Top Seven Biggest Business Mistakes!

[@PBoyle]

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[@peaceonearth8693]

Would like to learn that African 'clicking' language. Not overly optimistic though..

[@TremereTT]

Is it about the Unity debacle and John Riccitello? Hm , no . It's about Yoga pants...and also they are still see through. you just need to chose the right spectrum an polarization...thanks to the omni presence of ccd cameras .

[@jaydee6268]

Mandarin and thanks for the stellar product.

[@Jeraestone]

There's Noh ( sic ) Japanese Patrick : This is A Total Flummery as There seems to be no Support for the Asian / Pacific Folk ( Not even Strine Australia Ockerism ) ~ which is necessary for Peace Keeping and Drinking Games .. Besides I cycled most of the Countries on Offer and they all Speak English 🤔🫣🤪⚓🔩🦕📎🦇⛩️

[@Jeraestone]

​@@TremereTTbuy a Good Camera Fuji X100 for example or a Retro 35mm like Olympus Om 1 Film Camera ...they Click as much as You want and it's a Great Bridge to Other Cultures ,People and their Lifestyle 📎⛩️🔩🌐🦉

[@mattdegrosky4525]

I always marvel at how Sears isn't Amazon. They invented direct marketing and delivery of consumer goods of every variety and then didn't notice the internet.

[@DanielH874]

The funny thing is they had a strong online presence early on. How they dropped the ball is beyond me. They came out of the gate quick with online shopping and then botched it completely somehow. I don't know if they stopped investing in their online platforms or what? It's mind boggling.

[@jeffbrinkerhoff5121]

Proof thst anything can be ruined by mismanagement..

[@peanutbutterjellytme]

Sears and many others. It is mind boggling that catalogue stores couldn’t figure out how to sell online.

[@_CoachW]

YES!! At one point in the early years you could buy a house through Sears. What we would consider the materials for a micro house today. You could order and have delivered to your lot. How they missed the ball with Amazon still baffles me.

[@mares3841]

Bezos and Amazon management don't get enough credit. They invented a whole new logistic system that would arguably have not been implemented by Sears management.

[@jrodri14ii]

“And even ‘Alphabet’, a term we all use today.” This man’s deadpan delivery could kill haha.

[@MatthewSwabey]

I can't not come for the quiet jokes. I feel he would be either the best or worst boss ever!

[@shambhangal438]

His 'I've learnt never to comment on the appearance of my viewers' at 4.32... then he actually does comments on the appearance of his viewers by adding a photo of a group of smartly dressed men (all wearing exactly the same as him, and possibly actually all him) is deadpan at its driest...

[@Rechtauch]

Alphabet and X, we use 😂

[@TorIverWilhelmsen]

@@Rechtauch Don't forget Meta. You know the Facebook owner named after the fad that preceded the current AI fad.

[@BrennanYoung]

"an event the deserved to be recorded for posterity" - shot of yoga ladies bending over

[@LouigiVerona]

I am a Product Manager and this video hit really close to home. The amount of times I've seen my and my peers' ideas be shot down by management based on completely shortsighted reasons is enormous. The amount of squandered opportunities due to management ignoring experts is immense.

[@ShotgunAFlyboy]

The manegerialization of the world was/is an abject disaster.

[@creepersonspeed5490]

As someone who is mainly technical, this is my biggest fear for myself - becoming out of touch with my expertise to the point where evolution in my team is killed 😬

[@antonystringfellow5152]

Oh yes! I used to be a technician for a company (originally a division of Kodak but sold). Soon after this division was acquired, its new owner decided to give awards and prizes for the best performing team and the best performing technician over the course of one year. I was as surprised as I was delighted to be named as their best performing technician. I was much less impressed at the total disinterest in anything I had to say about the job itself. This company was struggling financially. It needed to make improvements in order to stay in business, yet its management didn't think that its top performing technician had anything more to contribute than to fix things. I left a few months later. The company went bankrupt about 2 years later.

[@noyopacific]

While I appreciate your frustration LouigiVerona, I also appreciate those in the company who are responsible for directing the use of the time and capital that are available. They must choose what appear to be the most promising among proposals and also evaluate the potential payoff against the risk. These managers are bound to miss a few diamonds in their effort to avoid pieces of glass, inert pebbles and radioactive rocks. Consider that Warren Buffett has had thousands of investment opportunities to consider over his career. He rejected or ignored most of them. There is no doubt that he has missed many of the best opportunities that he ever had. Nevertheless he has managed to do okay.

[@reginaph828]

@@noyopacificfound the manager 😂

[@DanielH874]

Funny you mention Lulu-Lemon and the sheer yoga pants disaster. I worked for a company that was tasked to repurpose the sheer yoga pants during that time. It was pretty depressing to throw brand new clothes that came from boxed pallets into a massive shredder all day. At least the company I worked for was responsible and found uses for most of the materials. The job required a criminal record check and the Canada Border Services agency came by regularly. New clothing would come from the United States and the CBSA had to determine the clothing was in fact destroyed and unit for resale. I never knew that Vendor duty drawbacks (essentially a refund on duties paid for goods) was such a big business until I worked for that company. I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement and was not allowed to disclose the address of the facility or even the company name at the time. After that experience I find it so difficult to buy clothes.

