The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business

March 29, 2002 10:47 PM

The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business It's all here: Enron, Arthur Andersen, Burger King, Mickey D's, CNN, FOX, and the all time favorite, Microsoft. They had to limit it to 101 moments due to size constraints...
posted by Rastafari (19 comments total)

Pure comedy. Thanks Rastafari, that was good.
posted by riffola at 11:09 PM on March 29, 2002

My favorite:

56. Half.com places advertisements on the slips of paper inside fortune cookies at Chinese restaurants. Confusion ensues when some customers mistakenly believe that the advertisements, which offer $5 off a purchase at Half.com, actually entitle them to $5 off their dinner check.
posted by Rastafari at 11:19 PM on March 29, 2002

95. Having lured Mariah Carey with a $21 million signing bonus and an $80 million, five-album recording contract, EMI decides, after only one album, to pay her $28 million to go away. The net result: EMI pays $49 million for the soundtrack to Glitter.
posted by mrbula at 11:46 PM on March 29, 2002

The list is pretty good but this one takes it IMHO...

Having lured Mariah Carey with a $21 million signing bonus and an $80 million, five-album recording contract, EMI decides, after only one album, to pay her $28 million to go away. The net result: EMI pays $49 million for the soundtrack to Glitter.
posted by faithnomore at 11:51 PM on March 29, 2002

If you ask me, the funniest one is about EMI paying almost fifty mil for the soundtrack to Glitter.
posted by muckster at 4:37 AM on March 30, 2002

At the time, I commented to a co-worker, "Hell, I'd settle for a lousy couple of grand from EMI to agree not to sing for them anymore."
posted by alumshubby at 5:05 AM on March 30, 2002

The same greedy people who made all those mistakes are the same greedy people who brought you the internet. These "dumb mistakes" are made by people who have the balls to tolerate risk and failure. This trait is surprisingly rare in the human population. We should be thankful for people like these. We need them.
posted by mikegre at 6:27 AM on March 30, 2002

No amount of recent stupidity can compete with IBM failing to buy DOS outright from a greasy haired Bill Gates.
posted by machaus at 6:43 AM on March 30, 2002

Along the same lines, Bessemer Ventures has an "Anti-Portfolio" of the companies it mistakenly passed on:


Apple Computer -
BVP had the opportunity to invest in pre-IPO secondary stock in Apple at a $60M valuation. BVP's Neill Brownstein called it "outrageously expensive."

eBay -
"Stamps? Coins? Comic books? You've GOT to be kidding," thought Cowan. "No-brainer pass."
posted by lizs at 8:22 AM on March 30, 2002

A small matter, but it surprised me that the article started with number 1 and counted up. Don't these lists usually count down for suspense?
posted by harrycaul at 1:20 PM on March 30, 2002

While the list was an entertaining read, it was heavy on PR faux pas, with concentration on too many high-visibility companies and stories. But I suppose a publication like Business 2.0, born in the dot-com era, can probably be excused for thinking that bad PR counts as "dumbest."

I don't want to go off on a rant here, but the real dumbest things that go on in business are more closely related to the things that people think are common sense, like...

...using milestone deadlines to assure project progress, when in fact, they both lengthen and delay projects as people estimate to cover their assumptions and then yield up any good luck they have to protect their estimates. (A source of Parkinson's Law).

...making moves to lay people off when faced with a constraint in their market. What the hell does internal cost-cutting have to do with external strategic and marketing issues? Resources, especially human resources, are flexible, and can address many markets. It's the everyday failure of management/leadership that keeps those markets out of the picture.

...making sure that there are no idle resources, which then guarantees no protective capacity/capability to recover when Murphy's Law strikes. (Applicable in both overstressed project environments, and overlean manufacturing environments.)

...believing that an activity, or a product, or a service has a caculatable cost associated with it, and therefore an appropriate and particular price associated with it, and therefore a profit associated with it. Resources have costs. Organizations make profits. Allocated product margins/profits lead to more bad decisions than lucky ones.

...and many other more mundane, but common, applications of erroneous assumptions.

(Oh how I want to self-link to my site, where I discuss these things. But modesty -- and mefi guidelines -- prevents.)
posted by fpatrick at 2:04 PM on March 30, 2002

fpatrick - Relevant self-links are entirely appropriate within discussions, especially discussions started by others.
posted by NortonDC at 2:40 PM on March 30, 2002

Coming in at number 9, the Ballmer Dance!
posted by adampsyche at 7:30 PM on March 30, 2002

The same greedy people who made all those mistakes are the same greedy people who brought you the internet.


Huh? Last time I checked, the internet was brought to us by the government bureaucracy formerly known as DARPA.
posted by electro at 8:06 PM on March 30, 2002

electro, it's sort of an "as we know it today" thang. I used the pre-commercial internet, beginning regularly around '88, and it was ... quite different. No web, for one thing. I mean, I remember discussions along the lines of "is it legal to advertise on a web page?". (Technically, the internet backbone was still, by law, non-commercial, but that was changed by Congress in 1994. That's the law that Gore cited, by the way, in his infamous claim.)

I kinda liked the fact that they allowed themselves to clock in at number 11 (they put Enron's Skilling on their cover, the week before he resigned). In the previous issue, they made a chart of the most annoying pop-up ads, like X10, and e-mail addresses if you wanted to complain; and at the bottom was a note that they were aware that the poobahs also ran pop-ups/unders on the Business2.com website, and the exact e-mail of their advertising manager. They do have some 'tude, even though they're a little less interesting than the old staff (they were sold to /merged with eCompany Now, and only retained about three people).
posted by dhartung at 8:28 PM on March 30, 2002

Ok, I'll bite. Which parts of the current non-pre-commercial internet that you actually like were invented by the for-profit, greed-inspired risk takers that our above correspondent defends?

(All I can come up is mp3 compression, which I like for convenience but can live without)
posted by electro at 10:03 PM on March 30, 2002

Which parts of the current non-pre-commercial internet that you actually like were invented by the for-profit, greed-inspired risk takers that our above correspondent defends?

Well, how about the part where you can access it? And look, you're not even associated with a university!
posted by kindall at 10:10 PM on March 30, 2002

Well, actually, I get my internet access from the local phone monopoly. But, I remember very well when it was from a mom-n-pop ISP, whose for-profit, greed-inspired efforts I did, and, now, still do, appreciate.
posted by electro at 10:31 PM on March 30, 2002

electro - Ok, I'll bite. Which parts of the current non-pre-commercial internet that you actually like were invented by the for-profit, greed-inspired risk takers that our above correspondent defends?

Gnutella
Quakes 1 through 3TA (specifically including Scourge of Armagon. I loves me some HIPDM1)
Half-Life and CounterStrike
Phantasy Star Online
ICQ
Java...
posted by NortonDC at 11:31 PM on March 30, 2002