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The Death of Europe's Last Electronics Giant

TechAltar
Documentaries
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this documentary1 month2023–2025 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN points to it when asked why many Philips-branded products aren't made by Philips, and for the company's decline.

TechAltar's history of Philips, once Europe's largest tech company and a world leader in lighting, radio and physical media. It traces how the company sold off or spun out its businesses, until little remains but the licensed name.

“Techalter did a good job describing the fate of a lot of Philips different businesses and product lines.” (HN, 2023)

1 recommendations · 2 citations · Documentaries · partly dated

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@this_steve_j Feb 2024 Cites it
on HN thread FDA says 561 deaths tied to recalled Philips sleep apnea machines
TechAltar on youtube posted a video last year about the decline of Philips. They apparently just excel at toothbrushes, smart bulbs, and shavers nowadays, and cash in on the name through licensing. [1] It is an unfortunate tragedy that so many people died because a corporation did the wrong things. The US FDA has many flaws to be sure, and they are not known for making fast decisions. It sounds like more lives could have been saved. A member of my family fortunately stopped using their device when it was recalled and has struggled to find a replacement. [1] [this video]
Cited for Philips decline and name licensing
@ycombinete Oct 2025 Cites it
on HN thread We saved $500k per year by rolling our own "S3"
Beware of Philips in general: [this video] They've mostly sold off bits of themselves, and/or licensed their name to other producers. It's highly unlikely that Philips actually made that camera.
Shows Philips sold off businesses and licenses its name

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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