Nike's DTC gamble: purging wholesalers cost Donahoe his job and $24 billion
Outsider CEO John Donahoe cut wholesale partners and leaned on lifestyle dunks — a $24B stock rout and his exit followed in 2024.
Fall lesenmistake.clubEIN CASESTUDIES.CHAT-ARCHIV
Aus Fehlern lernen.
Am besten nicht den eigenen.
Unternehmerische Misserfolge, teure Entscheidungen und ihre Lehren.
Das gesamte Archiv in der AppArtikel gibt es auf Englisch und vereinfachtem Chinesisch. Titel und Texte bleiben in ihrer veröffentlichten Sprache.
Veröffentlichte Fälle
2,000 VERÖFFENTLICHTE FÄLLE · REGELMÄSSIG AKTUALISIERTNestlé dropped Milkybar Wowsomes, its 'world first' lower-sugar bar, after under two years
The UK and Ireland bar used hollow sugar to cut sugar 30%. Nestlé pulled it in late 2019 with no reason given; reports cited weak sales and distribution.
Fall lesenMEC lost C$11.5M as costs grew 2.5 times faster than sales, and its new CEO sounded alarm
Canada's top outdoor retailer lost C$11.5M on C$462M sales in 2018–19, with C$8M of restructuring, unsold inventory and members blaming over-expansion.
Fall lesenKlarna cut human support for AI, then put engineers and marketers on the phones
Klarna's CEO admitted that prioritising cost 'lowered quality' after AI replaced support staff, and reassigned staff from other teams to handle customer calls.
Fall lesenA Chase ATM glitch let bad checks pay out cash; JPMorgan sued to claw back $660,000
Viral videos in August 2024 showed customers withdrawing against bounced check deposits; Chase sent 1,000+ letters and recouped about $580,000 in court.
Fall lesenJBS closed its Planterra plant-based meat unit 2½ years after launch, cutting 121 jobs
JBS USA launched Planterra and its Ozo brand in March 2020. In late September 2022 it filed a layoff notice, a week after touting a foodservice expansion.
Fall lesenIntel's board shelved a $20B Nvidia bid in 2005, then spent four years on failed Larrabee
Intel passed on buying Nvidia for up to $20B and sank four years into Larrabee, the NYT reported; Nvidia is now about 30 times Intel's value.
Fall lesenICICI Pru's '100% refund' pension plan was gamed: 90% surrendered, commissions clawed back
ICICI Prudential's 2024 annuity offered a full refund on surrender; advisers collected upfront commissions and rewards, and 90% of policies were surrendered.
Fall lesenHSBC launched the Zing money-transfer app in January 2024 and shut it a year later
Built on a $35M Monese bet to take on Wise and Remitly, Zing was closed in 2025 after a strategic review under HSBC's new CEO.
Fall lesenHSBC sold its Argentina bank for $550M and booked a $1B loss
In April 2024 HSBC agreed to sell HSBC Argentina to Galicia for $550M, taking a $1B charge because peso swings kept distorting group earnings.
Fall lesenHaidilao raised hotpot prices 6% as China reopened — a Weibo storm forced them back down
Reopening after lockdown, Haidilao lifted prices about 6%; boycott threats flooded Weibo, and the chain apologized, restored prices and discounted takeaway 31%.
Fall lesenGreen Mountain's founder says his 2007 CEO pick cost it its culture before a 2015 sale
Robert Stiller writes in Fortune that he hired Larry Blanford in 2007 on intuition, without a shared vision; by 2015 the firm was sold to JAB.
Fall lesenGrace Technology inflated up to 41% of sales, fooled its auditor and was delisted
A Tokyo-listed maker of equipment manuals booked early and fictitious revenue from its 2016 listing; a January 2022 investigation led to delisting.
Fall lesenGoogle Fiber quit Louisville 18 months after launch when its shallow trenches failed
Cable laid two inches deep started surfacing; Google Fiber said fixing it meant rebuilding the network, so it shut down Louisville service on 15 April 2019.
Fall lesenGogoro's CEO resigned as Taiwan probed imported parts claimed as local to win subsidies
In September 2024 Gogoro's founder-CEO stepped down as Taiwan probed scooters that allegedly used Chinese parts under local-content subsidies.
Fall lesenGitHub went CEO-less inside Microsoft's CoreAI — outages, a breach and an exodus followed
The Verge reported in May 2026 that GitHub had no CEO since 2025, lost leaders and engineers, and suffered major outages and a 3,800-repo breach.
Fall lesenGeico skimped on IT while Progressive priced smarter, and lost the No. 2 spot
A Fortune column argues Berkshire's Geico under-invested in technology; since 2020 Progressive nearly doubled its policies and Geico shrank about 15%.
Fall lesenFrontier tried to charge from $39 to keep the middle seat empty, and dropped it in days
In May 2020 Frontier announced a 'More Room' fee from $39 a flight to block the middle seat; lawmakers attacked it and Frontier withdrew it two days later.
Fall lesenFord quit making cars in Brazil after burning through nearly $12 billion
Slow to pivot its money-losing compact lineup to SUVs, Ford shut all three Brazilian plants in January 2021 after a decade of losses.
Fall lesenEtude House went capital impaired with equity of minus 6.6 billion won
Four years of losses left K-beauty brand Etude with liabilities of ₩56.6B against ₩49.9B of assets — the only capital-impaired unit among AmorePacific's 37.
Fall lesen