Ron Fierstein was a young lawyer on the team of litigators from the prestigious patent law firm of Fish & Neave representing Polaroid in its epic patent battle with Eastman Kodak over instant photography technology. He had the unique experience of working closely with Polaroid’s founder and star witness, Dr. Edwin Land. After leaving the practice of law in the early 1980s, he enjoyed a long and successful career in the entertainment industry, representing artists in the recording (Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter) and theater (Harvey Fierstein) industries. He is a co-producer of the current Broadway hit, Kinky Boots.
A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War
Five Questions: Ronald Fierstein – A Triumph of Genius
Ronald Fierstein – A Triumph of Genius: Description
Apple founder Steve Jobs once hailed Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid and the father of instant photography, as “a national treasure” and once confessed to a reporter that meeting Land was “like visiting a shrine.” By his own admission, Jobs modeled much of his own career after Land’s. Both Jobs and Land stand out today as unique and towering figures in the history of technology. Neither had a college degree, but both built highly successful and innovative organizations. Jobs and Land were both perfectionists with an almost fanatic attentiveness to detail, in addition to being consummate showmen and instinctive marketers. In many ways, Edwin Land was the original Steve Jobs.
This riveting new biography visits the spectacular life of Edwin Land, perhaps the most important, yet least known inventor and technology entrepreneur in American history. Land’s most famous achievement was the creation of a revolutionary film and camera system that could produce a photographic print moments after the picture was taken. A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War takes you behind the scenes of this reclusive genius’s discoveries, triumphs, and defeats.
A Triumph of Genius: Edwin Land, Polaroid, and the Kodak Patent War by Ronald K. Fierstein
