instant Image: Edwin Land and the Polaroid Experienceby Mark Olshaker  A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein  Instant: The Story of Polaroid by Chris Bonanos  [2:18] “Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.” —  Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson (Founders #214) [5:17] This guy started one of the great technology monopolies and ran it for 50 years. [7:35] He lived his life more intensely than the rest of us. [8:53] His interest in our reactions was minimal — polite, sometimes kind, but limited by the great drain of energy necessary to sustain his own part. [9:30] He never argued his ideas. If people didn’t believe in them, he ignored those people. —A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman  (Founders #95)  Loomis was not someone you could argue with. He would listen patiently to an opposing opinion. But his consideration was nothing more than that-an act of politeness on his part.” — Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and The Secret Palace of Science That Changed The Course of World War II by Jennet Conant (Founders #143) [11:40] Right before he introduces the most important product he ever makes — he is in a fight for his life. There's a good chance that Polaroid is going to be bankrupt. [14:29] The parallel to Steve Jobs is striking. Edwin Land —like jobs — had to turn around the company he founded before they ran out of money! [15:02] At 37 he had achieved everything to which he aspired except success. [15:32] Against The Odds: An Autobiography by James Dyson (Founders #200) [22:48] The heroes of your heroes become your heroes. [23:39] Bill Gates would later tell a friend he went to Harvard to learn from people smarter than he was —and left disappointed. —Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson (Founders #140) [27:22] The young hurl themselves into vast problems that have troubled the world's best thinkers, believing that they can find a solution. It is well that they should for, from time to time, one of them does. — Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 2 by Dee Hock. (Founders #261) [29:30] He concentrated ferociously on his quest. [29:43] We live in the age of infinite distraction. [30:03] My whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out in people resources they didn't know they had. [30:29] Among all the components and Land's intellectual arsenal, the chief one seems to be simple concentration. — The Instant Image: Edwin Land and The Polaroid Experience by Mark Olshaker. (Founders #132) [41:50] A Landian question took nothing for granted, accepted no common knowledge, tested the cliche, and treated conventional wisdom as an oxymoron. [42:44] A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald Fierstein  (Founders #134) [48:33] They had no alternative but to succeed with the camera. Everyone left at Polaroid knew tha