Everyone makes mistakes as humans but not everyone makes mistakes that costs billions of dollars! What makes the tech industry the most difficult industry in the world is the fact that you can’t predict the future. Everything changes so rapidly that the biggest players of the tech industry today may suddenly be out of business in few years time. So many tech companies do acquisitions that are plain stupid while others just let opportunities that will fetch billions of dollars slide away. Here are some of the funniest, mind blowing mistakes in the tech world that not only cost billions of dollars, millions of people also lost their jobs as a result of these costly mistakes of few powerful CEO’s.

1. The $93 billion mistake!



Apple’s 3rd co-founder Ronald Wayne will probably go down as the biggest loser in modern history. He lost out big time! He founded Apple Inc. together with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. However, he sold his own share of the company back to Steve Jobs and Wozniak for just $800 and later accepted $1,500 to forfeit any claims against Apple. Today Apple is the biggest company in the world with a net worth of over $900 billion according to fortune. If he has kept his shares of 10% in Apple Inc. He would have been worth well over $93 billion. I can’t imagine how his children and grandchildren would have felt upon hearing this tales by moonlight!

2. IBM giving Microsoft the software monopoly. Cost: $560 billion





This is definitely one of all time greatest business stories ever. When IBM started making computers, they failed to see the future. They thought the money was in the hardware not software, how wrong! So when IBM asked Microsoft to build an OS for them, Microsoft cleverly asked to keep the rights to the OS, IBM said ‘yeah, why not?’ Microsoft kept the rights to the windows operating system and licensed the software to other pc makers. Today, Microsoft is worth over $560 billion and is projected to be over $1 trillion by 2020 while Bill gates is worth over $90 billion. How depressing.

3. AOL and Time Warner merger disaster. Cost: About $200 billion



Lord have mercy. This deal has cemented it’s place in as the world’s biggest value destroying merger in history of mankind. At the time of the deal, AOL was worth around $200 billion. Today AOL is worth just $2 billion. The big question is, where’s the rest of the money? Poof! Blown away. Luckily Verizon has announced plans to buy the company for $4.4 billion dollars, everyone thinks it’s not worth the money.

4. Yahoo’s failure to buy Google. Cost: $100 billion.



Google desperately tried to sell itself to yahoo for just $3 billion many times back when yahoo was the biggest tech player in the world and most people thought search engines are not important. The deal never went through because yahoo was not innovative enough. Yahoo’s value has nosedived ever since and is just worth about $33 billion while Google’s value keeps skyrocketing. Even Nigerian yahoo boys hardly use yahoo! They’re using Facebook and Gmail. I think yahoo should just go back and sell itself to Google!

5. 5. Yahoo’s failure to buy Facebook.



Hahaha! Looking at the long history of mistakes yahoo has made in the past 10 years, it’s easy to conclude that everything the company does is a mistake. Only few people knew that yahoo’s then CEO Terry Semel and Facebook CEO mark Zuckerberg shook hands on $1 billion for the transaction. Rumor has it that Zuckerberg raised his price at the last minute causing yahoo to back off. Nevertheless, Facebook is one of the biggest and most important companies on earth.

6. Microsoft phone deal with Nokia. A $10 billion mistake!




This deal should never have happened! When Microsoft bought Nokia in April 2014, the company said the deal would strengthen the company in so many ways. Guess what, it weakened the company, gulped billions of dollars and rendered thousands of workers jobless! Both companies actually lost out. While Microsoft lost their money and influence in the mobile phone industry, Nokia lost their top place as the biggest phone giant in the world as they failed to go the Android way. In 2015, Microsoft laid off 7,800 staff of Nokia accepting defeat in the smartphone industry. However Nokia is back with new owners and is warming its way back into the hearts of it’s loyal fans.

