The 10 most serious investment mistakes since 1876. 1. Ronald Wayne sold 10% of Apple Inc. for $800 (now worth $300 billion)

Did you know that Apple actually had three co-founders in the first place? Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had invited Ronald Wayne to join them, hoping he would be the oldest person on the team (he was 41 at the time, while the two Steves were in their early twenties). Wayne is primarily responsible for the administration of the company. So how many shares does he hold?

As Apple's third co-founder, Wayne sold his 10% stake for $800 just 12 days after the company's founding. A year later, he received another $1500 as compensation for abandoning any future claims to Apple. Today, that 10% of the shares are worth more than $300 billion. The appreciation is as high as 37.5 billion times.

2. Blockbuster rejected the acquisition of Netflix (2000) In 2000, Blockbuster had the opportunity to acquire Netflix for $50 million, but they declined. Today, Netflix has become a global streaming giant, with a market value close to $300 billion. Meanwhile, Blockbuster now has only one store left in Bend, Oregon.

3. Excite rejected the acquisition of Google (1999) Excite (also founded by Stanford University students) was one of the popular search engines in the late 1990s. At that time, they had the opportunity to acquire Google for $750,000. So what happened to Excite later?

Over the past 20 years, the Excite brand and services have changed hands multiple times. Today, it has become a meta-search engine that integrates search results from multiple platforms, including Google and Yahoo. As for today's Google, its market value has exceeded $1.5 trillion.

4. Yahoo's Missed Opportunities In 1997, Sergey Brin proposed selling PageRank (which later became Google's core technology) to Yahoo for $1 million. In 2002, Yahoo offered to acquire Google for $3 billion, but Google countered with a price of $5 billion. Yahoo rejected both offers. In 2021, Yahoo was acquired by a private equity firm for $5 billion.

5. The merger of AOL and Time Warner (2000) This is considered one of the most failed mergers in corporate history. AOL acquired Time Warner for $182 billion during the peak of the internet bubble, using its overvalued stock market capitalization. As a result, just two years later, the bubble burst, and AOL's stock price plummeted. The ultimate loss amounted to $99 billion.

6. Decca Records Rejected The Beatles (1962) In 1962, after listening to the audition, Decca Records decided to sign the Tremeloes instead of The Beatles. Although the Tremeloes released some hit singles in the 60s, The Beatles' achievements far surpassed theirs... The music rights of The Beatles are now valued at approximately $1 billion.

7. Kodak Suppresses Digital Camera Technology (1975) In 1975, Kodak invented the world's first digital camera. However, executives were concerned that this technology would undermine the company's most profitable film business at the time, so they chose to suppress it. An internal study at Kodak in 1981 even predicted that digital photos would eventually replace film, and they originally had 10 years to respond. Ultimately, Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

8. Borders Missed the E-commerce Opportunity (2008) Borders outsourced its online book sales to Amazon in 2001 and didn't launch its own e-commerce site until 2008. Clearly, they were too late... In 2011, Borders closed all its stores and completely exited the market. It's truly lamentable...

9. Western Union Refused to Purchase the Telephone Patent (1876) In 1876, Western Union had the opportunity to buy Alexander Graham Bell's telephone patent, but they thought it was just an electric toy. So, Bell started his own company. 100 years later, 93% of American households had a telephone.

10. Mars, Inc. refused to let M&M appear in "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) In 1982, Mars, Inc. refused to allow M&M chocolate to be featured in the movie "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." As a result, Hershey's seized the opportunity and left this exposure chance to its poorly selling Reese’s Pieces candy. Just two weeks after the movie was released, sales of Reese’s Pieces tripled. It seems that E.T. really should have called Mars.

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