Turning down the most successful brand in history and rejecting the chance of buy one of the world’s most important inventions are just two of the 10 worst business decisions of all time. Learn more with AllTime10s.
10NEW COKE
In 1985 Coca-Cola rebranded to „coke“ and changed its 99 year old recipe. Coca-Cola got 400.000 complaints and after their market share fell to 1.4% they changed back within 87 days.
09FOX SELLS STAR WARS
In 1977 20th Century Fox signed over all its star wars merchandising rights to George Lucas for just 20.000 dollar. Today two-thirds of star wars 30 billion dollar value is from merch-sales.
08BLOCKBUSTER REJECTS NETFLIX
In 2000 blockbuster declined a struggling netflix´s offer to buy them out for 50 million dollar. 14 years later blockbuster shuts all 9.000 of its stores and Netflix is now worth 900 million.
07MARS REJECTS E.T.
In 1981 Mars Company declined the offer to feature M/M´s in “E.T.” in return for promoting the film on the wrapper. Instead, rivals reese´s pieces featured and reese´s sales shot up 65%.
06THE TELEPHONE PATENT
In 1876 Communications Company Western Union turned down a 100.000 dollar offer for the telephone patent. They said that the telephone was an “electrical toy” with “no commercial possibilities”.
05GEORGE LUCAS SELLS PIXAR
In 1986 Steve Jobs bought Pixar from Lucas-film for 5 million dollar. 20 years later Disney bought Pixar for almost 1500 times more: 7.4 billion dollar.
04KODAK´S DIGITAL CAMERA
Kodak created the first digital camera in 1975 but kept quiet they feared for their control of the film market. When sales plummeted, they declared bankruptcy in 2012.
03APPLE CO-FOUNDER SELLS SHARES
Apple co-founder Ron Wayne sold his shares in the company in 1976 for just 800 dollar. By 1977 sales were already at 2.7 million and today his shares would be worth 35 billion dollar.
02DECCA TURNS DOWN THE BEATLES
In 1962 The Beatles gave a 2-hour audition for Decca Records. Weeks later Decca got in touch and rejected them because “four-piece groups with guitars are finished”.
01YAHOO REJECTS GOOGLE
Yahoo has rejected Google – twice. The first time was in 1977 for 1 million dollar and then again in 2002 for 5 billion dollar. Today Google is worth ten times more than Yahoo, at 350 billion dollar.
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