[@orboakin8074]

Friend, you have some damn interesting experiences. Thanks for sharing!

[@tommykarrick9130]

Bring in the enforcers to make sure the clothes is destroyed - wouldn’t want any poors to be seen wearing it

[@garrettkajmowicz]

@@tommykarrick9130 No - the customs people want to verify that they aren't being cheated out of tax money.

[@Praisethesunson]

I had a similar experience with industrial chicken (murder) "processing". Such an insane scale of waste and destruction in service to the whims of the rich.

[@m_b4]

​@@Praisethesunsonplease do tell.

[@williamlloyd3769]

You should do the same type of video focused on Japanese and then European companies biggest mistakes. These are epic business decisions that impacted the world.

[@JohnMaxGriffin]

Mitutoyo’s illegal export of precision measurement equipment that ended up in Libya, North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. The biggest player in that market and banned from exporting measurement equipment for years.

[@syloui]

I commented it elsewhere but, Philips building TSMC and then promptly selling it off within a few years to break even cause it wasn't profitable

[@myself2noone]

My first thought about this is the classic Nintendo creating their biggest rival in Playstation.

[@gauloiseguy]

​@@syloui Yeah, that was kind of an oops moment.

[@ricahrdb]

@@syloui the number of Philips spin offs that were sold and became very successful on their own is actually quite impressive. Like Kodak and Xerox Philips was great in R&D but not so good in business strategy.

[@K9.coordinated]

The funny thing about Kodak being afraid that digital cameras would cannibalize their film sales is that it was the correct fear but they should have been more afraid of somebody else beating them too it once they realized it was a possibility.

[@advancetotabletop5328]

The best way to beat your competition is to be your own competition.

[@SudrianTales]

Course smartphones beating down everyone with their inbuilt cameras was something most people couldn't have figured out so Kodak was doomed unless ot kept the natural gas division

[@DavidWilmotR]

This is what the well-known Innovators Dilemma book was about. Companies are always worried that innovations will cannibalise their products and so don't do it, and then lose to new competitors. Probably, the book's recommendation is still the best one in that Kodak should have set up a separate Digital Camera subsidiary with its own board, provided some capital, camera and electronics researchers and engineers, and left it alone to sink or swim.

[@DavidWilmotR]

@@SudrianTales Sony is the biggest sensor maker for mobile phone cameras and also make camera modules with lenses and OIS for other manufacturers. Even though their own phone unit is struggling. So if they'd invested in the photo sensor business (which they invented) they could have had 35 years of being a main player in digital cameras, DSLR, mirrorless, and then mobile cameras.

[@martinsportfoto2423]

There is this often made quip* about such situation that "if we do not cannibalize on our products, somoene else will" * often attributed to Steve Jobs, but I have no idea if that is correct

[@folcane]

Blackberry's story is similar to that of the popular high school quarterback that led his school to the high school championship but despite the promising career he had ended up as a shoe salesman at some mall...

[@MrFatHooker]

4 touchdowns in 1 game!!!!

[@pauljimerson8218]

But at least he married a Wanker

[@tygerbyrn]

@@pauljimerson8218 Peggy Wanker; Don’t bother to thank her.

[@dri1811ya]

That sounds like the plot to a certain 90s movie by MTV Films starring James Van Der Beek and the late Paul Walker

[@MakerInMotion]

That's really funny to me because 8 years after graduation, I saw a guy from the football team in my hometown still wearing his varsity letter jacket. For some people, life peaked at 17.

[@TreyJam2]

Laxative Lays chips is wild 😂

[@dennischiapello7243]

Ex-Lax missed an opportunity to expand their line of laxative snacks!

[@kstark321]

I found out about Olestra the hard way....or soft way as it were. I was working in a factory on a break eating chips. This was pre-smart phones so out of boredom I was reading the label. I was 19 at the time so I didn't exactly knew what "loose stools" meant and 20 minutes later I figured it out.

[@tolep]

So what choice of words would be familiar to you back then?

[@jorisbongsson]

@tolep ​Palpatable faecal extrusions.

[@Metko1981]

Clearly the worst mistakes were made from Philips. They started TSMC and moved away and they also started ASML and also moved away.......

[@bernadmanny]

But just think if the hadn't done that they wouldn't have been able to give shareholders gobs of short-term-decisions money.

[@Dan-dg9pi]

Yes, Patrick, you could do a whole show on how the companies that emerged out of Philips took over the world while the mothership deteriorated across all business lines.

[@nlysts]

But would those companies be successful under the bad management of Phillips that sold them

[@somethinglikethat2176]

​@@nlysts that's the million dollar question. Would key personal have stayed under Phillips? How many divisions under Kodak for example, could have been great if they were spun off?

