Stories of failed business partnerships. Unsuccessful world ideas in business (6 photos). Ethical issues are perceived differently in the world

Durability could be more important quality for your success than luck. One thing that all of these billionaires have in common is the ability to bounce back from blows.

It is common knowledge that most entrepreneurs fail at some point. Sometimes it is a colossal failure that leads to the closure of a startup. Other times, it's just a slight detour that leads to a great story. Regardless of the severity of the failures, many successful business people have had as many failures as they have won. And it has made every entrepreneur a little wiser and stronger.

This does not mean that this pill is easy to swallow. Failure is always hard. But if it's any consolation, even the most successful, powerful, and wealthy people in the US have also experienced failure at some point. Here's a look at how the 25 richest Americans experienced failure.

Note: We excluded the Koch brothers and the Walton and Mars families from the top 25 because they inherited their fortunes.

1. Bill Gates

Have you ever heard of Traf-O-Data? Probably not, but it's the name of Bill Gates' first company. The Traf-O-Data was a device that never worked, and Gates was never able to sell it to anyone. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen said: "Although Traf-O-Data was not a resounding success, it was a milestone in the preparation of the first Microsoft product, which we made a couple of years later."

Gates' "worth" today is a staggering $77.5 billion, so he must have learned a valuable lesson from that first failure.

2. Warren Buffett

Even the great Warren Buffett has experienced a few fiascos in his storied career. In 1951, Buffett bought a Sinclair Texaco gas station and failed to turn a profit. But by 1962 Buffett was already a millionaire. And even then he learned a few more lessons.

In 1962, Buffett began buying shares in Berkshire Hathaway's textile business, but then they began to fall. Buffett made a deal with Seabury CEO Stanton to sell back his shares. When the paperwork was delivered to Buffett for signing, it turned out that Stanton had changed the terms and made an offer 1/8 point lower. Buffett admitted later that this angered him so much that instead of selling, he bought more shares to take control of the company and fire Stanton. To make matters worse, Buffett continued to support the failed textile business (the historic core of Berkshire Hathaway) for another 20 years before he "turned off the power." Today, he calls this decision his “200 billion mistake.”

3. Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison (along with his former boss, Bob Miner) founded Oracle in 1977. By 1980, Oracle had not yet achieved much success, forcing Ellison to mortgage his house to secure a line of credit.

Allison never gave up. As the company focused on the SQL database programming language, it changed the business software standards that dominated the market in the 1980s. However, Oracle was once again on the brink of disaster in 1990 because software contained errors, and some delivered orders were not paid. Ellison responded by laying off a lot of employees and rewarding salespeople who made real money. In 1995, Oracle earned $2.5 billion in revenue.

In 1999, when he tried to beat Bill Gates with his Network Computer (NC), Ellison suffered another setback. NCs might work today, but in 1999 they were too limited and expensive for consumers who could only go online and store documents, videos, etc. using an Oracle database, much like Google's Chromebook today.

4. Sheldon Adelson

An entrepreneur by nature, Sheldon Adelson began his career at the age of 12 selling newspapers and toiletries on the streets. After serving in the military, he became a mortgage broker and investment advisor. At the age of 38, Adelson was worth $5 million. Stock market crashes and unwise investments caused him to lose his fortune not once, but twice.

Eventually, his love for computers led him to create COMDEX in 1979. COMDEX, one of the largest computer shows in the world until 2003, was the start to Adelson's current fortune of $38 billion.

5. Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg was fired from the investment bank Salomon Brothers. Bloomberg stated that he went on to start his own company because: “No one offered me a job, and I was probably too proud to look for one. And I said to myself, well, why not found own company? Over the next three years, Bloomberg developed his company, which was focused on finance, data and media. The firing of the future mayor of New York from the bank may have been for the best.

Big success came to Bloomberg after Merrill Lynch purchased 20 of his terminals. Bloomberg stated, “For the first year, you don't think about problems. The second year is more difficult. In the third year, you see the light at the end of the tunnel."

6. Larry Page

In 1998, Larry Page co-founded a small search engine called Google, from the mathematical term "googol" which represents the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. While Google is one of the most dominant internet services and providers in the world today, it has also made enough mistakes. Do you remember Wave, SearchWiki and Jaiku? Page, who became CEO in 2001, believes Google "probably missed out on too many people," which explains why its social platforms never took off like Facebook.

