Eli the Mysterious

Coming back from my cousin Liz's funeral yesterday I flew from Indianapolis to Detroit in the company of a Delta Captain and a man named Eli. The three of us had an animated conversation from takeoff to landing, one I was particularly interested in because Eli said he worked for the Chinese OEM company that builds 40% of the world's component music loudspeakers—nothing under its own name, all OEM. During the hour-long conversation I gleaned various bits of information about Eli's career. He said he was 62 or 64 years old and that he'd working in audio-related fields for 43 years. But I didn't quite get his name, so I asked him as we landed, and he began to spell, "H-a-r..." and I repeated that, and then he said "ends with '-rari,' just like 'Ferrari.'"

So, back at base camp, I Googled "Eli Harari" and up came multiple pictures of the guy next to me on the plane...or so I think. But the pictures and websites identified him as the now-retired founder and former Chairman of SanDisk, who is essentially the principal inventor of "digital film," i.e., system flash memory.

However, I'm at a loss as to how to reconcile the various disparities between the online information I've found and what my seatmate told me about himself. Did I just get the name wrong? Quite possibly. Sure looks like the same guy, although I guess couldn't swear to it in court.

Second career? Mistaken identification? An imposter!? I guess I'll never know. Should have gotten his card.

But in any case, as I researched the actual Dr. Harari trying to unravel my little mystery, I found a 2011 "oral history" at the Computer History Museum, which I read. In it I found this anecdote (I've cleaned up the punctuation a bit):

[At the 2010] Consumer Electronics Show, I was walking through the booth, and—with another guy, a SanDisk guy—so when we were going into the Kodak booth, he kind of whispers to me, kind of in jest, he says, "You know, you better not let them know who you are."

And I said, I was a little puzzled, I said, "Well, what do you mean?"

He said, "Well, you are the man who killed Kodak."

And I thought about it, and actually, no, really Kodak killed Kodak. I didn't kill Kodak, nobody killed Kodak. They killed themselves. We worked with Kodak Japan on this compact flash, parts of Kodak understood the value and the power of this technology, and were very strong partners of ours. But the hubris that you get, at some of these companies that have a monopoly...Kodak had 70 percent market share in film. They were 65 percent, or so, gross margin, so they were just milking it, and they just wanted this thing [digital] to go away. And they had the technology, Kodak had the CCD technology, they had the digital imaging, they had everything they needed to displace themselves, but they didn't have the guts to do it, and it was done for them.

I mean, we were part of that, we enabled digital photography, but it was not—we never dreamed that we would—what had happened. The dramatic—because silver halide is such a good technology, really, I mean, you have 30-megapixel resolution, you know, perfect images, for $2.99, $3.99, for 24, so—but you kind of see the extent of the devastation to Kodak. Their market cap today is about one tenth of SanDisk's market cap, and I think that we are undervalued. So this is a very unforgiving field.

A quote from Eli Harari of SanDisk, who I might or might not have sat next to on the plane. Or maybe I sat next to a guy who looked like him whose name I got wrong.

The most telling phrase of that quote: "[Kodak] had everything they needed to displace themselves, but they didn't have the guts to do it, and it was done for them." That's what I've always believed, although I know some others don't agree.

Mike
(Thanks to the mysterious Eli)

P.S. A couple of tidbits to pass along—the Delta pilot, Tom, very nice guy, said that in his opinion the Indianapolis airport is the nicest airport in the U.S., and LaGuardia is the worst. And Eli the Mysterious, who said he works for the Far Eastern speaker manufacturer that builds loudspeakers sold under dozens of different name brands, said that Revel speakers, designed by Kevin Voeks (pronounced "vakes"), are the best.

P.P.S. Sorry for the poor reporting in this piece...I did my best under the circumstances!

[UPDATE: Two regular readers/contributors quickly zeroed in on the solution to my mystery. John Camp (a.k.a. John Sandford) immediately realized that Eli Harari of SanDisk is "like the 157th wealthiest individual in the world," and that billionaires only seldom travel coach class on commercial carriers. But it was writer and researcher primus inter pares Jim Hughes who first identified my seatmate as Eli Harary—a "y," not an "i"—who is indeed a longtime stalwart of the audio industry.