[@somethinglikethat2176]

​@@Dan-dg9pi makes you wonder if it was Phillips holding them back

[@brendansmith7842]

3:27 important to mention Nokia as well, they became extremely complacent in the Symbian operating system. The company is a shell of its former share price, but maintains much better profitability than blackberry today.

[@siliconandsteel]

I would count that one as a sabotage. Burning Platform killed not only Symbian but also Maemo/MeeGo and introduced a carnival of Windows Phone versions. Even looking at what was happening to Nokia was just sad. I expected to see at least one example of Osborne effect.

[@MikeGaruccio]

@@siliconandsteelyea looking back Nokia’s implosion was just confusing. They insisted on sticking with resistive touchscreens well past when they should have switched but otherwise had hardware that was better than anything else on the market, at least for the power user set that made up a much higher proportion of actual smartphone buyers back then. And then right as they started getting software figured out, with developers getting on board with Symbian, they decided they couldn’t keep up with google and apple in SW and jumped on the MS bandwagon. I’m guessing the eventual MS buyout was always the plan, but it’s a shame such a great HW maker went down that way. The n95 and n97 were awesome devices and it would have been cool to have another relevant form factor in the smartphone ecosystem.

[@siliconandsteel]

If Elop was sent to Nokia to destroy its value, he could not do a better job. Just sticking to any of the systems would get them results. Meanwhile, Burning Platform memo was a death sentence to all current products that started death spiral speedrun. Windows Phone was not ready, then its versions were not compatible. You just cannot grow an ecosystem like that. Even just sticking to devices would be better. Nokia 808 - yardstick cameraphone. Nokia N9 - a glimpse of the future that could have been. All lost, like tears in the rain...

[@feamatar]

​@@siliconandsteel Yeah, sticking to WinPhone was such a one sided business decision that Elop looked like a trojan horse injected by Microsoft.

[@brendansmith7842]

@@siliconandsteel I thought elop facilited the sale of the Microsoft os using Nokia phones to Microsoft. It was like $3 a share. It was a bad deal for MSFT but good for Nokia. Didn't work, but still provided NOK shareholders with a special dividend and a brief move to the $7-8 range. That was later briefly eclipsed in 2020or 2021 by the redditors sending large mc stocks like Nokia to surge. Didn't last, but blackberry and more recently Sirius had these kinda of p&ds

[@PwnySlaystation01]

I live near the Blackberry/Research in Motion headquarters, and back when I was in college, they were BY FAR the biggest company hiring computer science graduates like me. They came to every job fair trying to recruit college students, and they were the "Apple" of graduate jobs. Everyone wanted to work there. Their fall was so quick it was crazy. On a personal level, I still think Apple/Android manufacturers haven't made a comparable email device. Touch screens are still crap for typing and I'll die on this hill. Also it took more than a decade for iPhones to have even a tiny shred of the security functionality that blackberry had with its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). iPhones are STILL not as good as BES was. They lost business customers because executives wanted the latest cool phone, and they forced IT/security departments kicking and screaming to move to iPhone. Even though it was a worse business decision from a security/management perspective. Executives just LOVED those devices enough to fight for them. Was a strange time.

[@anthonyreed480]

Agree. Touch screen typing sucks.

[@frevazz3364]

Well when apps became a thing that signaled doom because developers did not want to make apps for BlackBerry plus the management was too narrow minded to see what it would become.

[@jc-0h]

That is a well populated hill! You won't die alone. Talk to text is useful, like when driving, despite its inability to be consistent with context. Yet, being able to fire off emails and texts without having to look at the device is a feature I miss. From meetings that never end to communicating in freezing weather, buttons cannot be beat! Also the game Breakout is superior with a trackball!

[@duedman-alleswasknallt5775]

Oh how much I hated the switch to iphones my company made. The last BB I used was a hybrid. I forgot the name. It had a touchscreen with an underlying keyboard that you would slide out. Loved it.

[@username7763]

I knew someone who was a big Blackberry fan. My understanding is yeah, they had better tech than the iPhone. The original iPhone was quite rubbish. BES, was very important for security. Also Blackberry had a much better development framework. But strangely the media loved the iPhone and did all the marketing for Apple.

[@altair1983]

Kodak's case is a bit more complicated, while they failed to capitalise early on digital camera market (they did eventually, but they already lost market lead position), their true demise was due to the fact that cheap digital camera market vanished when cell phones started getting cameras.

[@jamesbailey754]

Yeah Kodak was never a company that made money selling cameras. They made money selling and developing film. Even if they fully capitalized on the digital camera market immediately, the company would still have a huge retraction in size and fully go under when cell phone cameras destroyed the casual digital camera market.

[@advancetotabletop5328]

Those who have studied Disney management during the Eisner-Wells years vs. Eisner alone already know that once management stops having differences of opinion, either through yes men surrounding a single charismatic person, or groupthink, it‘s more prone to make mistakes affecting the entire company. Unfortunately, companies are usually intentionally structured this way.