Don't expect Paige to repeat this mistake again. .

7. Jeff Bezos

In 1994, Jeff Bezos left the comfortable life in New York and moved to Seattle to sell books online. In the early days of Amazon, various glitches arose. At first, the company was supposed to be called Cadabra, but it turned out that this word sounds very similar to Cadaver (“corpse”). Bezos described another huge mistake: “We suddenly found that customers could order a negative amount of books, and we owed them money. And I guess they were still waiting for us to send them the books!”

Over the years, Bezos has continued to make adjustments and take risks, and it has worked. Today Amazon is the world's largest network retail. This success hasn't saved Amazon from several flops, however. For example, cycling Courier service deliveries Kozmo.com, question-and-answer website Askville, Groupon competitor LivingSocial, were all less than successful ventures.

8. Sergey Brin

Google co-founder Sergey Brin once had a "brilliant" idea. He came up with a business that would allow people to order pizza by fax. Reality put everything in its place. It turned out that not far from every pizzeria and potential client had a fax, which created an insoluble problem for his business.

9. Carl Icahn

Carl Icahn became famous as a corporate raider in the business world. Since buying a seat on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) in 1968, Icahn has made his fortune by taking over companies such as RJR Nabisco, Texaco, Marvel Comics, Revlon and Western Union.

Despite all his successes, Icahn experienced a number of setbacks, such as investing in TWA, which later went bankrupt. He also lost deals with companies such as Blockbuster, Time Warner and Motorola.

10. George Soros

George Soros, a Hungarian refugee who moved to New York in 1956, began his career as an arbitrage trader. He showed remarkable enthusiasm and talent as a short-term speculator, which led him to create one of the most profitable hedge funds, Soros Fund Management, in 1970. In 1992, Soros became $1 billion richer in just one day when he bet against the pound on Black Wednesday. However, he continued to lose. $600 million was lost in 1994 after he misjudged the yen against the dollar. To his credit, Soros said, "I'm rich because I know when I'm wrong."

11. Mark Zuckerberg

In 2004, while Mark Zuckerberg and his team were trying to spin Facebook, Zuckerberg was also running a project known as Wirehog (a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing service that was connected to Facebook). The idea behind this service was to allow Facebook users to share music, documents, and more. It was great idea on paper, but Facebook started getting lawsuits from copyright holders. Luckily, Wirehog didn't catch on and was put on hold in 2006.

Today, at 30, Mark Zuckerberg is worth $28.5 billion and is still learning from his mistakes: think of Facebook Lite, Facebook Gifts, Facebook Home and Poke.

12. Steve Ballmer

In 1980, Ballmer became the 30th Microsoft employee. Over the years, he has held numerous positions in the company, including the position of CEO from 2000 to 2014. How CEO Microsoft, Ballmer made a lot of mistakes. Some of his epic mistakes and failures: ridiculing the iPhone, the failed Windows Vista, spending billions fighting Google. He was also instrumental in the $500 million acquisition of Danger and Zune.

13. Len Blavatnik

Ukrainian-born businessman Leonard "The King" Blavatnik, owner of Access Industries, a holding company, made his fortune in oil and steel companies after the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the king lost $1.2 billion after entering the chemical industry. He borrowed money to buy Dutch manufacturer Basell in 2005 for $5 billion and then borrowed another $20 billion to buy Houston-based Lyondell. After the merger, Blavatnik was unable to repay the debt and declared bankruptcy. Fortunately for Blavatnik, the company soon managed to turn a profit and pay off the debt.

In 2011, Blavatnik acquired Warner Bros. Music for $3.3 billion because: "he likes how this will reflect on his social position."

14. Abigail Johnson

Abigail Johnson has been successful as president of the family business Fidelity Investments, where, by her own admission, she "does everything she can to make things right." Johnson is one of the richest and most powerful businesswomen in America despite some serious setbacks. For example, she lost two important clients, an experience she described as "extremely difficult and painful for me personally and for others."