Eli Harary

Eli Harari

I still haven't figured out what the company is that Eli Harary works for...companies are really guarded about sharing the identities of their OEM suppliers, or even that they have OEM suppliers at all, and, hence, OEM suppliers themselves keep a remarkably low profile.

UPDATE to the UPDATE: beuler discovered that "Meiloon is the name of the company. From Eli's public LinkedIn profile: 'Meiloon Industrial is the worlds leading ODM/OEM of premium audio products.'"

Thanks to everyone who corresponded with me about this, and to those who figured it out. I need to hire better reporters!  :-)  —Mike the Ed.]

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark Sampson: "I worked as an industrial photographer at Kodak from 1984 until 2004, so I was there for all that. Mr. Harari's assessment is spot on."

Comments

[Geoff Wittig]

I've heard basically the same story about Kodak from several former Kodak engineers, as I live in the Rochester NY region. All of them regretfully told tales of brilliant technology innovations, from electronic imaging to cheap-but-excellent molded glass lenses, with lots of promise, that were quashed by management because they threatened the existing revenue stream and promised to disrupt a cushy think the company had going.

Until others did it for them, and the lumbering colossus finally collapsed.

[EZ]

You met Eli Harary (LinkedIn profile https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=6735322), google the correct spelling and you will find Eli the Mysterious, who does in fact resemble the Dr. Harari from Sandisk.

[Mike R]

Re Kodak: It is sad to see a company do what Kodak did, but I've seen it before.

Some decades ago I worked for a lead-acid battery company that essentially invented the market, back in the early days of electricity usage. They had predominant market share. They had comfortable profit margins. And they sat on it, loafing along in a "no one can touch us" attitude while their facilities decayed. They eventually were the subject of a hostile takeover, and like Kodak, exist now mostly as a brand name.

[Jay Tunkel]

I've heard Revel speakers - they are astonishing AND expensive. But "best" is a description that will just lead to arguments...

[Chuck Albertson]

+1 on LaGuardia. Every time I have to go through it, I think of "The Worst Toilet In Scotland" scene in "Trainspotting."

[Roger McDonald]

Maybe it was Eli Harary?

[Tim McGowan]

What if the rest of the story is, they're twins ?

[Kostas]

Perhaps the person you met was the Eli Harary mentioned below:
http://www.cepro.com/article/eli_harary_launches_luxury_brand_audioxperts
The profile seems to match (40 years in the audio industry), and he does look a bit similar to Eli Harari of Sandisk.

[nicholas von staden]

They were smug....and liked the cow they were milking....

[Michael Cytrynowicz]

Mike, there's a video of him speaking, off Princeton U's site
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S28/21/45O47/index.xml?section=mm-featured

[Michael Cytrynowicz]

Fascinating story, BTW.
I actually happen to work 5-10 min from SanDisk :-)

[Michael Martin-Morgan]

Should have got his SD card, hee hee ...

[Dave Pawson]

We are told there are 6 real doubles in the world Mike. You may have met one?
Interesting nevertheless.

[John Driggers]

From my Google searching...

"Merchandising is key to driving the category and retailers that are able to properly place the speakers around a television and use good source material from either a laser disk, DVD player or VCR will be able to sell the product, said Eli Harari, JBL Consumer Products' senior vice president of marketing."

And..

"Hi Amir, I see you have the setup already with the JBL, yes I would try. I was personally trained by Eli Harari and Floyd Toole when I became Synthesis dealer number 2 for system Phoebe many moons ago. I understand and respect the phillosophy but was not pleased with the screeshing sound I was getting with the first generation system."

I'd guess that was your man of mystery. By the way, Harmon International (Harmon Kardon) bought JBL a while back.

[Gustaf]

I do believe it was this guy you sat next to:
http://www.strata-gee.com/eli-harary-ex-dm-launches-audioxperts/

(google is amazing sometimes!)

