Originally published at: Under pressure, Instant Pot's parent company simmers into bankruptcy | Boing Boing
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This, of course, didn’t just “happen”. The company had been taken over by private equity and vampire squidded just like Guitar Center. So if you’ve noticed your Pyrex breaking a lot more than it used to, thank capitalism!
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I mean, Mom had/has a ton of pyrex from the 50s and 60s … the PE firms weren’t the downfall of Pyrex, they started getting awful around the mid 90s and by the time they spun off in 1998 it was already crap because they were no longer using industrial customer processes to make it, but consumer grade processes.
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Deciphering the MBA-speak: we’re over-leveraged and can’t afford to make our loan payments because somebody decided to siphon out all of the company’s equity by borrowing against it.
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In short: Goodfellas Restaurant Scene - YouTube
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Yep - it’s hard to nail down exactly when it happened in a quick search, but somewhere along the line Pyrex stopped using borosilicate glass and started using soda lime, and that’s when it lost its legendary thermal shock resistance.
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Bastards killed Pyrex and are gonna kill Corning too!!! WTAF
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That said, tempered soda lime glass is what is used in car side windows and it’s incredibly strong as well as, when it does break, breaking into tiny pieces that are much less dangerous than the large sharp edges that come from untempered glass including borosilicate. So from a strictly safety standpoint the tempered glass is probably better. That may be small consolation when your cookware shatters due to thermal stress when you take it out of the oven and set it down on a cold surface.
Either way it happened dexades before the recent financial engineering that led to bankruptcy.
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I’m just going to include the whole wikipedia entry for ‘Cornell Capital’:
Cornell Capital is a New York City-based private financial investment corporation.[1] It was founded in 2013 by Henry Cornell, a former Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs’ Merchant Banking Division most notable for his opposition to the South Fork Wind Farm.[2]
Cornell acquired Instant Brands, the company that makes Instant Pot, from its founder in 2019.[3] Four years later, Instant Brands filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[4]
So, presumably Henry Cornell is happy and fuck everyone else.
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The HUGE Advantage of Borosilicate Glass is that it does Not Expand when it gets Hot. Thus no internal stress build up like tempered glass.
So one can safely take an item out of the oven and put it on the dining room table without fear the cookware will EXPLODE in your face.
Tempered Glass CANNOT make that claim.
It’s true that pyrex has been a decal brand for a long time in the USA.
Brian
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Yes. In this case strength, as measured for tempered glass, is in opposition to the durability you get from old-fashioned Pyrex. There are lots of different metrics for each of strength, toughness, impact and shock resistance, modulus, and how these vary directionally and under different environmental conditions, and it makes any attempt to clearly and non-technically discuss (and cut through marketing speak about) these things almost unavoidably frustrating. (Context: I’m a materials scientist by training, working as a consultant to explain new tech, usually to non-experts).
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Any patents on borosilicate glass must have run out ages ago. Is anyone else making cookware out of it?
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Good thing InstantPots, and Pyrex and Corning glassware, don’t require continuous updates to continue functioning, Whew. 
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Gonna start hoarding spare lid gaskets, though.
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