Lehman used 'Repo 105' to hide $50B of leverage right before it collapsed
Each quarter-end, Lehman temporarily moved ~$50B off its balance sheet using Repo 105, so its leverage looked safe. The examiner called it window-dressing.
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3,222 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDLong-Term Capital Management: Nobel-run fund blew up $4.6B; 25x left no room for error
Long-Term Capital Management bet on 'risk-free' arbitrage, leveraged 25 to 1. When Russia defaulted in 1998, the trades moved together and the fund imploded.
Read the caseMariner 1, America's first Venus probe, was destroyed over a guidance-code error
Minutes after launch in 1962, Mariner 1 veered off course and was blown up by range safety. The cause traced to a transcription error in the guidance equations.
Read the caseLondon's Millennium Bridge had to close two days after opening because it wobbled
On opening day the new Thames footbridge swayed alarmingly as crowds crossed. Pedestrians synced their steps to the sway and made it worse — 'Wobbly Bridge.'
Read the caseNokia was #1 in phones, then bet everything on Windows Phone and lost the smartphone era
The world's biggest phone maker watched the iPhone arrive and in 2011 bet the company on Microsoft's Windows Phone. Its smartphone share fell to near zero.
Read the casePeloton's holiday ad was mocked as dystopian — and a rival gin brand turned it into a joke
In 2019 Peloton ran a holiday ad in which a husband gifts his wife an exercise bike. Viewers called it sexist and dystopian; the stock dropped, and a rival gin.
Read the caseQuaker Oats paid $1.7B for Snapple and sold it three years later for $300M
Fresh off buying Gatorade, Quaker paid a huge premium for Snapple, assuming it could repeat the playbook. It couldn't, and unloaded the brand at a $1.4B loss.
Read the caseTesco burned nearly £2bn launching Fresh & Easy in the US on the wrong shopper research
Tesco built 200+ small US stores from UK assumptions about American shoppers. The format flopped; it pulled out in 2013 at a reported cost of £1.2 billion.
Read the caseTheranos raised $700M on a blood test that didn't work — its founder went to prison
Elizabeth Holmes promised hundreds of tests from a finger-prick. The 'Edison' machines didn't work; Theranos ran them on commercial analyzers and hid the truth.
Read the caseWalmart lost billions in Germany because it refused to adapt its American playbook
Walmart bought two German chains in 1997-98 and tried to copy its US model — chants, greeters, price wars. Germans stayed loyal to Aldi; Walmart exited in 2006.
Read the caseWells Fargo's staff opened 3.5 million fake accounts to hit impossible sales quotas
Under crushing sales quotas, Wells Fargo staff secretly opened millions of accounts customers never asked for. The bank was fined $185M and its CEO resigned.
Read the caseWorldCom hid $3.8B in expenses to fake profits — the biggest US fraud of its era
To keep its stock up, WorldCom booked ordinary costs as investments, inflating profits by $3.8B. An internal auditor found it; the firm went bankrupt.
Read the caseYahoo could have bought Google for $1M in 1998 — it passed, and passed again in 2002
In 1998 Google's founders offered Yahoo their search engine for $1 million; Yahoo said no. In 2002 Yahoo offered $3 billion; Google wanted $5 billion. No deal.
Read the caseZenefits built a $4.5B startup on unlicensed insurance sales — then a macro exposed it
To sell insurance fast, Zenefits let unlicensed reps broker policies — and its CEO built a tool to dodge the training. Regulators fined it $7M; the CEO left.
Read the caseBetter.com CEO fired 900 employees on a Zoom call without warning
CEO Vishal Garg hit 'end meeting' after telling staff they were fired, leaving them staring at black screens.
Read the caseVolkswagen programmed 11 million cars to cheat emissions tests
VW installed defeat devices that detected lab tests and switched to clean mode, cheating on NOx by 40 times.
Read the caseAriane 5 exploded 37 seconds after launch because of a software overflow error
A 64-bit floating-point number was cast into a 16-bit integer. The result overflowed, the computer crashed, and the $370M rocket self-destructed.
Read the caseDecca Records auditioned The Beatles and signed the other band instead
On New Year's Day 1962, Decca heard 15 Beatles songs and concluded guitar groups were 'on the way out'.
Read the caseHubble launched with a mirror ground perfectly — to the wrong shape
A 1.3mm error in one test rig made the world's most precise mirror precisely wrong. Two cheaper tests caught it — and were overruled.
Read the caseCoca-Cola replaced its own 99-year-old formula, and America revolted for 79 days
200,000 taste tests said the new formula was better. The tests never asked how people felt about losing the old one.
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