Tech Fails That Cost Companies Billions (And What You Can Learn)
We've all made bad purchases. Maybe you bought a juicer that's been collecting dust since 2019. Maybe you spent 180. Hurt my pride more than my wallet.
But at least I didn't lose $7.6 billion. These companies did. And worse. Let's walk through the ten most expensive tech face-plants in modern history -- because if billion-dollar corporations staffed with MBAs and "visionaries" can screw up this badly, maybe you'll feel a little better about that impulse purchase you made at 2 AM.
1. Samsung Galaxy Note 7 -- The Phone That Was Literally Fire ($5.3 Billion)
In 2016, Samsung released the Galaxy Note 7, and for about three weeks, it was the best phone on the market. Then it started exploding. Not figuratively. Not "getting a little warm." Exploding. On planes. In people's pockets. In a Jeep that caught fire in a garage in Florida, because of course it was Florida.
Samsung initially recalled 2.5 million units and offered replacements. The replacements also caught fire. The FAA banned the phone from all flights. Samsung eventually killed the entire product line, eating $5.3 billion in losses. The root cause? Aggressive battery design that prioritized thinness over not-being-a-hand-grenade. Their battery suppliers were cramming too much energy into too little space, and the separators between the positive and negative electrodes were getting squeezed until they short-circuited.
The lesson: When something is too good to be true -- when a product promises everything with no trade-offs -- there's probably a trade-off hiding somewhere. It might just be on fire.
2. Google Glass -- $1.5 Billion to Look Like a Cyborg at Brunch
Google Glass launched in 2013 with the promise of augmented reality on your face. The Explorer Edition cost $1,500 and made you look like a background character in a straight-to-DVD sci-fi movie. People who wore them in public were immediately christened "Glassholes" -- a term that appeared in the actual news -- and bars in San Francisco started banning them before most people had even seen one in person.
Google spent an estimated $1.5 billion on the project before quietly shelving the consumer version. The tech was genuinely impressive. The problem was that nobody wanted to talk to someone who might be secretly recording them through their eyeglasses. Weird, right?
The lesson: Being first doesn't mean being smart. The best gadget in the world is worthless if it makes everyone around you uncomfortable. When you're picking your everyday carry, function and social awareness matter more than looking like you're from the future.
3. Microsoft Buying Nokia -- A $7.6 Billion Love Letter Nobody Asked For
In 2014, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer decided the best way to compete with the iPhone was to buy Nokia's phone business for 7.6 billion -- more than they'd paid. They laid off 7,800 Nokia employees. The Windows Phone platform was effectively dead by 2017.
The kicker? Nokia's actual phone brand eventually came back under a different company and started selling budget Androids. Microsoft's grand mobile strategy ended with them making apps for iPhone and Android, which is what literally everyone told them to do in the first place.
The lesson: Don't throw money at a problem just because you're embarrassed you're behind. Sometimes the best move is to accept reality and play a different game entirely.
4. Amazon Fire Phone -- Jeff Bezos's One-Year Wonder ($170 Million)
Jeff Bezos can seemingly turn anything into gold. Books, clouds, rockets, a newspaper, a physique that made the internet collectively lose its mind. But in 2014, he released the Fire Phone, a device whose flagship feature was "Dynamic Perspective" -- basically, the screen moved slightly when you tilted it. Revolutionary? No. Nauseating? For some users, absolutely.
The phone launched at 170 million write-down on unsold inventory. The phone's other big feature was Firefly, which let you scan real-world objects to buy them on Amazon, which was basically a $200 impulse-purchase enabler disguised as a smartphone.
The lesson: Having one cool trick isn't enough. If the fundamentals aren't there, no amount of gimmicky features will save you. This applies to phones, cars, apartments, and honestly, first dates.
5. Theranos -- $9 Billion Built on Lies and Turtlenecks
Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford at 19, started a blood-testing company, claimed she could run hundreds of tests from a single drop of blood, and convinced some of the most powerful people in America to back her. Henry Kissinger was on her board. Rupert Murdoch invested 9 billion.
One problem: the technology didn't work. Like, at all. They were secretly running most tests on conventional machines from other companies. The Wall Street Journal's John Carreyrou blew the whole thing open in 2015. Holmes was convicted of fraud in 2022 and is currently in federal prison. Nine billion dollars, gone. Because nobody on the board thought to ask "hey, can we see it actually work?"
The lesson: If someone can't or won't show you the proof, walk away. Doesn't matter how confident they sound, how impressive the presentation is, or how much everyone else seems to believe. Charisma is not a substitute for evidence.