[@cpking7]

And they also learn employee by-laws should forbid key executives from riding helicopters near mountains. Wells was an amazing person.

[@pinsfast4165]

It’s a never-ending convection of “alpha” males. Once they are at the top, they turn over and fall to the bottom

[@TheScourge007]

As a former Coke call center employee, I'll say the summary of New Coke is almost precisely how it got explained in my training. In fact, they can probably skip that part of the new hire training and link this video instead!

[@jsquire5pa]

Hmm .. a more subtle interpretation would also take in the fact that coke lost out on taste tests because the tests tested immediate reaction not reflective reaction after drinking an entire can .. that’s why it lost out to Pepsi in taste tests… Such an analysis would also reflect on the fact that sweeetness desire initially increases as countries become richer but then subsides as sweetness comes to be seen as damaging for health but also less interesting because of omnipresence … that curve for cola at least probably peaked in the 80s giving Pepsi the advantage then but quickly losing it in subsequent decades as people preferred a more subtle less immediately sweet taste … compare Pepsi and coke in western world sales for example as against developing world sales where Pepsi is still strong as sweetness is still prized .. if I were managing coke I’d be going long in developing world markets that have strong growth and are at or near crossing into developed world status

[@georgehart8179]

I really enjoyed this video. I lived during the times that all these mistakes occurred. I remember, in 1969, during junior high (now called middle school), taking a typing course in which we all learned on Classic Royal manual typewriters. Almost 20 years later, my father-in-law let me use his Mac to type out college report papers to submit. During those years, to watch a video you loaded a film reel on a Bell Howell projector. The first portable phone we got for my wife in 1988 was heavy. The attached battery was as heavy as a brick. When flip phones came out, we thought we were in heaven.

[@tottiemitchell6737]

If you can find it, the documentary California Typewriter (one of the last standing American typerwriter repair stores located in Oakland) is a beautiful and well-told film. I will add that Tom Hannks has a huge collection of typerwriters. David McCullough wrote all his books on a typerwriter. As did Sam Shepard. Singer John Mayer uses a typerwriter to write songs since his creative stream is not interrupted by the awful squiggly red line under a misspelled word. Bonus is Jeremy Mayer who makes sculpters out of ONLY typperwriter parts.

[@alibizzle2010]

IMO Kodak's failure wasn't in digital cameras but rather in failing to leverage it's broader skillset in chemistry especially thin film chemistry in the way Fujifilm did

[@altaccout]

Not to mention that digital cameras have really bad margins.

[@HH-le1vi]

​@@altaccoutthat's cause they're like printers. You buy the camera and then the accessories and lenses and those lenses and accessories are very profitable.

[@Duncan_Campbell]

It can be summed up is Kodak is a film company that made chemicals, while Fujifilm was a chemical company that made film. the Asianometry channel did a great video a couple of months ago on the differences.

[@Naikomi95]

They are now together with Nikon trying to get into the ASML dominated Lithographie industry, let's see how that works out

[@jerseythedog]

That BlackBerry was an awesome device. On another note, I wonder what Mr. Boyle thinks about Toys R Us and their inability to change with the times.

[@phillkilgore6154]

Patrick’s humor and demeanor is so deliciously dry. Thanks for the excellent work, I look forward to all of your videos.

[@Tony32]

His friend How Money Works describe him as a comedian on one of his videos 🤣

[@JRay2113]

That’s called “British humor”

[@StuffOffYouStuff]

Love these business stories, Patrick. Perfect with my morning coffee 🌞☕

[@lbwlawyer]

I see Patrick is feeling his inner Gordon Gekko with the dramatic lighting and the power suit. 💯💯

[@B1gLupu]

"This algorithm is too fast, we can't sell add revenue with this" This is what happens when engineers are not involved in the decision process...

[@Tony32]

I hate it when the ATM makes me wait, because i know they just want me read the ad.

[@rykehuss3435]

@@Tony32 your atms have ads wtf

[@tomlxyz]

While i agree that engineers are often overlooked when it comes to decision making, this is more a case of psychology and scaling a business. There's a good chance that on a per person basis those portals were more profitable than the original design of Google. Heck, nowadays Google even becomes more of a portal that tries to keep you on the side by extracting and displaying information etc. Unfortunately, providing a good service to costumers is usually not the most profitable path

[@tomlxyz]

​@@Tony32 are there actually ads on ATMs where you live? I've also heard of American ATMs charging for withdrawal, we don't have either here

[@smalltime0]

@@tomlxyz I think they're joking, but I have seen ads on ATMs in SE Asia when I've visited - usually around touristy areas though (and I think they're government sanctioned ads for attractions)

[@beardmonster8051]

I was just waiting for Xerox. It makes me wonder how much lack of technical knowledge and vision among people in management positions actually costs. As a software developer I've certainly had my fair share of facepalm moments regarding management cluelessness in that regard.

