Business failures, costly decisions and the lessons they leave behind.
The full archive, in the appIn 2017 credit bureau Equifax revealed a breach exposing the personal data of about 147 million people. The cause was an unpatched software flaw it had failed.
Read the caseIn 2018 it emerged that a quiz app had harvested the data of up to 87 million Facebook users for political firm Cambridge Analytica. Facebook was fined $5.
Read the caseIn 2014 the UK supermarket giant Tesco revealed it had overstated profits by £263 million, booking supplier payments early. The scandal brought criminal.
Read the caseIn 2012 Apple replaced Google Maps with its own, half-finished Maps. Wrong directions and missing cities forced a rare public apology from Tim Cook.
Read the caseTo win adult diners, McDonald's launched the upscale Arch Deluxe in 1996 with the biggest ad budget in fast-food history. It flopped; the chain lost $300M+.
Read the caseBill Hwang's family office bet big, leveraged, and concentrated — using swaps so no bank saw the whole picture. When it blew up in 2021, banks lost ~$10B.
Read the caseWhen the SEC subpoenaed Enron, Andersen's Houston team shredded tons of papers and deleted tens of thousands of emails. The firm was convicted and dissolved.
Read the casePlanned for 2011, Berlin's new airport opened in October 2020 — nine years late, undone by a fire system its own designer wasn't qualified to build.
Read the caseOn 22 May 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas — the first real-world bitcoin purchase. Those coins later became worth a fortune.
Read the caseBlackBerry owned the smartphone market, then the iPhone redefined it around touch and apps. Clinging to its keyboards, BlackBerry's share fell to near zero.
Read the caseCEO Philip Schoonover fired ~3,400 higher-paid staff as a 'wage management' move, then re-hired cheaper workers. Sales stalled; the chain died within two years.
Read the caseMeant to send $8M in interest, a botched payment screen sent $900M of principal instead. Some lenders refused to give it back — and a judge initially agreed.
Read the caseOn 19 July 2024 a faulty Falcon sensor config file crashed 8.5 million Windows machines worldwide, grounding flights and idling hospitals, banks and retailers.
Read the caseAfter years of hype, Cyberpunk 2077 shipped in December 2020 riddled with bugs on last-gen consoles. Sony delisted it from the PlayStation Store; CD Projekt.
Read the caseIn 1999 Google's founders offered to sell their search engine to Excite for $1 million. Excite's CEO declined — even after the price fell to $750,000.
Read the caseOn 4 October 2021 a routine command disconnected all of Facebook's data centers. Its DNS servers then withdrew their routes, and Facebook vanished for hours.
Read the caseGoogle sold Glass to enthusiasts in 2013 at $1,500, with a camera on your face. Privacy backlash and the 'Glasshole' stigma sank it; Google killed the consumer.
Read the caseGreensill Capital grew fast on SoftBank money and supply-chain finance. In March 2021 it filed for insolvency, freezing $10B of Credit Suisse funds.
Read the caseIn 2013 James Howells tossed a hard drive holding the keys to 8,000 BTC into a landfill. The coins became worth a fortune; the council won't let him dig.
Read the caseJuicero sold a $400 WiFi-connected juicer for its proprietary produce packs, raising $120M. Bloomberg showed the packs could be squeezed by hand; the company.
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