6. Yahoo Turning Down Google -- The $1 Million "No Thanks" Heard Round the World
In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin offered to sell Google to Yahoo for 5 billion. Yahoo's CEO at the time, Terry Semel, tried to negotiate down to 2 trillion. Yahoo was eventually sold to Verizon for $4.48 billion in 2017 -- roughly 0.2% of what Google became.
To put that in perspective, Yahoo could have owned the entire internet search market, all of YouTube, Android, Gmail, Google Maps, and the most profitable advertising machine in human history. For the price of a modest house in Palo Alto.
The lesson: Don't lowball opportunities because you think you're already winning. The moment you stop taking competitors seriously is the moment you start becoming irrelevant.
7. Blockbuster Turning Down Netflix -- $50 Million for the Future of Entertainment
In the year 2000, Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph walked into Blockbuster headquarters and offered to sell Netflix for $50 million. Blockbuster's CEO, John Antioco, reportedly almost laughed them out of the room. Netflix was a DVD-by-mail service at the time, losing money, and Blockbuster had 9,000 stores worldwide. Why would they need this?
Fast forward: Netflix is now worth over $400 billion. Blockbuster has exactly one store left, in Bend, Oregon, which survives mainly as a tourist attraction. The last Blockbuster even has an Airbnb listing. You can sleep among the VHS tapes of a dead empire. That's either poetic or deeply depressing, depending on your mood.
The lesson: Never dismiss something just because it looks small and scrappy right now. The weird, inconvenient, "why would anyone want that" idea is often the one that eats the entire industry.
8. Quibi -- $1.75 Billion for Content Nobody Asked For
In 2020, Jeffrey Katzenberg (DreamWorks co-founder) and Meg Whitman (former HP CEO) launched Quibi, a streaming service for "quick bites" of premium content designed to be watched on phones in 10-minute chunks. They raised $1.75 billion before launch. They had A-list talent. They had Super Bowl ads. They had everything except an answer to the question: "Why wouldn't I just watch TikTok or YouTube for free?"
Quibi launched in April 2020 -- right when a global pandemic sent everyone home to their TVs, destroying the entire use case of "shows you watch on your phone during your commute." It shut down six months later. $1.75 billion, half a year, and a level of confidence that really should have been accompanied by at least one focus group.
The lesson: Timing matters, but so does solving a real problem. If you can't explain why someone needs your thing in one sentence without them squinting at you, you might not have a thing.
9. WeWork -- From $47 Billion to Bankruptcy
Adam Neumann convinced SoftBank and other investors that a company that subleased office space was actually a tech company worth 8 billion, then kept falling. WeWork filed for bankruptcy in November 2023.
Among the highlights of Neumann's reign: he trademarked the word "We," then sold the trademark back to his own company for $5.9 million. He took out personal loans backed by company stock. He wanted WeWork to "elevate the world's consciousness." He surfed.
The lesson: Vibes are not a business model. When someone talks exclusively in grand abstractions and never in actual numbers, hold onto your wallet. This goes for companies, crypto projects, and that guy at the party who says he's "building something huge" but can't tell you what it is.
10. Apple Maps Launch -- So Bad Tim Cook Had to Say Sorry
When Apple dropped Google Maps from iOS in 2012 and replaced it with Apple Maps, the results were immediate and catastrophic. The app directed people into rivers. It melted the Brooklyn Bridge into a Salvador Dali painting. It placed hospitals in the middle of oceans. It told drivers in Australia to go through a national park with no roads, where several people got stranded and police had to issue a public warning.
Tim Cook -- a man who radiates the energy of someone who has never once raised his voice -- published an open apology letter and told users to download Google Maps from the App Store. It was the corporate equivalent of your dad admitting he should have asked for directions. Apple reportedly spent billions fixing the app over the following years, and it's genuinely good now. But in 2012, it was the tech world's funniest disaster.
The lesson: Don't ship something half-baked just because you're on a deadline or you're mad at a competitor. If it's not ready, it's not ready. This applies to product launches, home renovations, and sending that text to your ex at midnight.
The Bigger Picture
Here's the thing about all these failures: they weren't made by idiots. Samsung, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple -- these are companies full of brilliant people with absurd resources. They failed anyway. Some because of ego. Some because of timing. Some because they ignored every warning sign in favor of the story they wanted to believe.
You're not going to lose $7.6 billion on a bad decision. But the patterns are the same at every scale. Don't chase hype over substance. Don't ignore red flags because you're emotionally invested. Don't assume that spending more money will fix a fundamentally broken idea. And for the love of everything, if your product is catching fire, don't send out replacements that also catch fire.
The smartest move is often the boring one. Test things before you commit. Ask hard questions before you invest. And when something isn't working, cut your losses early instead of doubling down and hoping the universe changes its mind. It won't.