[@justhecuke]

I wouldn't say it is managements lack of technical knowledge, but an unwillingness to defer to their on-staff technical experts for advice. If you have an expert, ask for their expert opinion. Many managers get into a pretty toxic mindset that because they are the boss they know best. That they need to be the source for good ideas and they need to have the vision. But that just isn't true and it isn't how things work at top tier tech companies. Managers set product timelines, engineers set technical ones. Managers provide business vision, engineers provide technical vision. Business works best when you use your best resources to tackle a problem.

[@tomlxyz]

​@@justhecukehow's that different from lack of technical knowledge? "Management knows best" but they don't know about technology

[@justhecuke]

@@tomlxyz I was saying that it is not the role of management to be technical leaders. They should delegate that sort of thing to actual technical people. Manager knows best is the issue, not the fact that managers do not know everything. That's what their teams are for. Hire experts, then listen to them.

[@beardmonster8051]

@@justhecuke That might be true, at least sometimes. But there can also be organizational reasons for poor communication between management and those on-staff technical experts, a lack of proper channels for such information. I guess you could call it "systemic unwillingness" or something, not necessarily always a personal unwillingness to listen to those exports.

[@justhecuke]

@@beardmonster8051 I suppose we can always chalk up business failures to systemic issues, but that's a bit boring, no?

[@pedalesmexicali]

Haha, I love his sarcasm when he says “Alphabet” is how we all call Google nowdays.

[@ayushsharma7995]

After recently reading "the innovators dilemma" I keep seeing it everywhere. Thanks for the great video as always Patrick

[@Hoplaaaaa]

Unity is about to get it's name on this list.

[@DAG_42]

Yep. Little competition, huge lead in many respects. But... Software developers aren't typical customers. Screw with them at your own peril!!

[@silusmkhwananzi3121]

Best Rap channel, subscribing immediately.

[@CarolBushbergRealEstateIthaca]

I started watching this channel for the interesting financial stories. And they remain fascinating. But now, I watch Patrick because I think he is one of the funniest people on the planet. His wry sense of humor is unmatched. I loved the recent analysis of Red Lobster…hilarious!

[@lifter1000]

3:20 bending over is a big part of yoga classes 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 the one and only Patrick Boyle

[@SusieAspen]

Incredible video, Patrick! These business blunders are not just informative, but also a fascinating glimpse into how giants can fall. A must-watch for anyone in the business world.

[@unl0ck998]

That tie is pure fire

[@aliasgur3342]

This is pure gold. Kodak invented the digital camera but fell victim to digital cameras. Google was called Backrub but was deemed too fast. Xerox invented many technologies fundamental to the digital revolution yet remains associated with paper.

[@edgarwalk5637]

Couple of corrections: 1. Kodak did make digital cameras, and even worked with Nikon on a digital SLR. However, they failed to capitalise on them. 2. Xerox actually released the first commercial computer with a graphical user interface: the Xerox Star, in 1981. Being so early, it was expensive. It took until 1985 to be able to produce a cheap and fast enough computer to run a GUI, by which time Xerox lost interest, while MS and Apple went off and conquered the market.

[@peterfireflylund]

Xerox still made a lot of money on patent licensing of PARC tech (laser printers, Ethernet) + they got a nice chunk of Apple shares.

[@advancetotabletop5328]

fwiw, I worked at Xerox PARC decades ago. Xerox‘s GUI was complicated and proof that, just because you have a GUI, didn’t mean it was better.

[@dmitripogosian5084]

@@advancetotabletop5328 Better than what ? There was not much other GUI around

[@g1y3]

No.1 appearing on Forbe's 30 under 30 list.

[@Mr-pn2eh]

Dirty 30 as I call it.

[@alhollywood6486]

Would love to see a case study on what happened to Palm. I had one of their early smart flip phones, with all the functionality that the Palm Pilot had.

[@postmodgent1499]

I think HP bought them then shut them down

[@travisadams4470]

HP bought PALM, when it tried to enter the mobile phone market. HP mismanaged it, couldn't figure out what to do with it and sold it at a h hugh loss. HP split into two separate companies. HPI (consumer poducts) and HPE (enterprise products) I'm surprised that either company is still around

[@notme222]

Yeah they were interesting. I had a Palm, and then after the 3Com buyout and the founders leaving for Handspring I got one of the first Treos. Really cool for its day, but tech and networks were far too slow to make it reliable as a web-connected device.

[@benlamprecht6414]

Thanks Patrick. When you update this video, you may want to consider adding Nokia, WeWork, an EV company or two, Lehman, Credit Suisse, and...who knows...IBM? Softbank?

[@TorIverWilhelmsen]

For IBM you could go with how they refused to make 80386-based PCs because they didn't want to ruin the mini computer market where they sold mini-mainframes for 10x what a PC would cost, leaving the 386-based PC market to Compaq and Toshiba. (And add in PC Jr., PS/2 w/OS 2 and MCA etc.)

[@sailorssea]

My father in law told me a story about investing. In the mid 80s he got a big bonus around $1500 abouts from Eastern Air. He’s friend told him that he invented his in the stock market and he should to but he’s wife wanted a home stereo system. The stereo had tape, record , 8 track. They would not have to buy one for decades So he brought the stereo. His friends had invested in Home Depot.