[Tom Kwas]

+1 for the Indy airport...I hate Indianapolis for so many reasons (now that I'm living here), and it's cultural and sociological attributes are NOT going to make it a future city, but they built a nice airport! Of course, if you're trying to fly out of here instead of just laying over, it's got some of the highest ticket prices I've ever seen! I can get cheaper airfare by driving to St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chicago, Milwaukee, virtually anywhere really...

[Gordon Lewis]

His name was Eli Harary of AudioXperts. Sounds exactly the same as "Harrari" but spelled differently.

[Jim in Denver]

LaGuardia airport is, in fact, one of the worst airports in the country.

[Geoffrey Meyer-van Voorthuijsen]

Hey Mike, try googling Eli Harary.

[Eolake]

"The most telling phrase of that quote: "[Kodak] had everything they needed to displace themselves, but they didn't have the guts to do it, and it was done for them."

Why did Sony not make the iPod, when they had the Walkman? Because they had the Walkman.
Apple realized phones would swollow iPods eventually, so they made sure they themselves were the first to do it. They became the world's richest company partly by being the biggest cannibal.

[Speed]

Re: Kodak ... From the back cover (via Amazon) of The Innovator's Dilemma:

Focusing on “disruptive technology,” Christensen shows why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. Whether in electronics or retailing, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know when to abandon traditional business practices. Using the lessons of successes and failures from leading companies, The Innovator’s Dilemma presents a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.

One of Christianson's strong recommendations is to put a disruptive technology into a new business unit physically separate from the big old cash cow.

[ctein]

Dear Mike,

Well, we are all really vision-impaired individuals trying to divine an excessively large pachyderm, but I'll stick with my old analysis:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/01/so-what-about-kodak.html

(people should note that it was written five years ago, but it's not like the history changes)

Honestly, though, Kodak was such a huge enterprise that I don't think any one individual will have a full and accurate take on their last couple of decades as Ruler of the World. Not even their senior execs and corporate overlords.

pax / Ctein

[Ron]

Your story reminds me of the time a friend and I were perusing the photography section at the Portland Art Museum while waiting for a seminar to begin, and were approached by an elderly gentleman who claimed to have invented digital photography. He showed us a little blurry pixelated picture of his baby son, and claimed it was the first digital photo.

I'm grateful to have been courteous and not dismissive of the man -- self-introduced as Russell Kirsch -- who could have easily been dismissed as a batty old coot. While waiting for the seminar to begin, a bit of Googling showed him to be exactly who he said he was... baby picture and all!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_A._Kirsch

[beuler]

Meiloon is the name of the company. From Eli's public LinkedIn profile "Meiloon Industrial is the worlds leading ODM/OEM of premium audio products."

[Mark Sirota]

Okay, so the pilot shared his opinion of the best and worst airports, and the loudspeaker guy shared his opinion of the best loudspeakers... What did you share about cameras?

[steveH]

Eolake's comment about Apple and cannibalism rings true (that they're willing to cannibalize their own product line) today, but it wasn't always so.

I worked at Apple during the earlier period, 1979-85, and cannibalizing their products was a secret terror, probably mostly of marketing. And that panic hurt them more than once. For example, the Apple/// had an Apple][ mode internally. It worked just fine, except that it was crippled intentionally by being limited to 48K of memory. There was no good reason for doing that, in fact it was more complicated to set that limit to the hardware, but whoever dictated it was afraid that if it wasn't limited in function, that sales of the $3K+ Apple/// would cannibalize sales of the $2K Apple][.

They've gotten over the issue.

[Ed]

JBL oem'ed the drivers for Revel, and Harary apparently worked for JBL at one time, so no surprise he was pimping Revel.

[Doug]

Ya know, people like to jump on Kodak. I'm sure there were some folks inside the company dragging their feet, but Kodak was a tech leader and a sales leader in digital photography. At the time Kodak decided that digital photography wasn't their future, they held about the same position in sensors that Sony does today, and their EasyShare cameras were the top-selling brand in the US.

There simply wasn't enough money in digital photography for a company of Kodak's size, and there never was going to be. Kodak was a $14B company. According to CIPA, all of the Japanese digital camera manufacturers put together only shipped $8.1B last year, and in Kodak's market of point-and-shoots, only $3B. Next year's numbers will probably be well below that, especially for point-and-shoots.