Yahoo had the first search engine — and gave the search market to Google

Yahoo, founded in 1994, was the internet's dominant portal and search engine in the late 1990s. In 2000, Yahoo outsourced its search results to Google, a two-year-old startup, paying Google to power Yahoo's search while Yahoo kept the advertising revenue.

The deal made Google's technology visible to millions of users and helped establish Google's brand. When Yahoo attempted to build its own search technology and end the Google partnership in 2004, it was too late: Google had already become the default search engine for most internet users.

Yahoo's search market share declined steadily, and the company eventually outsourced search again — this time to Microsoft's Bing in 2009. Google went on to become one of the most valuable companies in the world. The case illustrated how outsourcing a core capability to a future competitor can create the competitor's brand while destroying your own.