Forbes researchers analyzed the main news stories of the outgoing 2024 related to entrepreneurial failures of both startups and recognized industry leaders. They noted that even those considered “bastions of stability” were not spared important business lessons.
Top 10 business fiasco of 2024
Author: Ekaterina Alipova
From examples of failures Forbes leads the fall of Ubisoft shares to the level of 2013 (the game manufacturer bet on the release of Star Wars Outlaw, but it did not play), the bankruptcy of Avon in England due to 386 lawsuits, the refusal of Oracle from the advertising department due to losses, the problems of the Burberry fashion houses from -for changes in management and Dior due to a scandal about the exploitation of workers from China. And there were many more similar stories.
The final top 10 of the loudest fiascoes included:
- “Blue Screens of Death from CrowdStrike” – a massive failure of 8.5 million computers worldwide in mid-July due to a Windows operating system update from a cybersecurity contractor;
- Netflix’s failure with its gaming division Team Blue – the company hired an all-star team of video game market professionals, but the studio, which never released a single project, was eventually closed in October;
- Unsuccessful rebranding of Jaguar Land Rover (owned by the Indian company Tata Motors) – too bold a bet on the youth audience of electric car lovers (the company switched to them) did not justify its investments, since the “pink Batmobile” did not arouse the expected interest;
- “Cancellation” of the shooter from Sony – the tech giant invested about $400 million in the development of the debut shooter Concord, filling the game with cinematic scenes, but two weeks after launch it had to be removed from the platform due to shamefully low performance (the game was bought only 25 thousand times);
- Boeing breakdowns – this year there were a falling door, and failing landing gear, and worker strikes, and inspections by the FBI, the Department of Justice and the National Transportation Safety Board;
- Hack of Ticketmaster – hackers from ShinyHunters gained access to the data of 560 million clients of the ticket service and tried to ask the company for a ransom (users, by the way, did not like that Ticketmaster did not negotiate and preferred to leave the client data with the attackers);
- The fall of the unicorn Bolt and Ryan Breslow personally – the so-called “King” of Silicon Valley and the developer of a service for paying for goods in one in 2022 was one of the youngest billionaires in the world, and in 2024 he flew off the Forbes list, took out loans with Bolt and in the end he was forced to buy back shares of the company, which had sharply collapsed in price, from investors who initially believed in the project;
- The collapse of the criminal show empire P. Diddy – an American rapper and one of the most influential music producers of the 21st century was accused of sexual violence, harassment, pedophilia and human trafficking, which is why the artist’s fortune dropped by half – to $400 million;
- Non-working Humane AI Pin – wearable gadgets with AI, which caused a stir on the Internet after a cute advertising video, turned out to be unclaimed: even 1 thousand of pre-orders were canceled, and returns were issued in the amount of more than $1 million (however, sales of the competitor Rabbit R1 did not go either );
- And the business failure of the famous racer – Formula 1 star Jenson Button created the Radford Motors company to produce high-quality cars, which turned out to be not so high-quality, and most did not reach users at all (as a result, after the pilot batch, the company created a “schedule money back” and filed for bankruptcy).
Cover photo: Shutterstock / Rawpixel.com
Source: rb.ru
