Buying these 10 companies would've lost you $180 billion.

Wait never mind, you woulda been fired after a few.

Here are the 10 worst acquisitions of all time👇
Time Warner

• When: 2000
• Who bought: AOL
• How much: $111 billion

AOL forgot how to negotiate here.

They paid 70% extra for each share of Time Warner stock.

2 years later, AOL took a $99 billion loss.

Ouch.
GeoCities

• When: 1999
• Who bought: Yahoo
• How much: $4 billion

GeoCities let you build your own website in the 90s.

It failed but Geocities-izer survives as a way to make your website look retro.
Kmart

• When: 2005
• Who bought: Sears
• How much: $11 billion

The combo created the 3rd biggest US retailer.

In 2007, company reported a $2 billion loss.

in 2018, they went bankrupt.
Broadcast..com

• When: 1999
• Who bought: Yahoo
• How much: $5.7 billion

This made Mark Cuban a billionaire.

Yahoo split the biz into two different music + video services: Launchcast + Platinum.

Both completely tanked.
aQuantive

• When: 2007
• Who bought: Microsoft
• How much: $6.3 billion

Called "Microsoft's $6 Billion Whoopsie"

They tried compete with Google in advertising

But aQuantive went to 0 within 5 years.
NCR

• When: 1991
• Who bought: AT&T
• How much: $7.5 billion

AT&T desperately wanted to get into computers.

Nope.

AT&T later sold off NCR $3.4B

= $4.1 billion loss
Motorola

• When: 2012
• Who bought: Google
• How much: $12.5 billion

Motorola phones could've been the perfect pairing for Android.

2 years later, they sold Motorola for $2.9 billion.

= $9.6 billion loss
Excite..com

• When: 1999
• Who bought: (@)Home
• How much: $6.7 billion

1.5 years later the combo filed for bankruptcy.
Chrysler

• When: 1998
• Who bought: Damler-Benz
• How much: $36 billion

Mercedes-Benz wanted world domination.

instead they got two teams that couldn't work together.

10 years later, Benz sold most of Chrysler for $7 billion

= $29 billion loss
Palm

• When: 2010
• Who bought: Hewlett Packard (HP)
• How much: $1.2 billion

HP went after the smartphone market.

1 year later, they took a $3.3 billion loss.
Share these crazy acquisition stories with more business nerds by retweeting below:

want more?

• systems
• frameworks
• business stories

follow me @chrishlad.
if you loved this, get these threads straight to your inbox:

bit.ly/chrishlad

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Chris Hladczuk

Chris Hladczuk Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @chrishlad

19 May
The founder of Hyundai stole a cow and ended up with a $13 billion empire.

Here's an epic story👇
Chung ju-yung was born in a small North Korean village in 1915.

His parents were poor farmers.

His dad grew rice while his mom ran the household and raised silkworms for extra money.

(the original side hustler!)
So Chung grows up poor but manages to graduate from 5th grade.

You may be thinking... yea man that isn't hard.

But this was an impressive accomplishment for his town!
Read 16 tweets
14 May
I just interviewed the man who invented Amazon Prime.

He started a business worth $40 billion today and served on Amazon's board for 15 yrs.

Here are lessons from Bing Gordon that'll save you years of mistakes:
When you have a business idea, take action now before it dies.

• Write 1 paragraph about the idea

• Write a 4 slide business plan

• Write your 1st line of code
When you start a job, ask your boss 2 questions:

1) Who is the best boss you've ever had and what does that mean for me?

2) What does top 10% performance look like?
Read 13 tweets
11 May
Brands usually suck at social media.

But some don't...

and I found em.

Here's 10 of the best with examples of how they do it👇
Use Stats + Current Events

This tweet got more views than the Oscars this year.

@MorningBrew
Pick a fight by making a joke

@Shopify
Read 13 tweets
8 May
Buying these 10 companies would've made you $650 billion.

Not too shabby...

Here's a list of the 10 best acquisitions of all time👇
The Michael Jordan of Acquisitions: Instagram

• Who bought it: Facebook
• Buy price: $1 billion
• Value today: $153 billion

let me whip out my calculator real quick..

oh wait yea Facebook made $152 BILLION on this.
Where Google Ads comes from: DoubleClick

• Who bought it: Google
• Buy price: $3.1 billion
• Value today: $127 billion

= $124 billion return

I interviewed their former CEO, Kevin Ryan, who also built MongoDB + Business Insider:

Read 16 tweets
5 May
There are over 30 million podcast episodes.

and you don't have time to listen to them.

So let me save you time with 7 that will make you smarter today🧵
My First Million with @ShaanVP + @theSamParr

Best Episode: #171 How to Generate Millions from Paid Events

Sam made $100k in 8 weeks hosting paid events with without any previous audience.

He gives a play by play to print money.
The @tferriss Show (the OG)

Best Episode: #341 with @nickkokonas

The most important concept in the damn world is asymmetric risk.

This episode was my first exposure to it.

Been a huge Kokonas fan ever since
Read 12 tweets
1 May
For 1,000+ days, I’ve kept a gratitude journal.

Here’s what I learned about happiness and fulfillment:
We have one delusion.

= achieving something will make us happy and fulfilled forever

But here’s the truth:

“Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
@naval

Pick your desires carefully.
Our time on earth is short.

Acknowledging this makes you realize life can be a fun game and what matters is your experience of reality.
Read 12 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(