15. Phil Knight

While studying at Stanford, Philip Knight wrote coursework about the shoe business. In 1962, he traveled to Japan and met the founder of Onitsuka Tiger Co, one of the oldest shoe companies in Japan. After returning home, he teamed up with Bill Bowerman of the University of Oregon to form Blue Ribbon Sports. Knight sold his first Tiger-branded sneakers straight from his green Plymouth Valiant on the roads throughout the Pacific Northwest. Sales soared and the company became Nike in 1978.

While the Air Jordan line was a great success, Nike neglected the growing interest in aerobics shoes in the late 1980s. Reebok took over this niche and Nike's sales fell 18%. In 1990, Knight responded with Nike Air, which restored Nike to its place as the leading footwear brand.

16. Michael Dell

Michael Dell founded Dell Computers in a dorm room at the University of Texas, Austin in 1984. By 1992, the 27-year-old entrepreneur became the youngest CEO to be included in the Forbes 500 list. Dell went on to become one of the world's largest sellers of personal computers.

Unfortunately, Dell also has a long list of failures in its attempts to make smartphones, tablets and MP3 players. The bulky Dell DJ could not compete with the iPod, the Dell Aero smartphone and the Dell Streak tablet failed. In 2013, Michael Dell bought back the shares in order to make his company private again and not depend on the opinion of shareholders.

17. Paul Allen

Paul Allen, worth $15 billion, is relatively wealthy thanks to his co-founding of Microsoft with Bill Gates. However, he missed a huge opportunity by selling his large stake in AOL cheaply in the early 1990s. Now they could be worth $40 billion.

18. Donald Bren

If you are the wealthiest real estate developer in the United States, you have definitely made it. After becoming the sole shareholder of Irvine Co in 1996, Bren controls "50,000 apartments, 40 million square feet of office space, 8 million square feet of retail space in Orange County, San Diego, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley" and is valued at $15.4 billion

Bren's career has been flawless, but his personal life has not. He was divorced three times and was involved in the process of paying alimony. Bren won in court, but continued to toss his dirty laundry to the public. However, Bren continues to make money despite a string of failed marriages and a negative public image.

19. Ronald Perelman

Ronald Perelman learned the basics of business from his father: how to acquire a company, reduce its debt by selling excess divisions, return the company to its original model, and then either own it or sell it. This strategy worked until he ran into a problem with Revlon. His investment company, MacAndrews & Forbes, failed to take Revlon private, resulting in a forfeit and conflict of interest.

20. Ann Cox Chambers

Ann Cox Chambers, ambassador to Belgium under Jimmy Carter, and her sister took over private media conglomerate Cox Enterprises after their father's departure. An heiress who continues to increase wealth, Chambers has also experienced a couple of setbacks. For example, a nearly $5 billion deal fell through between Cox Enterprises and Southwestern Bell. However, even more embarrassing is the fact that her papers often muddy the waters, giving her a not-so-good reputation.

21. Rupert Murdoch

He was born in Melbourne, Australia but considers the United States his home. Murdoch's media conglomerate is probably the largest in the world. It covers some of the top selling TV channels, movies, books and newspapers.

Murdoch is no stranger to failure, but he suffered a devastating blow after buying MySpace in 2005 for $580 million. Six years later, he was forced to sell the once-popular social media platform for just $35 million. Murdoch then simply wrote: "We screwed up completely."

22. Ray Dalio

Ray Dalio, "the king of the hedge fund industry", founded the world's largest hedge fund in his Manhattan apartment in 1975. While last years were uneven, Dalio still has $150 billion in assets.

Dalio's failures lie in his inappropriate behavior. On New Year's Eve 1974, he got drunk and hit his boss. Around the same time, at the California Food and Grain Association's annual convention, he paid an exotic dancer to rip off her clothes in front of a crowd. After being fired for his antics, he still convinced some of his clients to hire him as a consultant and founded Bridgewater. He was twenty six years old.

23. Charles Ergen

In 1980, Charles Ergen was just an ordinary professional gambler, until he was banned from the casino, suspected of cheating. What was the next logical step? Establish a satellite television business. After trading satellite dishes straight from a truck around Denver, Ergen and a partner finally founded EchoStar and secured a license and space on the satellite in 1992.

After that, he achieved incredible success with television. However, all attempts to develop the company into something more than a supplier of satellite television failed. Ergen acquired Blockbuster in 2011 in an attempt to build a video streaming service to compete with Netflix. This did not happen, and Ergen continues unsuccessful attempts by acquiring other companies, such as Sprint.

