Ross Perot passes on Microsoft
Ross Perot has a long storied history of successes at just about every level of his life. From his work founding the Electronic Data Systems company in 1962 all the way to his Presidential bid in the early ’90s, Perot has been something of a force wherever he goes. Mr. Perot currently has a net worth of almost $4 billion dollars, so it is hard to really point out any of his failures without having his own success looming in our faces. Still, back in 1979 Perot had a chance to buy Microsoft before it was something big. EDS was worth $1 billion at the time and looking to invest in a small PC company. Perot played hard ball with the then young Bill Gates and under offered. Gates refused to sell his hard work without getting everything he wanted and the two never came to an agreement. Perot calls it the “biggest business mistake” that he has ever made.
Ross Perot passes on Microsoft
Kodak sits on the digital camera.
There was a period in time when Kodak was the name in personal photography. In fact, Kodak was so successful that at one point they held more than 90% of the action in the United States own film market. Kodak even saturated pop culture with their marvelous branding of the perfect ‘Kodak Moment’. So what went wrong? Well, Kodak helped to develop the first ever digital camera. Yet instead of going public with the tech they decided to sit on it so as not to to mess up the monopoly that they had created with their original photography. This decision peaked in 1984 when the L.A. Olympics needed an official film. Kodak passed and a little company named Fuji stepped up to the plate. The rest is pretty much history ta this point as Kodak ended up going bankrupt in 2012. Still, the company is trying to dig themselves out of their hole but it is hard to imagine a bigger flub than that, especially from a company so high in their respective marketplace.
Kodak sits on the digital camera