SoftBank's Pepper robot sold out in a minute — and failed at nearly everything
Hyped as an emotional robot that would be remembered for centuries, Pepper flopped at companionship, conversation and chores; by 2021 it was dead.
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2,000 PUBLISHED CASES · REGULARLY UPDATEDShiseido's discount-led China e-commerce push produced its first China loss in 7 years
Betting on Chinese e-commerce to power its post-pandemic recovery instead battered Shiseido's brand image and produced its first China loss in seven years.
Read the caseSendle, the $100M carbon-neutral courier, wound down after a faulty US merger
The Shopify-era shipping darling halted all bookings by email; investors say merger partner ACI Logistix misled the due diligence process.
Read the caseSCI pledged Rs 1,000 crore to its demerger split, then had to borrow to fund it
SCI's board tripled the cash transfer to its demerger entity to Rs 1,000 crore — then found the money was never there and proposed borrowing Rs 350 crore.
Read the caseProsus agreed $4.7B for BillDesk at the 2021 peak — then let the deal auto-terminate
Conditions precedent unmet by the Sept 30, 2022 long-stop killed the second-largest Indian tech buyout; renegotiation to $3B had already failed.
Read the casePebble, the kinder Twitter alternative once called T2, shut down at 3,000 users
A $1.1M-backed Twitter rival built for trust and safety peaked at 3,000 daily users — undone by X's grip, a crowded field and a web-only app.
Read the casePayPal floated a $2,500 fine for misinformation, then pulled it within days
A Nov 2022 Acceptable Use Policy update let PayPal dock users $2,500 for misinformation; after a weekend backlash it called the language an error.
Read the caseWhyalla steelworks entered administration losing $1.5M a day under GFG
KordaMentha found $1.34 billion of liabilities, $8 million in the bank and a plant 'relying on luck for safety' after years of underinvestment.
Read the caseMCX's botched software switch cost it Rs 180 crore extra and 12.5% of its shares
India's commodity exchange picked TCS in 2021 to replace 63 Moons — then renewed the old vendor three times as the deadline slipped twice.
Read the caseMcGill's quit all its West Lothian bus routes a year after promising improvements
A year after taking over First Bus routes and laying out improvement plans, McGill's said £80,000-a-week losses meant quitting all West Lothian services
Read the caseKServicing, ex-Kabbage, filed for bankruptcy amid PPP fraud probes after $7B in loans
The second-largest PPP lender by application volume lacked proper fraud controls, had the program's lowest forgiveness rate, and drowned defending itself.
Read the caseAmEx bought Kabbage but left its PPP loan book behind — borrowers were stranded
AmEx bought 'substantially all' of Kabbage in 2020 minus its PPP loans; the orphaned K Servicing left second-draw borrowers stranded in 2021.
Read the caseJCPS bet its buses on AlphaRoute's AI routing — students stranded, classes closed a week
The Louisville district adopted AlphaRoute's machine-learning routes for 65,000 daily riders; on day one, kids were left at stops or got home near 10 p.m.
Read the caseInstagram walked back its full-screen TikTok-style feed test after user revolt (interview)
Instagram's full-screen TikTok-style feed test drew celebrity revolt and weak usage data; Adam Mosseri announced a partial walk-back in a Verge interview.
Read the caseIndia's SMS scrubber launch erased OTPs and broke 40% of commercial traffic
Telcos flipped on Trai's blockchain content filter on a Monday morning: netbanking, UPI, Aadhaar and Co-WIN OTPs went missing for millions.
Read the caseGoogle's Tez-based Google Pay relaunch flopped — a year later the Wallet brand came back
The 2021 relaunch on India's Tez codebase regressed features, triggered an employee exodus and killed Google's bank-account plans.
Read the caseGFG lost control of Whyalla steelworks — SA government forced it into administration
After years of unpaid royalties and creditors, GFG's $300M-plus debts and slipping wages pushed South Australia to hand the site to KordaMentha.
Read the caseFootball Index cut player dividends, crashed its own market and fell into administration
The 'football stock market' needed new customers to pay old dividends; a March 2021 terms change collapsed portfolios, with punters down more than £90M.
Read the caseFerguson won a £97m fixed-price ferry deal, doubled the cost and lost the yard
The Port Glasgow shipyard's hybrid LNG ferries for CalMac ran years late; the firm went bust, was nationalised, and recorded a £100m loss in public hands.
Read the caseEast Midlands Railway cut services as its new Hitachi fleet underdelivered
EMR's Aurora (Class 810) trains, three years late into service in December 2025, proved so unreliable that by July 2026 Intercity services were cut indefinitely
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