24. Harold Hamm

The story of Harold Hamm is amazing. The son of a sharecropper who never attended college, Hamm bought his first oil platform in 1971. For the next 15 years, he sat on this oil rig in Oklahoma. Things were going great in the 1970s, but things got much worse in the 1980s. Hamm nearly went bankrupt after 17 consecutive dry holes. However, Hamm worked on and his company Continental Resources generated $3.6 billion in revenue in 2013.

25. James Simons

You've probably never heard of James Simons, aka "The Quantum King". The former mathematician and codebreaker for the National Security Agency founded the Renaissance Technologies hedge fund in 1982. Since then, Simons and his company have been unstoppable. Renaissance Technologies is one of the most successful hedge funds, employing mathematicians from all over the world and using strategies of their own design.

This does not mean that Simons is perfect. He had losses with mortgage papers in 1997. Simons also helped Bernie Madoff raise money, but then he himself became suspicious, which ultimately led to an investigation into Madoff's activities (Madoff was sentenced to 150 years for organizing a pyramid scheme).

Of course, good leader knows when to change course. Each of these successful people I had to change course at some point. Some may have been a little late, but they were able to start over and fix everything. If you decide to start a company and achieve your dreams, don't forget to evaluate your resilience and constantly check the health of your business. If you need to change course, don't be afraid to. Perhaps this will allow you to become number 26 on this list!

Companies and entrepreneurs often set ambitious goals for themselves - to create a fundamentally new product or service, to find new approach to conduct business or, conversely, to stick to proven traditions, despite the changes. All this is done with the aim of making as much profit as possible, but some companies suffer losses instead.

In 2010, Mikhail Prokhorov's ONEXIM investment group announced the launch of a project to create an environmentally friendly "people's car". Its budget was 150 million euros. According to the developers, industrial production cars was supposed to start in 2012 at a plant near St. Petersburg, the price of the car was announced at 360 thousand rubles. Then the launch date was pushed back to 2013. And finally, in February 2013, it became known that the first mass-produced yo-mobile could be released in March 2015. The estimated price of the car also rose to almost 500 thousand rubles.

Many experts consider the statements about the start of serial production of hybrid cars unrealistic, since the E-Auto team is not experienced enough, and the project itself is low-budget. In 2011, ONEXIM admitted that it was looking for co-investors for the project. Sources estimated the necessary investments to support the project at 115 million euros.

Solar batteries "Rosnano"

Another example of an unsuccessful business idea in the Russian big business can serve as a project "Rosnano" with the group "Nitol" for the production of polycrystalline silicon for solar cells - "Usolye-Siberian Silicone". Since 2009, the company has invested RUB 9.4 billion in the project. However, this area turned out to be unprofitable: the cost of processing exceeds market prices by 7 times. Now Nitol has asked the state financial assistance in the amount of 4.7 billion rubles for the development of production. However, according to experts, such production in Russia has no prospects, since Russia is not a country where solar energy can become a priority, unlike Spain, for example. There, the development of solar energy has led to an increase in the cost of electricity.

chocolate crucifix

The American confectionery company Russel Stover released a new product in March 2004 - a 15 cm crucifix-shaped chocolate bar. The chocolate novelty outraged believers. Later, high-ranking clerics also joined the protests, believing that an edible crucifix was not the best way to express religious feelings.

True to the Ford tradition

In 1908, Henry Ford introduced the Model T to the emerging automobile market for the first time, then it was a state-of-the-art car with good value for money. Years passed, the American auto industry was actively developing, new companies appeared - manufacturers, new ones appeared, modern types cars. However, the head of Ford Motor, Henry Ford, refused to release new models and the company continued to produce outdated T. As a result, Henry Ford lost his 45% market share.

In pursuit of beer profit

Beer manufacturer Schlitz in the middle of the last century was second only to Budwaiser in terms of turnover in the United States. The ambitious director of Schlitz decided to overtake the competitor by using cheaper ingredients and speeding up the fermentation process, which would allow him to sell more beer. At first, this technology really increased the company's profits. But this did not last long, as Schlitz beer tasted worse, in addition, cheap beer ingredients settled at the bottom of the bottle and formed an unpleasant-looking substance. Schlitz ruined its reputation, but could not be rehabilitated.

