Business failures, costly decisions and the lessons they leave behind.
The full archive, in the appThe Citroën DS (1955) had hydropneumatic suspension, a semi-automatic gearbox and an aerodynamic body. It was 20 years early. Citroën could not build enough
Read the caseClubhouse, the invite-only audio app, hit a $4 billion valuation in 2021 during lockdowns. When they eased, downloads fell ~80% and it laid off half its staff.
Read the caseAustralia's biggest bank wired its cash machines to credit deposits instantly and never reported 53,700 of them. AUSTRAC won a record A$700M penalty.
Read the caseAndré Courrèges defined the Space Age look: miniskirts, goggles, vinyl. He locked the brand behind couture pricing and refused to license. The future moved on
Read the caseDEC was the world's #2 computer company with $14B and 140,000 employees. Its founder called the PC a 'toy' — nine years later it was sold for parts.
Read the caseBob Chapek succeeded Bob Iger as Disney CEO in 2020; 2.75 years later, after a brutal earnings report and a falling stock, the board fired him and rehired Iger.
Read the caseNizan Guanaes sold DM9 to DDB in 1999. Three years later he walked out, founded Africa, and took the creative culture. DDB kept the name and the furniture.
Read the caseIn 1994, Havaianas was a commodity flip-flop for the poor. DPZ repositioned it as fashion. Sales tripled. It became Brazil's most famous advertising campaign.
Read the caseWeak appliance demand kept Electrolux cutting: 3,000 jobs and a SEK 2.5bn charge in 2023, then CEO Jonas Samuelson, nine years in, left in 2025.
Read the caseEricsson built for a 5G spending boom that never fully came. In February 2023 it cut 8,500 jobs, about 8% of its workforce, to save roughly $860 million.
Read the caseJohn Flannery led GE for about 14 months. The board replaced him with Danaher's Lawrence Culp the same day it wrote down $23 billion in its Power business.
Read the caseThe company famous for free gourmet meals laid off 12,000 people in one day. Employees found out they were fired only after losing access to their email.
Read the caseHavas, founded in 1835, was France's advertising crown jewel. It was split, sold to Vivendi, and reassembled. The brand survived; the culture did not
Read the caseHBOS lent far faster than its deposits allowed and ignored years of regulator warnings. It collapsed into Lloyds in 2008 and needed a £20.5bn taxpayer rescue.
Read the caseH&M's sustainability claims were unclear and unsubstantiated, the Dutch regulator found. H&M agreed to adjust or drop them and donate €500,000 to a good cause.
Read the caseIn 2011 HTC was America's top smartphone seller. After years of losses it sold about 2,000 designers, the team behind Google's Pixel, to Google for $1.1B.
Read the caseAfter 118 years, JCPenney filed for Chapter 11 in May 2020. It had $4.2B in debt, 850 stores, and no rent money after the pandemic shut its doors.
Read the caseBali Padda, 61, became Lego's CEO in early 2017; eight months later Niels Christiansen, 51, replaced him. Lego said he was never meant to stay long — his age.
Read the caseLego's Shell-branded sets sat in petrol stations in 26 countries, a £68m deal going back to the 1960s. A Greenpeace parody video with 5.9m views ended it.
Read the caseNordic health food chain Life filed for bankruptcy in Finland and Sweden in June 2025 after rising costs and falling sales hit its 200+ store network.
Read the case