Billion Dollar Blunder

Epizódok

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  Washington Mutual : The Biggest Bank Failure in US History - #40 05.08.2026 24p

  Washington Mutual was a $300 billion savings bank crushed by subprime mortgages, seized by regulators in September 2008. It remains the largest bank failure in US history, sold to JPMorgan for $1.9 billion.
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  Archegos : A Family Office That Vaporized $20 Billion - #39 04.08.2026 23p

  Archegos Capital was Bill Hwang's family office that used hidden leverage to build enormous stock positions. Its 2021 collapse erased about $20 billion in days and cost banks over $10 billion.
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  Juicero : A $400 Machine You Could Squeeze by Hand - #38 03.08.2026 25p

  Juicero was a Silicon Valley startup that raised $120 million for a $400 Wi-Fi juice press. It flopped after reporters showed the pricey packs could be squeezed by hand, and it shut down in 2017.
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  Xerox PARC : It Invented the Future and Kept None of It - #37 02.08.2026 24p

  Xerox PARC was the legendary research lab that created the graphical interface, mouse, and Ethernet in the 1970s. Xerox failed to commercialize them, letting Apple and Microsoft build empires on its ideas.
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  Satyam : India's Enron and a $1 Billion Phantom Cash Pile - #36 01.08.2026 25p

  Satyam Computer Services was a top Indian IT firm whose founder confessed in 2009 to inventing over $1 billion in cash on the books. Dubbed 'India's Enron,' it shook the country's outsourcing industry.
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  Bear Stearns : An 85-Year-Old Bank Sold for $2 a Share - #35 31.07.2026 24p

  Bear Stearns was an 85-year-old Wall Street investment bank whose bad mortgage bets sparked a 2008 run. The Fed brokered a fire sale to JPMorgan at $2 a share, an early domino of the financial crisis.
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  Knight Capital : $440 Million Lost in 45 Minutes - #34 30.07.2026 24p

  Knight Capital was a major stock-trading firm undone in August 2012 when faulty software flooded the market with erroneous orders. It lost $440 million in 45 minutes and was swallowed in a rescue.
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  Webvan : $800 Million to Deliver Groceries Too Fast - #33 29.07.2026 25p

  Webvan was a dot-com grocery-delivery startup that raised over $800 million and built massive warehouses before demand existed. It burned through the cash and went bankrupt in 2001, a symbol of dot-com excess.
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  Yahoo : It Passed on Google Twice, Then Sold for Scraps - #32 28.07.2026 25p

  Yahoo was the internet's dominant portal, once worth $125 billion, that turned down buying Google for $1 million and later $3 billion. Years of drift ended with a $4.5 billion sale to Verizon in 2017.
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  Parmalat : Europe's Enron and a $4 Billion Fake Account - #31 27.07.2026 24p

  Parmalat was an Italian dairy multinational that collapsed in 2003 after a supposed $4 billion Bank of America account proved forged. Dubbed 'Europe's Enron,' it left an 8 billion euro hole.
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  The South Sea Bubble : How 1720 London Went Broke on Hype - #30 26.07.2026 26p

  The South Sea Company was a British trading firm whose shares soared tenfold in 1720 on debt-conversion mania before crashing, ruining thousands. It gave the world one of finance's first great bubbles.
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  Societe Generale : A Rogue Trader's 4.9 Billion Euro Bet - #29 25.07.2026 24p

  Societe Generale is a major French bank rocked in 2008 when trader Jerome Kerviel racked up 4.9 billion euros in losses through unauthorized positions. It remains one of the largest trading scandals ever.
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  Fyre Festival : A Luxury Party That Served Cheese Sandwiches - #28 24.07.2026 24p

  Fyre Festival was a 2017 luxury music event hyped by influencers that stranded guests with FEMA tents and cheese sandwiches. Founder Billy McFarland was jailed for defrauding investors of over $26 million.
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  BlackBerry : The Keyboard Loyalists Who Lost to Touchscreens - #27 23.07.2026 23p

  BlackBerry made the smartphone that ran corporate America, holding half the US market in 2009. Its refusal to abandon physical keyboards let the iPhone and Android crush its share to near zero.
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  Adelphia : A Family That Treated a Public Company as Its Piggy Bank - #26 22.07.2026 25p

  Adelphia Communications was one of America's largest cable operators until 2002, when the founding Rigas family was exposed for hiding $2.3 billion in debt and self-dealing. It filed for bankruptcy.
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  DeLorean : Gullwing Doors and a Cocaine Sting - #25 22.07.2026 23p

  The DeLorean Motor Company built the stainless-steel gullwing sports car later immortalized in Back to the Future. Slumping sales pushed founder John DeLorean into a 1982 cocaine-trafficking sting as the firm folded.
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  General Electric : The $600 Billion Giant That Broke Apart - #24 21.07.2026 22p

  General Electric was America's most valuable company, worth nearly $600 billion in 2000. A bloated finance arm and years of accounting concerns triggered a long collapse, ending with the icon split into three.
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  Nikola : The Electric Truck That Rolled Downhill - #23 19.07.2026 22p

  Nikola was a hydrogen-truck startup worth $34 billion at its 2020 peak, until a report revealed its 'driving' truck video was just a prototype rolling down a hill. Founder Trevor Milton was convicted of fraud.
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  Bre-X : The Biggest Gold Mine That Held No Gold - #22 17.07.2026 23p

  Bre-X was a Canadian mining company whose Indonesian site was hyped as the richest gold find ever, briefly worth over $6 billion. In 1997 the samples proved to be salted fakes, and shares went to zero.
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  Tyco : The CEO Who Bought a $6,000 Shower Curtain - #21 16.07.2026 23p

  Tyco International was a sprawling conglomerate whose CEO Dennis Kozlowski looted hundreds of millions, symbolized by a $6,000 shower curtain and a $2 million birthday party. He was convicted in 2005.