[@peterh3213]

this is a big mistake only in hindsight... many people did the same but they invested in Enron, Blockbuster or General Electrics

[@robertfield4103]

"Bending over is a big part of yoga classes." Stop, please stop, for the love of God, I can't take this anymore. ;-)

[@jimjackson4256]

Letting Steve Jobs nose around your cutting edge lab for free with nothing signed restricting using what he saw was a fantastic idea.

[@peterfireflylund]

It wasn’t for free. Xerox got Apple stock.

[@neurosp]

No, Xerox wasn’t that stupid, xerox says it’s was their better deal, it was a lot of money in shares.

[@basicallymid]

And Apple still doing that shit to this day 😂😂

[@myhouse-yourhouse]

5:45 to skip ad

[@samedwards6683]

Thanks so much for creating and sharing this informative video. Great job. Keep it up.

[@cartereducation1]

Awesome! I will use sections of these in my business classes.

[@joeaverage3444]

I think Patrick is right that one of the things that this video shows is that being an industry or market leader with an existing technology can breed complacency and hubris, and keep executives from spotting the next big thing. Tech and other companies that have endured through the ages often did so because they were always open to new things and didn't drop the ball by ignoring them or by trusting too much in the popularity of their current products.

[@STR82DVD]

Even better than learning from other people's mistakes is when you're afforded an opportunity to laugh at other's mistakes.

[@theflippestside]

Patrick, you are the best. KZbin wouldn’t be the same without you. Please never leave us. Lol

[@112steinway]

My personal favorite business oopsie story is the time when Netflix went to Blockbuster and asked them to buy it for just $50 million. Blockbuster turned them down. Why? Because they were working on making their own video streaming service in 1999 with a little company called Enron. Oh dear.

[@copano2012]

Of all the oofs, this is definitely one of them.

[@MrDubyadee1]

I lived through the BlackBerry/iPhone/other smartphones drama. I had a very senior IT position in a company using BlackBerry’s . Executives loved them. What I saw was that the BlackBerrys were not tied to the rest of IT infrastructure nor was it tied to other consumer products. Windows became a corporate favorite by being ubiquitous on home computers. I could see where Apple was headed and thought they had a good chance. Blackberry didn’t have any consumer or other corporate IT products so they limited what they could do with the device. It was like 19th century railroads not realizing they were in the transport business.

[@SwiftOmega]

Mr. Boyle's editor just went hard on the color grading holy.

[@mediarockit]

😂 Gotta love the Boylesque puns. True evergreen. Thanks much for the good craic, making these serious topics truly enjoyable yet enlightening with my Sunday coffee.

[@rabflorida]

I always thought Decca Records passing on signing The Beatles in 1962 was the biggest blunder.

[@monk3y206]

a story from Patrick talking about AT&T Unix history would be perfect

[@The-Selfish-Meme]

Thanks Mr Boyle - this is probably the least absurd material I will absorb today.

[@aarodful]

I also remember studying New Coke in business school. In the testing, they did not give whole cans to the tasters, just samples. So it tasted better with a few sips but became too sweet when trying to guzzle a whole can once it was on the market. So also a failure of testing.

[@adamshinbrot]

No. 11: Didn't Target spend a billion dollars trying to expand into Canada, and failed?

[@HH-le1vi]

They did.

[@Wanhope2]

Sure, and then absolutely dropped the ball on inventory management. Every one I checked out looked early-post apocalyptic and picked over. Because they didn’t stock anything properly.

[@blaiseutube]

My toastmasters club met at Excite. The hubris was pervasive. All activities were done with the shortest time horizon and a focus on perception.

[@politicalqueso]

Definitely need to add the fall of RCA to this list. Choosing holograms then video records over magnetic tape in the format wars destroyed one of the largest media companies in America

[@simonfrost7094]

The channel Technology Connections did an incredible 5-episode deep dive into this whole debacle. It's a fascinating treatise on how, just because you can gather some really clever people together in one place and let them create new things, that doesn't mean you are necessarily creating and dominating new markets with all that new tech. Choosing the right areas of research and knowing which development is actually going to be viable and mak a profit, then actually bringing them to market is incredibly difficult and fraught with massive internal politics amongst the scientists themselves, let alone other engineers and management. One of the big reasons they went with the bizarre sounding choice of holograms was that all the scientists in the R&D labs wanted to work with the 'new, cool' tech of holograms. None of them were interested in trying to fit more data onto magnetic tape, or putting videos on vinyl records. That technology was boring and old, because it was already on the market and no-one wanted to refine it or develop it further. I guess it's the difference between building something yourself (where you can take all the credit) and just developing/improving something someone has already done the major work on.

[@letsclimb5828]

I just enjoy seeing patricks studio decorations change

[@tomconnolly7420]

Thank you Patrick, really enjoying your KZbin channel and Spotify. 🤝 Absolutely love your humour 😂😂😂

[@snowbarsyk]

On a positive side, we now know, that 83% of population doesn't mind yoga in transparent pants!

