In 1999, Jean van de Velde just needed a double bogey 6 or better on the 18th hole to win the British Open. He made a 7, and lost the resulting 3 way playoff.
WorldCom
From 1999 to 2002, senior executives at WorldCom orchestrated a scheme to inflate earnings in order to maintain WorldCom’s stock price. There were over $3.8 billion of fraudulent balance sheet entries, while they overstated their assets by $11 billion. At the time, it was the largest accounting fraud in American history. A year later, the company went bankrupt.
Global Crossing
In 1999, Global Crossing was valued at $47 billion, but it never had a profitable year. In 2002, with $12.5B in debt, the company filed for one of the largest bankruptcies in history. Its executives were accused of covering up an accounting scandal as they greatly overestimated demand.
Ten Cent Beer Night
In 1974, the “Ten Cent Beer Night” promotion by the Cleveland Indians was meant to improve attendance by offering cups of beer for just 10 cents, a substantial discount on the regular price of 65 cents. There was a limit of six beers per purchase but with no limit on the number of purchases made during the game leading to 60,000 cups of beer sold to a crowd of 25,134. Massive alcohol consumption led to fans lighting firecrackers, streaking across the playing field, and rushing the field to cause a riot. The game was forfeited in the Texas Rangers’ favor due to the mob’s uncontrollable behavior.
Littoral Combat Ship
In 2023, the Navy decommissioned the Littoral combat ship since they broke down across the globe and many of their weapons never worked. They were supposed to last 25 years, but most did not last 8 years. They were supposed to cost $200 million each to build but wound up costing over $500 million each.
General Magic
After being spun out of Apple in 1990 and inventing mobile computing, General Magic became the first concept IPO in Silicon Valley history in 1995. This is when a startup doesn’t have revenue or a working product, so they rely on concept alone. Two years later the company went bankrupt as consumers considered the devices unnecessary, there were responsiveness issues, the price was too high, and the batteries died quickly.
Apple Lisa
Released in 1983, “Lisa” stood for “Local Integrated Software Architecture” and was also the name of Steve Jobs’ oldest daughter. Lisa’s user experience was sluggish, while its $9,995 price tag ($27,978 in 2022 dollars) was only affordable for the wealthy. Only 10,000 Apple Lisa’s were sold in its 2 years.
Charles Ponzi
In 1920, Charles Ponzi promised clients a 50% profit within 45 days or 100% profit within 90 days, by buying discounted postal reply coupons in other countries and redeeming them at face value in the U.S. as a form of arbitrage. In reality, Ponzi was paying earlier investors using the investments of later investors. His scheme ran for over a year before it collapsed, costing his “investors” $20 million (or $207 million in 2022 dollars)
Blackberry Storm
In 2008, Blackberry Storm was RIM’s first attempt at an iPhone rival. Here’s where they went wrong: virtually every single one of the 1 million phones shipped were faulty and needed to be replaced. Blackberry knew the device had major issues, but felt it was better to release a flawed product than nothing at all. RIM employees referred to it as the “Sh*t Storm.” Verizon wanted RIM to pay $500M to cover the carrier’s losses.
Apple III
Released in 1980 and discontinued in 1984, the Apple III was dogged by many design faults, such as chips coming out of sockets, real time clocks not working, and excessive heat problems due to over populated boards.