Making mistakes is an unavoidable aspect of being human. Indeed, some of the biggest teachers and lessons come from our own or others’ experiences, failures, and mistakes, where the mistakes of the past become enlightenment for the future. The technical world is not an ideal or imaginary world where everything is perfect or without mistakes. Anything can lead to mistakes and losses. The decisions and the calculations, even luck have a very good role in mistakes. So, here is a list of the top 20 technical mistakes made by the most popular companies in history.
1. Telephone
According to the story, the Western Union telegraph company rejected the patent offer from Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. The rejection led to the formation of the new telephone company by Graham Bell. After a few years, the company realized its mistake, but it was too late. Eventually, the company was acquired by the A and V companies.
2. Netflix
In 1997, when Netflix was launched, Blockbuster had the number one position in the video rental industry. In 2000, to save money and energy, Netflix decided to buy the company and make the journey easy. Netflix made a deal of fifty million dollars, in which the Netflix team would manage the online platform of Blockbuster. Blockbuster rejected and laughed at Netflix. Today, Netflix is the most profitable platform, with a valuation of 203 billion dollars.
3. Personal Music Player
The RealNetwork company was considered one of the best network and media companies and committed one of the biggest denial mistakes in history. The company denied the offer from Tony Fadell and turned down the idea of a personal music player. Later, he went to Apple and introduced the iPod.
4. Apple Airpower
Apple is one of the most famous & best gadget companies in the world. But Apple is no exception in the case of failures or mistakes. Airpower is the wireless-charging pad that would charge up your Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad. That was one of the biggest failures in technical history.
5. Apple Inc. Batteries
Apple companies are infamous for their low battery capacity. If you are an Apple gadget user, you should carry a charger or power bank with you every time. In 2017, there were massive complaints against the company and its batteries. To make amends, Apple made a deal for their customers. By the end of 2018, they had replaced the batteries of 11 million people for $29.99.
6. Apple And Steve Jobs
Whenever someone mentions Apple, Steve Jobs’ name and figure come first in our minds. But there was a time when Steve Jobs was not a part of the Apple company. In 1985, the company started working without him. It is unclear if it was his decision or if the company pushed him away. But by the end of the 1990s, Apple lost its dominance under the leadership of John Scully.
7. Digital Camera
Cameras have been a part of our lives for the past fifty years. But in 1975, when the idea of a film-less camera was introduced to the famous company Kodak, they laughed at the engineer and crew. The company was bankrupted in 2012 because of its mistake in adopting digitalized cameras.
8. News Corp.
When News Corp paid five hundred and fifty million dollars for MySpace, it appeared to be an unbelievable move by the old media company. However, due to Facebook and mishandling, MySpace ceased to growing and flopped. News Corp got fifty million dollars for Myspace.
9. Lycos
Like Yahoo, Lycos was another popular website in Europe. It was sold at the peak of its short career. A 5.4 billion dollar deal was struck with a Spanish telecom conglomerate. But after a few years, Telefonica sold it for a few million dollars.
10. Facebook
The FTC charged Facebook with eight separate privacy-related violations in 2012. The charges included making falsely claiming about a user’s control over their data. To settle this case, Facebook agreed to the consumer’s demands. So, Facebook prohibited users from making misrepresentations about the privacy and security of their accounts and demanded Facebook apply for a strong privacy protection program.
11. Yahoo And Facebook
The deal between Google and YouTube inspired the main search engine in the world. So, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel made a deal of one billion dollars with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But the deal went off for unclear reasons. And Yahoo is considered the most talented company with less luck.
12. Yahoo And Google
Before the debut of Google, Yahoo was the most popular search engine of the century. After the presentation of Google, Yahoo lost its place. Yahoo couldn’t finalize the deal with Google several times. And the history gives another chapter of mistakes that caused the company’s fall from the first.
13. Yahoo And Broadcast.Com
Broadcast.com was a popular website for the same purpose as YouTube today. It was considered one of the biggest online websites for videos. So, Yahoo bought Broadcast.com to expand its business and encourage digital platforms. But the internet connection was poor back then, and unlucky Yahoo faced much loss.
14. Google And Dodgeball
After becoming the biggest search engine and strongest presence in the technical world, Google started eliminating the upcoming threats by buying and shutting them down. Google also shuttled down Dodgeball, the famous check-in app, in the same way. A former Google employee’s Foursquare, also known as Dodgeball 2.0, will cost a million dollars.
15. Jaiku And Google
Once upon a time, Jaiku was a platform with faster growth than Twitter. And then comes Google, which bought Jaiku to compete against Twitter. Eventually, they shut it down. However, there was only a 50% chance that Jaiku would have defeated Twitter. So estimated records say that the deal was a mistake and brought a loss of two billion dollars for Google.
16. The Graveyard Project Of Google
Google is famous for its productivity. But they are also good at shutting down different projects of their own. Some of the projects were expired in the current digital world, and the rest of them were not even good to be started. The projects shuttled down by Google and causing economic loss are collectively called “Graveyard projects of Google.”
17. Aol/Time Warner
The history of mistakes in the technical world is not only the denial of deals and ideas but also the merging or buying of companies. In 1989, Warner Communications, combined with Time, Inc. America Online, paid $165 billion for Time Warner in a megamerger in 2001, the largest commercial combination.
18. Aol And Bebo
AOL is a good candidate on the list of mistakes. Bebo sold to AOL for eight hundred and fifty million dollars. The platform allows its users to create free social networking profiles. But the company sold it for ten million dollars because they could not make the considerable investment required to prevent its business from failing.
19. Uber
Uber is the biggest online taxi service in history. They are also famous for their technical mistakes, which cost millions of dollars. Due to the lack of privacy and security of data, the hackers stole fifty-seven million drivers’ personal information. That cost one million dollars to pay the hackers and bring back the data.
20. Wework
In 2019, WeWork was the unique coworking startup whose IPO was one of the most eagerly awaited public offerings. The start-up had very fast growth and investors’ attention in its early stages. But the public offering wasn’t the best decision, and that led to the self-destruction of the company.
