Worst business decisions ever.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Decca Records not signing The Beatles, who signed with EMI right after and went on to become... The Beatles. One of the all time biggest oof's of all time.

[Cthulhu 2020]

It's weird, here is a nice vid featuring the guy collecting some water. I think it also shows the dangers of these kind of people, he's a reasonably charismatic guy that can come off as pretty smart. But if you look pass that veneer all that's left is an overconfident idiot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI-Y...annel=VICENews

Reminds me of the guy who came up with the idea for Dreamworld. He's got an uncle that has big sway on an investment board and just threw money at him to make this game that was going to be "Every game and every genre".

This guy already had a track record of stupid ideas. i.e. his first startup was I kid you not, a speaker you strap to your chest so you can listen to music while you run. The dude claims he got hit by taxis on two separate occasions because he had his ear buds in and wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. A simple problem to fix by simply PAYING ATTENTION TO WHERE THE FUCK YOU'RE GOING but he apparently thought this was a common enough problem that he "invented" a speaker that straps to your chest. Yes, it was a speaker, so everyone around you would be able to hear your music as well.

There's a full documentary on this guy here.

[WintersLegion]

Kodak invented the digital camera in the 1970's and the inventer said the executives had this to say about it.

They were convinced that no one would ever want to look at their pictures on a television set. Print had been with us for over 100 years, no one was complaining about prints, they were very inexpensive, and so why would anyone want to look at their picture on a television set?

[Shadowferal]

An energy company bought a Telcom I was working for. ($30mil purchase with debts assumed) The energy company had their own smaller telcom and decided to add to it. They had no idea wtf they were doing, they went from small-time to big overnight, and one atupid decision after another;
Salespeople went from commission to salary

Any emergency a company has, typically a hospital with a system that crashed gets called in and a trouble ticket gets issued, but the first thing that needs to be answered by the person calling it in is whether they have a credit card with at least $50k on it.

It just kept getting worse..."Business Weekly" wrote a couple of articles basically asking "wtf?"
The union tried telling them what they were doing wrong...wrong..and wrong. But it all fell on deaf ears. After posting an $800mil loss in one quarter the CEO admitted that they couldn't do business like this anymore and everything would shut down in 6 months...biggest fucking waste of MBAs.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Kodak invented the digital camera in the 1970's and the inventer said the executives had this to say about it.

They were convinced that no one would ever want to look at their pictures on a television set. Print had been with us for over 100 years, no one was complaining about prints, they were very inexpensive, and so why would anyone want to look at their picture on a television set?

Old people who are used to old tech and scared of new tech make poor future business decisions. News at 11.

[PC2]

I think the worst business decision happened around a few thousand years ago. At that point civilization could have started the industrial revolution but chose to reject the values underpinning the industrial revolution. It represents an astronomical loss of potential business, imo.

Also I think a similar argument can be made in relation to the agricultural revolution. People could have started agricultural production thousands of years earlier but failed to make progress when it probably was possible for them to do so earlier in time.

[Poopymonster]

The agent who told an opening act for The Monkees he'd never go anywhere with his talent. Jimi Hendrix proved him wrong.

[draynay]

Yahoo passed on buying Google for $1M.

Whoops.

It's amazing how many things Yahoo screwed up.

They screwed up buying Google again, this time for $5B

The things they did buy, they bungled, like Flickr & Tumblr

Failed to buy Facebook

Refused to sell to Microsoft for 10x what they'd eventually sell to Verizon for.

Of course Yahoo messed up everything they bought so they might even have ruined google, who knows we might be stuck having to "Ask Jeeves".

[CastletonSnob]

Nickelodeon passed on Adventure Time, Ed Edd n Eddy, and Phineas and Ferb, and instead picked up Fanboy and Chum-Chum, Breadwinners, and Planet Sheen.

Now, you can say that AT, EEnE, and P&F wouldn’t have been the same show or wouldn’t have been as successful on Nickelodeon, but that doesn’t change the fact that Nickelodeon passed on those shows, and they became HUGE hits for their competitors. It also doesn’t change the fact that Nickelodeon passed on those shows, and instead picked up OBJECTIVELY terrible shows like Fanboy and Chum-Chum, Breadwinners, and Planet Sheen.

[Draco-Onis]

I think the worst business decision happened around a few thousand years ago. At that point civilization could have started the industrial revolution but chose to reject the values underpinning the industrial revolution. It represents an astronomical loss of potential business, imo.

Also I think a similar argument can be made in relation to the agricultural revolution. People could have started agricultural production thousands of years earlier but failed to make progress when it probably was possible for them to do so earlier in time.

There's no shortage of example of the magical man in the sky holding up human progress but I think the OP was referring to individual business decisions.

[kail]

Right now, invading Ukraine and collapsing your country's economy and image.

And maybe not a big company by any means, but Artesians fall comes to mind on how an individual can screw up an entire organization.

[PC2]

I think the OP was referring to individual business decisions.

Yes you're correct but I couldn't think of an example that was better than what other people chose. So instead of repeating what has already been said I thought it would be better to think about the question from a different perspective, because I think the question is somewhat open to interpretation.

[Cthulhu 2020]

I think the worst business decision happened around a few thousand years ago. At that point civilization could have started the industrial revolution but chose to reject the values underpinning the industrial revolution. It represents an astronomical loss of potential business, imo.

Also I think a similar argument can be made in relation to the agricultural revolution. People could have started agricultural production thousands of years earlier but failed to make progress when it probably was possible for them to do so earlier in time.

Yes, it certainly sucked that the world was in an age of scientific enlightenment and then religion came along and ruined it all.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

A lot of these "Worst Business Decisions ever" are only seen that way through the benefit of hindsight.

[Shadowferal]

A lot of these "Worst Business Decisions ever" are only seen that way through the benefit of hindsight.

Not in my case.
One doesn't tell a customer...who has a contract and an account, that no help will be given unless the customer can pay up front. Libertarian shit is what that was. Bankruptcy was a foregone conclusion.

[Logwyn]

Yahoo passed on buying Google for $1M.

Whoops.

Excite.com could have gotten it for $750k

Western Union not buying the patient the telephone.
Edwin Drake Fails To Patent His Oil Drill
Electronic Data Systems doesn't meet with Bill Gates.
Motorola passes on the smartphone.
New Coke from Coca-Cola

[Forogil]

New Coke from Coca-Cola

Actually despite being one of the worst business decisions it still worked out in the end (after reintroducing the original).

It even worked so well that some thought it was a marketing ploy.
And in hindsight it was even smarter, since as an extra bonus it meant that Bill Cosby stopped doing Coke commercials.

[Poopymonster]

Actually despite being one of the worst business decisions it still worked out in the end (after reintroducing the original).

It even worked so well that some thought it was a marketing ploy.
And in hindsight it was even smarter, since as an extra bonus it meant that Bill Cosby stopped doing Coke commercials.

I actually liked New Coke back when I was a kid.

[Kallisto]

I actually liked New Coke back when I was a kid.

Pretty much all blind taste tests had people preferring New coke > original coke.

[Poopymonster]

Pretty much all blind taste tests had people preferring New coke > original coke.

To be fair, we also had just taken lead out of most things, so that should factor in.