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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.

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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.

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