7. Yahoo buying broadcast.com for $5.7 billion. Terrible!



Yahoo again? Ladies and gentlemen, Yahoo has made one more appearance on our list. For those who don’t know, broadcast.com used to be the YouTube of it’s time. It’s was the top video streaming site. Yahoo bought the site for $5.7 billion hoping to revive it’s value but burnt their fingers instead. The problem was that back then, the internet was very slow, there were no wireless 3G or 4G networks so it was difficult for people even in the US to stream videos online. I think yahoo just had a big bad luck.

8. Kodak turning down the idea of a digital camera. Destroyed by its own invention!



Kodak would have been the first company to launch a digital camera way back in 1975, the company actually invented it. The management of the company laughed at their engineer who introduced the concept of the digital camera. Sadly in 2012 the company declared bankruptcy after failing to adopt the idea and go digital. Lack of innovation and failure to adapt to modern trends killed the company. Today, The camera industry is dominated by Canon and Nikon who are making billions of dollars in sales.

9. Google buying jaiku. Cost $2 billion dollars.



Jaiku was a very popular Micro blogging website just like Twitter. It was faster than Twitter and Google bought it to compete with Twitter. Suddenly, Google shut down the site. That’s $2 billion washed down the drain!

10. Google buying dodgeball. Cost: 1 billion dollars.



It’s okay to say that apart from yahoo, Google has also made its own fair share of mistakes. I don’t know what pushed Google to make this move but they actually did. The splashed a whopping $1 billion on this App then they shut it down. I guess it’s because they have so much money and can do whatever they like with it!

SOURCE: http://techcapon.com/top-10-biggest-mistakes-in-the-tech-world-history-that-cost-billions-of-dollars/

Buying of GEJ's second term form

Three lessons I've learnt.

1. It pays to be patient, commited and persistent.

2. Always WEIGH the RISK before investing.

3. Never look down on anybody, no one knows tomorrow. And if people look down on you, BELIEVE in yourself. Case studies - Yahoo and Google; Kodak


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Naijawebmaster:


Three lessons I've learnt.

1. It pays to be patient, commited and persistent.

2. Always WEIGH the RISK before investing.

3. Never look down on anybody, no one knows tomorrow. And if people look down on you, BELIEVE in yourself. Case studies - Yahoo and Google; Kodak

very true

Naijawebmaster:


Three lessons I've learnt.

1. It pays to be patient, commited and persistent.

2. Always WEIGH the RISK before investing.

3. Never look down on anybody, no one knows tomorrow. And if people look down on you, BELIEVE in yourself. Case studies - Yahoo and Google; Kodak

Bro, Someone whispering me Buhari name, but nay
I bind you the spirit of failure !

Yasirarafat:

Bro, Someone whispering me Buhari name, but nay
I bind you the spirit of failure !

NIGERIA: Nigeria invested in APC and the economy nose dived from over $545b and Africas fastest growing economy to recession, hyper inflation, creation of _3 million jobs, fulani herdsmen, killing everywhere, 1 naira to $1, 45 naira per litre fuel etc.

CONSISTENCY IS IMPORTANT WHEN ONE DESIRES TO GROW...

Beautiful piece

There are many even costlier business blunders OP did not include:

Purchase of Myspace by Rupurt Mudoch leading to loss of millions of dollars

Ford's 'Edsel' car brand in the 1950s which turned out a disaster despite millions sunk in the development and hyping

Excite, then the leader in search engine refusing to buy google for just about $1m

sale of Alaska to the US

Betamax losing out to JVC despite the fact they initially the larger market share

Number 5 is very wrong.

Mark never agreed to sell Facebook to yahoo. Yahoo's offer wasn't $1 billion rather it was actually $1.5billion. And according to the broker that yahoo sent, when he made the offer, Mark replied "Look around me, I don't need that kind of money. Besides, I'm afraid I might not come up with a better idea than Facebook"

Bro, bia , mistake monitor which one have you done?

Wow

sometimes the differrence between a right and wrong decision is the outcome after a few years.