[@ChrisAthanas]

Not seeing the downside

[@islingmimi]

This reminds me of the SpongeBob’s Ripped Pants song

[@carloa877]

It's just that Lululemon's most loyal customers don't want to be commented about their bodies.

[@ChrisAthanas]

@@carloa877 I Guess there is a limit to the skin tight clothing?

[@greebj]

So long as there's an excess of supply in the proportion of the population that doesn't mind doing yoga in transparent pants, then supply will exceed demand and viewing the spectacle will remain free.

[@mammuchan8923]

OMG I miss my BlackBerry so much. My company had its own Blackberry server and everything ran so smoothly. But they mothballed it so I was forced to go with an iPhone. My 3 favourite things were the tactile experience and button keyboard. Then BBM - people could not just add you to a group without gaining permission. WA is a privacy nightmare and an intrusion. And lastly no one has ever been able to replicate the BBM hug emoji which was the best emoji of all time.

[@nathanieldoggett7992]

Oh yea patrick boyle

[@joseph7858]

thank you for this recap, was a lighter tone. is good sometimes. 😅

[@lasskinn474]

interesting that you should choose blackberry as the example. anyway, blackberry had made another mistake earlier on - it's business model was subsidized expensive phone the customer had no idea how much they cost vs. competition and early blackberrys needed support from the operator to operate. as a result they had pretty much 0 marketshare anywhere where subsidized phones weren't either popular or were entirely banned.

[@vh1775]

Just started watching - I wonder if Ratners will be mentioned?

[@Fudmottin]

"Kodak was a leading *developer* of photographic products." Love the subtle jokes.

[@davidbaldwin1591]

Patrick, your humor is your gift!

[@scotttritten309]

Two of the seven companies listed here were headquartered in my hometown at the times of their blunders. It's not a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[@dtemp132]

Which hometown is that? Palo Alto?

[@scotttritten309]

@dtemp132 Rochester, NY was the HQ of both Kodak and Xerox at the time of the blunders. Xerox moved their HQ to Connecticut, but the remains of Kodak are still there.

[@ricahrdb]

@@scotttritten309 before I read your answer I almost instantly thought of Rochester. 🙂 What is so typical is that both companies are very similar in that they were very strong in R&D but poor in implementing that R&D in successful products. Makes you wonder what is in the water in Rochester.

[@rorythomson3439]

Lol Cosby on the coke ad.. epic

[@OntologyofValue]

Patrick is one of the YT creators who get my thumb up before the video even starts. So well done and so entertaining!

[@dennischiapello7243]

I appreciate that Boyle speaks to you as an equal, voicing things he assumes you might already know but would enjoy hearing again, like a bedtime story. There's a thought: Patrick Boyle reading children's stories. "It is surprising that, by the time she finished the porridge, Goldilocks didn't see fit to skip the rigamarole and instead head straight for Baby Bear's bed. After all, he had a pretty good track record."

[@michaelbizon444]

Like spending the R&D bucks on techs, but not adopting them, and getting put out of business for it. Kodak invented digital cameras but stayed with film & Zenith developed HD TV, but was too slow to put any on the market. This has got to be worse than choosing the wrong tech to gamble R&D capital on, failing to capitalize on hard won & expensive lead in tech.

[@michaelbizon444]

Betamax, LaserDisc, Capacitance Electronic Disc(CED), Video High Density (VHD) some of which helped put the companies that developed them under.

[@Rospajother]

Enjoyed this thank you

[@valdencorr2861]

Patrick missed the Blockbuster refusing to buy Netflix debacle. THAT was an epic fail.

[@vulpo]

I was expecting maybe Osbourne computers and Digital Research would also have made the list.

[@ralphstube]

@@vulpo Is Osbourne computers fair? - Could their marketing failure have been predicted? - The Tech industry learned, and gradually developed the the upgrade cycles that exist today - but at the time, product development announcements did not have the same impact on consumer sales.

[@vulpo]

@@ralphstube You are probably right that it wasn't foreseeable at the time. The term "Osbourne effect" was only coined after their failure was analyzed. But unfortunately life isn't always fair, especially when it comes to business mistakes. I only mentioned Osbourne because it is so often cited and because the video was about learning from other business's mistakes.

[@robtruax7640]

It was actually Spider-Man’s fault Osbourne collapsed.

[@jaqueitch]

The steel industry is another HUMUNGOUS example of large companies getting ousted by smaller, nimble companies with superior technology

[@HuntingCatIsBack]

No Gerald Ratner? The ultimate nobody else's fault "what were you thinking" business destroying faux pas.

[@caoutchouc-cc]

I love the sign: "Our Children will never know Refreshment" :D

[@nco_gets_it]

That blackberry I had issued was like a ball and chain. Between them and "smart" phones, they have created the "always on call" BS culture we deal with now.

