I think the number is probably a bit skewed by the fact a lot of companies offer unlimited access to udemy and such, so people "start" courses without any commitment or cost, and then predictably drop off fast or don't start at all.
Personally I just found none of them really worth doing. They felt almost not genuine in a way, like they cared more about profiting from courses and gaming the system than actually teaching you something. I switched to learning via Youtube videos and found it much more educational than the paid courses.
I've had a project idea in the back of my mind for a long time: take all of my locations that I've saved in Swarm (https://swarmapp.com) and 3D render all of the buildings that I've been to. The issue was a lack of models of the actual buildings - which is here! Maybe it is possible...
Had to look it up (the texas comment is just a jab at texas being an amenable place to file IP infringement cases which is something i remember back then reading):
Maybe I'm reading the headlines wrong, but it doesn't seem like a lot of people read the actual press release and earnings report from the August 11th, 2025[1]:
1) The "Going Concern Assessment" that they put out was a regulatory requirement because they didn't have full control of the sale of parts of the pension. They say in the release that they're going to have the sale finalized on December 15th, with details on August 15th
2) They not only mention opening a new business segment, but built a lab AND got FDA approval for that segment (Advanced Materials & Chemicals)
3) The sale of the pension is going to have so much of a surplus they're going to pay down parts of the long debt that they have.
I'd love to be corrected if I'm misreading this, but the reports of Kodak's death seem greatly exaggerated
> I'd love to be corrected if I'm misreading this, but the reports of Kodak's death seem greatly exaggerated
The basic background here is that Kodak has been pivotting at least for last 40 years.
- 1980s: Kodak tried to become a Chemical magnate. This strategy was abandoned in 1990s.
- 1990s: Kodak tried to become a Digital Imaging company. While it saw a brief success, Kodak lost the competition.
- 2000s: Kodak tried to become an Inkjet Printer company, which was doomed and eventually pushed it into bankruptcy.
- 2010s: Kodak tried to become a Blockchain company, issuing KodakCoin. It was a flop.
- 2020s: Kodak tried to become a Pharmaceutical company amid Covid-19 pandemic.
As of today, Kodak is focusing on its chemical business (such as manifacturing KODALUX, a fabric coating material) and borrowed $477M (at 12% p.a.) in order to expand that business line.
That loan is due in 2026. Kodak is basically saying "I have no idea how to repay that money. In fact, I only have $155M in cash. Maybe it's time to talk with the creditors?".
> - 2010s: Kodak tried to become a Blockchain company, issuing KodakCoin. It was a flop.
Its hard not to laugh at that. At least the pivots before that point kind of made sense. I guess 2010 came along and the executives just decided to yolo.
> At least the pivots before that point kind of made sense.
But was this even a real pivot? They "rented" out their name to a company with an already failed crypto coin project, who thought they'll make it if they use a bigger brand. A pivot implies some effort to change the business model, not just literally throwing your name out there and hoping money follows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KodakCoin seems to say it was very photography themed and planned to integrate with their stock photo offering. Seems like it was at least integrated with their brand, so it wasnt just a totally random project
And yet right now they’re back to chemical photography film being over 50% of their revenue due to the breakout success of the instax instant cameras. Being able to charge a dollar per photo remains an unbeatable business to be in.
As much as I like the end result, I HATE the bulk of the cameras themselves.
I ended up with a Polaroid Go. It's relatively tiny. The output is nowhere near as good (arguably awful), but for my use, it's fine. I have 35mm film and mirrorless digital cameras when I want "good" photos.
I didn't say it was $1/shot yet, though medium format Portra 400 is $16/roll (if buying in a 5-pack) which is at minimum $1/shot. E100G is a bit pricier depending on where you buy it as well. I'm mostly just salty because a decade ago I was paying $6-7 roll for Portra and now (in Canada) it's closer to $35-40.
Maybe they should pivot into human robots, self-driving and robo-taxis next.
I heard it pays out well regardless of whether your product being sub-par or non existing at all
The chemical thing kinda worked out. Eastman Chemical is the spinout from that and they're a $9B annual business.
The folks running Kodak kind of forgot that Kodak was really a chemicals company that supported photography, not a photography company. Hence why the pivot into that was ill-fated and doomed.
Correct. And confirmed by Kodak on their Facebook page. The “going concern” disclosure is an accounting requirement. However, the company claims to have line of sight toward addressing it.
The regulatory requirement is there for a reason. Whenever you see a statement like that it means that the accountant they hired is covering their ass so they don't get sued if the company DOES go bankrupt.
Even though the company is paying them, the accountant is saying "whelp, doesn't look like a sure thing to me!"
Their pension fund has assets outstripping its liabilities and they can essentially wind up the fund. Great! Except if the fund's assets suddenly drop in value (e.g. when interest rates go up, and their bonds mark to market value drops, or if the stock market crashes) or if the price of those annuities to be bought goes up (e.g. when interest rates go down, and you need to reserve more money now for payments later). Interest rates dropping is perhaps not inconceivable, with a president tweeting every week about firing the chairman of the Fed if rates aren't dropped? A stock market crash, however short term, is also not inconceivable, especially with so much of the index concentrated in a few tech stocks.
A "going concern" statement like this is worth more that the company's press release disagreeing with it.
Or the pension fund has positions marked at given value which aren't updated to current reality (commercial real estate, private equity shares etc.) so they try to off-load it to some poor sucker before it blows up.
No, typically what happened is during the low interest rate era of 2007-2020 companies pumped money in to their pensions schemes to try to meet their future employee liabilities (most of which are still way out in the future)
Now that rates have risen across the yield curve the cost of locking in coverage for those liabilities (typically with long duration government bonds) has reduced, leading to a surplus in the pot.
Selling the scheme to the insurance industry while it's in surplus lets them claw some money back and get it off their books forever
They seem late to the party though as rates are coming down. 2023-4 would have been when the iron was hot.
This is a very cool project / startup! I'm curious, how do you get the ground truth data? Is that just you marking down where you are as you walk through the store?
Thank you! I tried to keep it interesting but not get lost in rabbit holes.
We have around 300 hours of ground-truth data now, in 1-second intervals, which we use for algorithm training and refinement. The same as performing a survey, our team marks their location on the map, then walks to the next location, and through post-processing we can correct any errors and interpolate the locations in between. You can see this process in the diagram with the large black dots, where the user marked their location.
> This sounds like a happy ending for the employees of Windsurf and a good deal for Cognition
The employees were robbed from having a big cash exit. Illiquid stock options from Windsurf were converted to illiquid stock options of Devin.
What's worse is that the well is now poisoned. I would advise against joining startups from now on, because I think that there's no upside for employees anymore.
"work to" is key.. sounds like they aren't fully accelerating, just accelerating the time they worked that hasn't vested. So if you were hired a week ago, you get a week's worth of participation.
> It’s unclear whether Trump can legally pause the TikTok ban.
Irrespective of my political leaning, Trump's legal scenarios have made me learn more about how the U.S. government works and question hypothetical scenarios that I'd never thought of before. Can a non-member be the speaker of the house? How did the Gulf of Mexico get its name? What procedures are official rules vs. just customary? What does it truly mean to be "impeached"? It's given me a new perspective on how laws are written and appreciation for how rules are defined for future generations.
I love the concept and loved the results I got. I tried it out and found a lot of papers both from my lab group and ones related that I had missed. I'd happily pay for it but as a grad student the price is a little steep - would it be possible to make a student tier?
Lol