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

Peter C. Wensberg

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Founder connections

  • David SenraRecommended reading
    In The Tim Ferriss Show #828, asked where someone should start studying Edwin Land, Senra chooses Wensberg’s account because its author worked with Land for twenty years.
    Source

Summary

Peter C. Wensberg traces Edwin Land and the company he created. The book follows Polaroid’s development of instant photography and describes how Land eventually lost control of his own creation. It brings together the story of an inventor with the history of the business built around his work.

  • SourceLand’s Polaroid — licensed Houghton Mifflin description · Publisher description and bibliography; 1987 illustrated edition ISBN 9780395421147

Why read it Our view

Read it to consider the relationship between invention and the company needed to bring it to customers. Land’s story gives founders a basis for asking how a business changes around a central inventor, and what control of that business means as it develops.

Written about

  • Edwin LandBiography subject
    Wensberg’s 1987 book tells the story of Edwin Land and Polaroid, including instant photography and Land’s loss of control of the company.
    Source