[@A_Eichler]

Well said! I use the term 'dog leash'. If you are in business for yourself it's one thing, but the exploitative 'always on call culture' for employees is indeed BS.

[@nunyabusiness863]

Couldn't agree more. I had a pager back in the day and expensed payphones, then an early flip phone. I called them tethers. Other employees thought it was cool. I thought we were being consumed by our company. I tell the new guys if you're not on call at night, put your work phone on a desk in another room of your house and be mentally present with your family.

[@vargapa101]

Love thi channel. Facts, context, dryest humour available on YT. Keep it up.

[@rising_crust]

This guy’s comedic timing is amazing. 😂

[@indrickboreale7971]

God, I love the deadpan delivery of jokes.

[@Wltrwllyngaeiou]

Crazy how many of these are related to management fearing new technology. Don’t they realize if they don’t make it someone else will?

[@ricahrdb]

Not sure if it is always a case of fear of new technology. Some of the examples in this video are of companies that were market leaders with a product or technology that was subsequently superseded by something that radically changed that market. I don't doubt that it is hard to accept such a radical change from a position of market leadership. Kodak and Blackberry are clear examples of that. And Kodak itself was actually very good in R&D while Blackberry was a company that matured the (early) market for smartphones.

[@Shakespearept]

👍👍Entertaining video, as always. It's important to learn from the mistakes others have made. Also, impressed that Blackberry survived a wash.

[@AlwaysHopeful87]

Allow my violin to play... The biggest mistake business make today is a lackluster commitment to employee retention and engagement. The turnover rate is not on financials as an entry, so it is ignored by investors. The costs involved are much like scrap costs in production, usually 3 or 4 times the hourly rate. Training, efficiency, effect on culture all have hidden costs. Profits can hide these. Quiet quitting is the latest result of this. A solution to entertain? Substantial stock ownership with voting rights for workers, and honest organized labor.

[@davidnicholson6680]

The Xerox PARC story is just incredible. Xerox was uniquely positioned to totally dominate personal computers as they were already the leading office automation company in the world. They had most of the top computer scientists and engineers working for them. They had technology that was literally decades ahead of the competition... And they did nothing with any of this. They didn't even take the time to patent their innovations just in case. The company is a fading, irrelevant shell now.

[@ashishpatel350]

When my boss says I made a mistake I'm going to show them this video

[@318ishonk]

Thanks for sharing! Now waiting for a new company to be launched that sells those stylish workout-suits that you wore in one of your recent videos. Absolutely not see-through; thus should be selling like sliced bread!

[@peterkatow3718]

The Blackberry story wants a follow up with the even more blatant blunder of Commodore with the Amiga and Atari with the ST.

[@tycorp1971]

That's a very nice jacket and tie. I approve👍

[@VentiVonOsterreich]

I learn from the mistakes of others who took my advice

[@l4m41987]

Core message, if there is something that is a lot better than your current product, but it would destroy your established revenue stream, better run with it and find a way for creating revenue, as other wise other will bring it to market, maybe make less revenue, but because it is the better product, they will take over the market. If you think about it basic free market theory.

[@jimmyyu2184]

Apparently being "Transparent" is bad for companies... I personally would like to see more "transparencies". 🤣🤷‍♂😁🤦‍♂

[@normamimosa5991]

"He may have been too transparent in his opinion." LOL!

[@nanucit]

I see Patrick has begun his clickbait video thumbnail phase, can't wait to see his first yawning wide open mouth thumbnail video 😲

[@mylor1066]

Excellent video, I learnt alot in there. Shocked that Kodak sells it's trademark to other companies.

[@tracyh5751]

Patrick's going to have to make a follow up video in a year once we know how much Unity's idea to charge game developers for being too successful really damaged the company.

[@granttucker8451]

At 10:02, you can see Patrick nearly blink……it will happen some day

[@inopes3628]

Spoiler, in no particular order, the top 5 of the 7: 1. Twitter acquisition and rebranding to "X" 2. Hyperloop (and by proximity: The Boring Company) 3. Neuralink and destruction of potentially valuable IPs, before they became Neuralink 4. SolarCity 5. Tesla Semi

[@manoloariza7605]

Calmdown CEO of TSLAQ !

[@inopes3628]

@@manoloariza7605 that's a very fair list - two places are still opened, for the future ideas. :)

[@HH-le1vi]

Not even close.

[@stefanjohansson2373]

13:38 The computer mouse wasn’t invented by PARC (Xerox). It was created around 1960, at least 10 years before PARC was founded.

[@lekhakaananta5864]

When will Apple suffer the same fate as Blackberry? The last few generations of iPhones have hardly seen any change. I suppose the only difference is that there is not yet a new revolutionary product to replace them.

[@HH-le1vi]

It'll be awhile. They're status symbols. So unless a company comes out with something that looks and functions better it might not happen.

[@Walter-Montalvo]

@@HH-le1viBlackBerry was a status symbol and it got replaced by Apple, and it did not take long

[@HH-le1vi]

@@Walter-Montalvo blackberry wasn't a fashion status symbol like Apple is.