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Comment by ysofunny | Hacker News Reader

> Zeiss isn't going to aspire to sell cheap glass on razor thin margins.

why not?

I assume if you’re on HN you work in tech.

As a side hustle, why don’t you start building and selling desktop PC’s to local businesses, competing with HP, Dell, etc on margin? That’s also tech, right?

While building cheap PCs at razor thin margins is adjacent to whatever your tech job is, and probably something you’re able to do, it probably wouldn’t be the most profitable use of your time

It's not what they do, like they probably won't start selling lawnmowers either.

Whilst I kind of see where you and the sibling comment is coming from, Zeiss do make glass- they make precision glass. Making cheap glass would be quality diversification, which is not exactly unheard of.

It sounds reasonable, but if they diversified quality, it would mean making precision glass and then also somewhat less precise glass. They will not start mass producing large panes of low margin glass. It's not what they're good at and it's not a lucrative market. Like Intel isn't going to start making jellybean parts.

They could license their name to some existing glass company, but they still wouldn't really be the ones producing it, and I think Zeiss has avoided diluting their brand name like this so far.

I don't disagree with you, but the way the GP comment made a joke of the idea was unfair IMHO.

I doubt Zeiss makes their own glass. Most optics companies outsource that to one of the big glass fabs: Schott, Ohara, CDGM.

Zeiss and Schott are both owned by the Carl Zeiss foundation; the origin story is somewhat covered by Material World by Ed Conway. It's a fantastic book and well worth a read.

WHAT!? This is my day job, but I'm embarrassed to admit I never realized that!

Thanks for the book rec, I'll probably start digging into it this weekend.

They don't have to. They're the best in the world, and they know it. They price accordingly.

Zeiss isn't in the business of selling cheap stuff on thin margins, no matter the product.

because they're Zeiss. They made the lenses for the photos on the moon, they're not small potatoes.

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