Heart stimulator

Medical device manufacturer Guidant sold more than 50,000 new pacemakers before they were found to be short circuits. And most of them have already been implanted in people. Guidant went bankrupt after 45 short circuits and two deaths.

Failed Acquisitions

One of the most unreliable segments in business is the Internet, where competition is off the charts and technology is improving every day. In such conditions, the conclusion of transactions for the purchase of certain services is always a certain risk. So, in 1998, AOL bought the ICQ instant messaging service, developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis, for $ 400 million. Then it was biggest deal. But since then, ICQ has not been able to succeed, giving way to competitors such as MSN, Skype, Google Talks and other services. As a result, the service was sold to the Russian Mail Group for $187 million.

The biggest failure of AOL can be considered the purchase social network Bebo in 2008 for $850 million. The success of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook pushed the company to this step (the number of Facebook users increased by 150% monthly and reached 100 million by the end of the summer). However, AOL fails to create serious competition for the most popular social network in the world.

Over the next two years, the number of unique visitors to Bebo decreased from 22 million to 14.6 million per month, and then continued to fall. In the summer of 2010, Bebo bought out private foundation Criterion Capital Partners for $10 million, which is 85 times cheaper than the price at which the social network was bought by AOL. Now Bebo is a small company with a staff of 50 people.

The Power Mac G4 Cube is considered Apple's pinnacle of design and business failure at the same time. Thanks to the special transparent design of the case and speakers, this computer was included in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art.

The Cube was sold between 2000 and 2001. Apple positioned it between the iMac G3 and the Power Mac G4. However, despite its innovative design, the computer was criticized for being too expensive. In addition, the cases of the first copies had defects, due to which they were covered with small cracks. In addition, the Power Mac G4 Cube lacked an audio input. To save the day, Apple lowered the initial cost, installed a more powerful PowerPC G4 500 MHz processor, replaced the CD drive with a CD-RW, and also offered more advanced NVidia video cards as an option. But on July 3, 2001, Apple announced that the Power Mac G4 Cube was being discontinued.

If we are guided by the Pareto law, then out of 10 launched in real life 8 ideas will fail and only two will survive. We all love to read, but we often don't think about the fact that a huge percentage of projects fail and people lose money. Sometimes these are amounts in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.

We will talk about such projects today.

It is impossible to run a business without risk. Where does it all begin? Well, initially there is a promising idea in which there is a desire to invest money. Moreover, it should be noted that I want to invest not only the previously estimated amount, but also everything that is on the “balance sheet”, if only it works out! After that, all that remains is to wait ... maybe you'll be lucky.

Let's look at top 6 business projects, which did not justify either the investment or the hopes of investors

Average price per vehicle of this type, depending on the type of equipment, ranged from 450,000 to 490,000 rubles. The release of this hybrid model was planned for early 2015.

The amount of financial investment amounted to approximately 250 million euros. During the entire development phase, only four working copies were created. Moreover, one of them was presented as an advertisement to the most famous and provocative Russian politician - Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky.

The body of the produced Yo-Crossback EV hybrid had only three doors. Unfortunately, it was not possible to make a hybrid installation, for this reason only electricity is used to operate the machine. The project was closed last spring.

Business project number 2. Satellite is a search engine.

May 22, 2014 developers Russian company Rostelecom created search engine and a whole Internet portal, which was called "Sputnik".

The development price is 60 million US dollars. In the first few days, the number of transitions to other Internet resources amounted to more than five million. But already at the beginning of September 2014, the same figure dropped to 16,600 visitors. On the this moment, according to LiveIntrnet statistics, at least 1,000 people visit this Internet portal every month.

Business project number 3. Transport on two wheels Segway.

The amount of financial investment is 125,000,000 US dollars. The innovative vehicle was designed specifically to become a replacement for conventional cars and change the usual transport system in principle. Despite the use of advanced technology, this tool has become an alternative to the "hybrid" of walking and driving. But after all, a replacement has long been found for this - a bicycle, and its cost is several tens of times more affordable.

Today, the Segway has not become a replacement for the car. It has become something of an attraction that you can ride in the nearest amusement park.

