11–20 of 76 posts
Possibly sadder is that the FDA actively helped Bayer to try and cover the whole thing up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/business/2-paths-of-bayer-...
Seriously I can't believe it's not even mentioned.
Blockbuster passing on the Netflix purchase... Yahoo! passing on Google...
I still chuckle when I think about Yahoo's total market cap being less than the value of their share in Alibaba. The market determined that Yahoo! had negative worth. Ouch!
1. Yahoo not buying Google? 2. Yahoo rejecting the Microsoft offer? Glad (1) didn't happen though. Pretty sure they'd have screwed it all up for everyone.
Funny scenario: If Microsoft bought Yahoo, that would've ALSO been on this list for consideration as the biggest mistake for a big company.
This one is easy: Decca recording turning down the Beatles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles%27_Decca_auditio... "We don't like their sound, and guitar groups are on the way out." Sort of like Adidas turning down Michael Jordan for not being tall enough, except that Adidas is still in business.
Also guitar groups were on their way for a while. The charts in the early 1960s were pop bands like the Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Andy Williams, The Sensations, Ray Charles, etc. Obviously, rock became a powerful force by the mid 1960s but that was difficult to predict. I don't think anyone saw the British Invasion, Dylan, psychedelic rock, and the hippie counter-culture coming.
Umm, Bhopal? Seriously I can't believe it's not even mentioned.
Rereading the details of the incident, it is striking how negligence at every level compounded the problem. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster) If not for a long string of terrible decisions, nobody would have been hurt, killed, or poisoned. Even worse than I remembered.
See also "Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia"(http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-be...). There are an appalling number of these incidents. It's quite depressing if you think about it.
As recently as 2009, Nokia was estimated by Interbrand to be one of the top 5 global brands [1]. Interbrand's guesstimate at the monetary value rated "Nokia" as being worth over two times as much as "Apple". Just four years later, in 2013, Nokia had lost 80% of its value and Apple's brand was estimated to be worth about 13 times more. Such a tremendous collapse for a global brand seems unprecedented. (And no, it wasn…
This one is easy: Decca recording turning down the Beatles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles%27_Decca_auditio... "We don't like their sound, and guitar groups are on the way out." Sort of like Adidas turning down Michael Jordan for not being tall enough, except that Adidas is still in business.
Isn't this common in publishing and in music? Every big hit seems to have been turned down several times. A lot of publishing houses aren't the arbiters of taste but instead have goals and metrics for certain types of work and only shop for them. You may have a great historical novel on your hands, but if the agents are only looking at sci-fi and YA stuff, then you might get turned down until you find a publisher wil…
Contrast with Blockbuster's decision not to buy Netflix. It may have been understandable, and hindsight is 20:20 (I left Google because I couldn't figure out how they'd ever make any money), but these are nonetheless big mistakes.
As recently as 2009, Nokia was estimated by Interbrand to be one of the top 5 global brands [1]. Interbrand's guesstimate at the monetary value rated "Nokia" as being worth over two times as much as "Apple". Just four years later, in 2013, Nokia had lost 80% of its value and Apple's brand was estimated to be worth about 13 times more. Such a tremendous collapse for a global brand seems unprecedented. (And no, it wasn…
When the beautiful-looking N96[1] was announced early that year, I excitedly signed up to be notified of availability, and waited expectantly for a call or email.
I never heard anything.
A few months later, the iPhone hit the market in Australia. I bought one shortly after, and have used only iPhones ever since.
Could they have done anything to rival the iPhone? Who knows, but I feel that if only they'd been the kind of company that followed up with loyal customers who'd expressed strong interest in buying their new release, they might have had a better chance at building a competitive product.