Aug 22, 2026
When a startup raised $175M, then lost it all in 18 months
Webvan's custom warehouse automation system cost $35 million per facility—more than some entire startups raised in the late 90s.…
Aug 21, 2026
the meeting where 13 founders killed a billion-dollar IPO
Excite's founders later admitted the decision haunted them for years—one called it "the stupidest thing we ever did as a group."…
Aug 20, 2026
the billionaire who lost $200m on a company that never shipped
Clinkle's 22-year-old founder once told employees they were 'the Marines' and fired 16 people in a single day.…
Aug 19, 2026
the first side hustle that made a nobody richer than kings
By the 1400s, successful factors in Florence and Bruges lived in larger homes than most nobility—without ever making a single product themselves.…
Aug 18, 2026
the salesman who sold the Eiffel Tower—twice
Lustig walked away with the equivalent of over $200,000 in today's money—and one buyer was too embarrassed to report it.…
Aug 17, 2026
the telegram that accidentally created a $200B industry
The mistake led to the first-ever "media buy" — purchasing message space in bulk to resell to multiple clients.…
Aug 16, 2026
the product launch that killed a $400m company in 6 months
Pressplay's fatal flaw wasn't piracy—it was that the labels forgot to disable the 'burn to CD' feature they'd negotiated into the license.…
Aug 15, 2026
One company lost $350M betting people would pay for this
Quibi's cost per subscriber acquisition was roughly $3,500—meaning they spent more recruiting each user than most streaming services spend on an entir…
Aug 14, 2026
The celebrity who lost $27M promoting a startup
The SEC's settlement with Kardashian in 2022 marked the first time the agency charged a celebrity specifically for crypto promotion violations on soci…
Aug 13, 2026
the boardroom brawl that ended in actual punches
Police had to be called to break up the melee, and one faction barricaded themselves inside the offices for three days.…
Aug 12, 2026
How IBM once paid people to *not* work
IBM's paid-bench program cost less than severance packages would have, turning idle workers into a balance-sheet win.…
Aug 11, 2026
The lawyer who made $200k/year—in 1850s gold rush fees
The most successful Gold Rush lawyers never touched a pickaxe but earned more than 99% of actual miners.…
Aug 10, 2026
The accountant who tried to corner gold
The panic was so severe that President Ulysses S. Grant had to personally authorize the Treasury to dump $4 million in gold reserves to break the corn…
Aug 9, 2026
The VC term that started as an insult
The shift to 'venture capital' happened partly because 'development' sounded too much like foreign aid programs after WWII.…
Aug 8, 2026
The stock ticker that almost bankrupted its inventor
Thomas Edison sold his stock ticker patents for $40,000 in 1870 — worth about $950,000 today — and immediately sank it all into his Menlo Park laborat…
Aug 7, 2026
The monopoly that paid a man to never invent again
Gray filed his patent caveat for the telephone on the same day as Alexander Graham Bell—just hours later—leading to one of history's most disputed pat…
Aug 6, 2026
The boardroom bluff that cost shareholders $7 billion
Enron's accounting fraud was so elaborate that the company once booked a $500 million profit on a deal that hadn't even closed yet.…
Aug 5, 2026
The con artist who sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice.
Lustig's first buyer was so embarrassed he never reported the crime to police.…
Aug 4, 2026
When a Dutch company tried selling shares of nothing
Some speculators never actually took possession of bulbs—they were trading futures contracts on flowers that hadn't even bloomed yet.…
Aug 2, 2026
Ever wonder who coined 'startup' as we know it?
Before the 1970s, 'start-up' mostly referred to the initial phase of any business, like opening a grocery store.…
Aug 1, 2026
The $20 million typo that launched a thousand memes
Despite the platform's reputation for vaporware, Kickstarter's actual failure-to-deliver rate is lower than most venture-backed startups.…
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