In addition, already in the first couple of years, the invention received a bad reputation. In 2010, millionaire Jimi Heselden, who owns the Segway company, died at the age of 62 while walking on an innovative two-wheeler. By an absurd accident, he could not cope with the management and fell into a river in the UK.

Business project No. 4. Yotaphone.

This development was released to the public at the end of 2013. The domestic production organization YotaDevices worked on the project together with others. This lte phone is equipped with two active independent screens - a liquid crystal display and a display that works using the "electronic ink" technology.

Last year, a new model came out - Yotaphone 2.

The size of the investment fund is about 50 million US dollars. In the first thirty days, about 600 copies were sold at retail. Today, this kind of “smart phone” can be purchased on the market, but, unfortunately, investors do not feel much profit from this.

Business project No. 5. Bippy service.

The Bippy service is designed to allow network users to share with friends news about their latest purchases made using the card.

The amount of investment capital is 13,000,000 US dollars.

The idea did not work, because few Internet users wanted to provide the developer company with information about their passwords. bank cards. And to everything else, online shopping is not so interesting for the average man in the street.

Business project No. 6. Auto from the manufacturer "Marussia Motors".

In 2007, the famous race car driver and showman Nikolai Fomenko, with the support of businessman Yefim Ostrovsky, founded one of the largest domestic automotive companies. It was this organization that was engaged in the production of "sports cars" "Marusya".

Already after 7 years this company was declared bankrupt, and all her property was sold at auction.

The total contribution to the project was 100,000,000 euros. But, unfortunately, the concept of the new car turned out to be incapable of life and, as a result, the serial production of the “sports car” did not happen.

The Marusya project was not the only one.

At the beginning of 2014, 3,600,000,000 rubles were allocated at the state level for the development of a vehicle intended for the country's ruling people. The working name of the development is "Tuple". The budget was planned to be used over the next two years.

They were engaged in the development of FSUE NAMI and the MarussiaMotors concern.

The goal of any business is to make a profit. Small failures happen periodically, but big players who know the market and the laws of financial movement are also familiar with the collapse. Luck is a capricious lady, it is impossible to predict her mood.

Companies and entrepreneurs often set ambitious goals for themselves - to create a fundamentally new product or service, to find a new approach to doing business, or, conversely, to stick to proven traditions, despite the changes.

All this is done with the aim of making as much profit as possible, but some companies suffer losses instead. In 2010, the ONEXIM investment group announced the launch of a project to create an environmentally friendly "people's car". Its budget was 150 million euros.

According to the developers, the industrial production of cars was to begin in 2012 at a plant near St. Petersburg, the price of the car was announced at 360 thousand rubles. Then the launch date was pushed back to 2013. And finally, in February 2013, it became known that the first mass-produced yo-mobile could be released in March 2015. The estimated price of the car also rose to almost 500 thousand rubles.

Many experts consider the statements about the start of serial production of hybrid cars unrealistic, since the E-Auto team is not experienced enough, and the project itself is low-budget. In 2011, ONEXIM admitted that it was looking for co-investors for the project. Sources estimated the necessary investments to support the project at 115 million euros.

Every reputable company sometimes sets itself very ambitious goals - someone is trying to find fresh business solutions, and someone is trying to create a new product. All this is done in order to get as much profit as possible, but not everyone is lucky. Cases are known when large companies suffered losses of millions of dollars and disappeared without a trace, and all because they chose the wrong strategy.

Decca and The Beatles: pernicious taste.

In December 1961, the manager of a major British record label, Decca, traveled to Liverpool to listen to a local band formed by four young men play. It seemed to him that the guys had talent, and he invited the group to audition in London. In the capital, the group spent two hours performing in front of the studio bosses, performing 15 songs. Then they went home to wait for an answer.

Several weeks passed and no response came. Finally, studio director Dick Rowe, who was personally present at the audition, sent a letter to the group manager saying that Decca was not interested in the team - they are too similar to the popular The group Shadows! In his letter, Rowe also pointed out that the guitar quartet is an outdated form for a rock band: they are almost non-existent in the world and will soon die out completely. Do I need to say that the group was called The Beatles? Shortly after these events, the Liverpool Four signed a contract with EMI Records and within a few years became the most popular pop group in the world. At the same time, setting the "classic" form for a rock band - a guitar quartet.

