10 Business Decisions That Go Down In History As The Worst EVER

by N/A, 10 years ago | 2 min read

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These bad choices are the definition of risky business.

1. Steve Jobs bought Pixar from Lucasfilm for $5 million in 1986.

20 years later, Disney bought it for $7.4 billion.

2. Blockbuster declined to buy Netflix for $50 million.

Netflix is now worth $90 million and Blockbuster has closed all of its stores.

3. Apple's co-founder sold his shares of the company for $800 in 1976.

In 1977, sales were at $2.7 million. Today, his shares would be worth $35 billion.

4. Coca-Cola launched a re-brand to "Coke" in 1985. They also changed their recipe.

They received 400,000 complaints and their market share dropped 1.4% . They changed their branding and recipe back to the originals within 87 days.

5. Yahoo has rejected Google twice.

The first time was in '97 for $1 million and the second was in '02 for $5 billion. Google is now worth 10 times more than Yahoo at $350 billion.

6. Mars refused to feature M&M's in the movie E.T. in exchange for promoting the movie on their wrappers.

Reese's Pieces accepted and their sales shot up 65%.

7. Kodak created the digital camera in 1975, but didn't release it because they worried about their standing in the industry.

Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

8. Western Union turned down a $100,000 offer for the telephone patent.

They believed that phones were nothing more than "electronic toys" with no "commercial possibilities"

9. Fox sold Star Wars' merchandising rights to George Lucas for $20,000.

Star Wars now rakes in $30 billion and 2/3 comes from merchandise.

10. The Beatles auditioned for Decca Records for two hours in 1962.

The label rejected the group because they thought four-piece male groups with guitars were over.