If Facebook didn't become such a huge success, Yahoo will be celebrating that the didn't get their fingers burnt.

oh Microsoft, i so celebrated the failure of the windows phone os. i used my hard earned salary in 2011 to buy a windows mobile 6.5 phone by Sony Ericsson, then few months down the line, Microsoft discontinued the windows mobile 6 operating system in favour of windows phone 7,8... my phone became like the blackberry of today, WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Windows market place, 2go, internet Explorer etc all stoped working leaving me with only java opera mini. my colleagues were like; i told u 2 to buy blackberry, i told u to buy a nokia e series, n series.. as my small money waste,na so una billions waste.

What is wrong with Google? They have so many abandoned projects...I don't even know who comes up with all these acquisitions?

Look at Google duo(video chat) and Google halo(voice chat, text and Artificial Intelligence). They're all dead. Duo was supposed to knock off the likes Imo and Viber, while Halo was to hit likes of WhatsApp. WhatsApp knocked both off by introducing both voice and video calls, the best we experience we have for now.

Google had acquired so many other small techs but later abandoned or integrated them into something they've abandoned. Microsoft never made such mistake apart from Nokia ( would talk about this soon). Google better learn from Yahoo.

Google has one product only..... Google Chrome.

Typing....

Microsoft acquisition of Nokia would have been the best, but Microsoft had no plan for Nokia as they picked the not so performing boss from Microsoft to CEO Nokia. This dude ( can't remember his name) killed Nokia, approving non-bankable designs and market strategies, while refusing updates imagine a whole Nokia windows phone can not attached files to email). The most annoying part was the CEO was send forth with $20m when HMD global took over.

As for Ronald Wayne, well, me nor know o. He said the whole show was failing, as no funds were coming in. But Steve wouldn't give up. He got his first investment after the "150 missed calls" he gave the guy... forgotten his name. nor vex. But Ronald isn't poor sha.

Yahoo na village people worry them.

TechCapon:
Those projects are in the google graveyard alongside Google Glass, Google Waves and Picasa

I dey tells you. Google glass na hin for be the best o...walahi.
If you saw the movie Jeruzalem", glass was the movie. They just use am for the movie so taaaay I dey reason the glass day and night.

Yahoo goofed big time! Their executives messed up seriously.

abumeinben:
What is wrong with Google? They have so many abandoned projects...I don't even know who comes up with all these acquisitions?

Look at Google duo(video chat) and Google halo(voice chat, text and Artificial Intelligence). They're all dead. Duo was supposed to knock off the likes Imo and Viber, while Halo was to hit likes of WhatsApp. WhatsApp knocked both off by introducing both voice and video calls, the best we experience we have for now.

Google had acquired so many other small techs but later abandoned or integrated them into something they've abandoned. Microsoft never made such mistake apart from Nokia ( would talk about this soon). Google better learn from Yahoo.

Typing....

Those projects are in the google graveyard alongside Google Glass, Google Waves and Picasa

dominique:
Yahoo goofed big time! Their executives messed up seriously.

True talk

Thanks OP this is good stuff

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Failure of Nairaland to buy Lindaikeji's Blog back in 2014

Ronald C Wayne deserve a knock on his head and a kick on his bum.

check out the new tech meant to be deployed soon

still e no show for them body.... owo

The story of how Bill Gates and his guys at a rising Microsoft back then smartly inserted the clause into their contract with IBM to keep the exclusive rights to the OS used to run IBM computers was absolute genius. Bill Gates is a super visionary and it paid off. This is the kind of mind Greats must have when building their empires.

As for Yahoo, ouucchhh... That is so ouuuuuuuuccchhhh. One thing with the business world is a sense of timing and the power of one's vision. You miss it, you miss out.

Then lastly that man called Ronald Wayne (definitely, and most definitely NOT related to Bruce Wayne ) that lost out on his 10% shares in Apple inc when Apple was still growing really will be the most hated man in his family and clan right now. Lol

you can't get to the level of such big companies without having your fair share of huge failures.
my lesson from this is that one failure never stopped them from taking another risk.....