Western Union Telegraph and telephone: fatal shortsightedness

In 1876, the telegraph was the most advanced means of communication in the world, and the Western Union Telegraph Company had a monopoly on its use in America, making it one of the richest and most powerful companies in the country. The capitalization of Western Union amounted to $41 million, which was huge for those times. When the successful inventor Alexander Bell offered the company's director William Orton to buy from him a patent for a new invention in which he invested, the tycoon was struck by such impudence. Still: for a patent for some kind of “telephone”, a daring investor asked for as much as $100,000.

Orton was so enraged that he did not even talk to the upstart, however, being a gentleman, he found it necessary to give a written answer to the inventor. "Mr. Bell," he wrote. “After a thorough study of your invention, we came to the conclusion that although this is an interesting device, it cannot have any commercial application ... What use can an electric toy be to a company?”

The irony of fate was that in order to use the phone, Western Union Telegraph would not even have to build new networks: the phone could be connected to existing ones. Instead of continuing to beat the door, Alexander Bell held onto the patent, and within a few decades, his telephone company, renamed AT&T, became largest corporation America. And a patent for an invention that could sell for a measly $100,000 has become the most expensive patent in history.

I must say that after two years, Orton realized the depth of his mistake and spent millions of dollars trying to take away the patent from Bell. Having lost the honor of a gentleman, the magnate even defied copyright laws and began to build his own telephone networks, which were then taken away by the court in favor of the Bell company.

Schlitz: Beer Suicide

In the 1970s, Schlitz was the second largest brewing company in the market after Budweiser. By that time, the race for the leader had lasted more than two decades - in 1957, Schlitz even managed to break into the champions, but the advantage turned out to be short-lived.

In the late 1970s, the company decided to hit Budweiser with a simple winning strategy. Schlitz analysts have calculated that if the brewing process is made cheaper and the cycle is shorter, then it will be possible to sell more beer for less money, while receiving the highest possible profit. As a result, Schlitz really managed to reduce the preparation process of the drink from 40 to 15 weeks, and to replace most of the ingredients with cheaper ones, for example, to replace expensive barley malt with budget corn syrup.

It would seem that the strategy was bearing fruit: in the first weeks after the release, the new beer sold with a bang, but then sales fell sharply - it turned out that the new product tasted terrible and very quickly turns into cloudy, tasteless water. In addition, a disgusting sticky suspension remained at the bottom of the empty canisters, which led retailers to sad thoughts. As a result, Schlitz had to recall 10 million canisters, and its reputation suffered a blow from which the company never recovered.

In 1981, Schlitz closed the Milwaukee plant and was bought by one of its younger competitors the following year. The former mayor of Milwaukee, who witnessed the collapse of the company, compared its death to the sinking of the Titanic, paraphrasing the famous phrase: “How could such a huge business go to the bottom so quickly!”

Ford Model T: narcissism as a recipe for disaster

When Henry Ford launched his famous Model T in 1908, there were already other brands of cars in the world. And some were even cheaper - but none of them represented such a combination of innovation and reliability. The Model T owed this to its success. Over the next few years, the brand only became cheaper, and it seemed that no one would press the Ford company.

By the mid-1920s, signs of a crisis became noticeable: the fact is that Ford perceived his offspring as perfection itself - he protected the Model T from any interference in design and technical equipment. In 1925, more than 15 years after its introduction, it looked much the same as before: it was still the same outdated "bug" with an archaic transmission, high noise levels and a weak four-cylinder engine.

Assistants and even competitors advised Henry Ford to change the design and “insides” of the car, but he continued to rest on his laurels. While competitors did not doze off: in 1923, the market share owned by Ford was 57%, but by 1925 it had fallen to 45%, and by 1926 - to 34%. Competitors continued to grow steadily, and in 1927 Ford finally heeded the advice: he announced that the model would be updated. But by that time, the Ford company had already lost the battle - in that same 1927, Chevrolet sold more cars than Ford for the first time in history. In 1929, the company managed to regain the top spot thanks to good sales of the new Model A, but Chevrolet took the lead again the following year and never gave it back to Ford.

A similar mistake now seems to be made by Apple, which has been strongly advised to increase the screen of the iPhone for years, but it, unfortunately, remains deaf to the advice. Many of the company's solid shareholders have lost faith in it and are getting rid of shares - like Donald Trump, for example.