Amazon's Dash Button was a $5 button for detergent — obsolete in 3 years
Amazon sold $5 physical buttons you pressed to reorder Tide or paper towels. Smartphones made them pointless. Amazon killed the Dash Button in 2019.
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3,222 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDOuya raised $8.6M on Kickstarter for a $99 Android console — and it was unplayable
Ouya promised a $99 hackable Android game console. Backers got a laggy controller, a tiny game library and a bricked device. Sold to Razer for parts.
Read the caseRED's $1,295 holographic phone was a $1,295 brick with a gimmick screen
RED, the cinema camera company, launched a $1,295 phone with a 'holographic' display. The screen gave users headaches. The company exited phones in 2019.
Read the caseThe Segway was 'bigger than the internet' — and sold 24,000 units in five years
Dean Kamen's Segway was hyped as a city-transforming invention. It sold 24,000 units in five years and became a mall cop meme.
Read the caseThree Mile Island's partial meltdown ended America's nuclear ambitions for 30 years
A stuck valve and confused operators caused a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979. No one was hurt, but US nuclear growth ended for 30 years.
Read the caseSega's Dreamcast was ahead of its time — and it killed Sega's hardware business
The Dreamcast had online gaming, a built-in modem and a VMU memory card in 1998. But Sony's PS2 hype crushed it. Sega exited hardware in 2001.
Read the caseUber built a tool to hide its cars from regulators — and it became a federal investigation
Uber's 'Greyball' software showed fake cars to regulators and law enforcement. When exposed in 2017, it triggered federal probes and the CEO's ouster.
Read the caseGap replaced its 20-year-old logo — and reverted it in six days
Gap unveiled a new logo in October 2010. The backlash was so immediate and vicious that Gap restored the original logo six days later.
Read the caseJCPenney killed coupons and 'fair and square' pricing — and sales fell 25%
CEO Ron Johnson eliminated coupons and sales at JCPenney, replacing them with 'fair and square' everyday pricing. Customers revolted. Sales fell 25%.
Read the caseTarget opened 133 Canadian stores in two years — and lost C$2.1B retreating
Target rushed into Canada with 133 stores, a broken supply chain and empty shelves. Canadian shoppers gave up. Target exited in 2015 with C$2.1B in losses.
Read the caseGucci was nearly bankrupt and license-saturated — until Tom Ford and De Sole saved it
By the early 1990s Gucci had 22,000 licensed products and was near bankruptcy. Tom Ford's creative revolution and De Sole's business discipline rebuilt it.
Read the caseA hedge fund manager ran Sears like a portfolio — and the stores fell apart
Eddie Lampert merged Sears and Kmart, then ran them as competing internal units. Stores crumbled while he cut costs. Sears filed for bankruptcy in 2018.
Read the caseSony's Vaio was the premium PC brand — then Sony sold it and exited computers entirely
Sony Vaio was the design leader in PCs for a decade. But Sony couldn't compete on cost, and the division lost money for years. Sold in 2014.
Read the caseBetter Place bet $850M on battery-swapping EVs — and went bankrupt with 1,000 customers
Better Place built battery-swap stations instead of charging networks. It raised $850M, served ~1,000 drivers in Israel and Denmark, and went bankrupt in 2013.
Read the caseGoogle paid $12.5B for Motorola Mobility — and sold it two years later for $2.9B
Google bought Motorola in 2012, mostly for its patents. It kept the patents, lost $9.6B on the hardware business, and sold the rest to Lenovo.
Read the caseNikola's truck rolled downhill — and the $1B fraud rolled into court
Nikola's demo video showed a truck driving, but it was coasting downhill. Founder Trevor Milton was convicted of fraud. The stock fell 90%.
Read the caseParmalat hid a €14B hole in its books — Europe's biggest bankruptcy
Italy's 'milk empire' fabricated a €4B bank account that didn't exist. The total fraud was €14B. Parmalat collapsed in 2003, the largest EU bankruptcy.
Read the caseValeant raised drug prices 500%+ and called it a strategy — then the model collapsed
Valeant bought old drugs and raised prices 500-800%. Congress investigated, the stock fell 90%, and the CEO was replaced. The company was renamed.
Read the caseIntel lost its manufacturing lead — and spent $20B trying to get it back
Intel's 10nm process was years late, ceding the lead to TSMC and Samsung. The stock stagnated for a decade while competitors took its market share.
Read the caseCarrefour was China's top foreign retailer — then sold 80% of its business for €620M
The French hypermarket pioneer entered China in 1995 and led for years. By 2019 it sold its China business to Suning, unable to compete with local rivals.
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