Horrible Company Failure History
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And I'm Gabby. And welcome back to the podcast, my hoes. Welcome back. And okay, before we begin, I need to specify a couple things here from the get-go. If I sound off during any of this, I apologize. Currently, I am recovering from sickness. And on top of that, we are actually moving, or at least prepping to move. So we have spent the last several days taking our house completely apart. We are utterly exhausted to the point that I actually did not write this script.

The whole thing that this comes from is actually from our editor, James Lopez, who has been so kind as to grace us with the script that we are going to be reacting to in a way that is similar to... Gabby, have you ever seen Business Blaze with Simon Whistler? No. No? Okay, okay. Just genuinely, fun show. I personally do love it. And it's the same, similar kind of thing. Script is written, reacting to it off the cuff, as well as providing additional information, whatever kind of relevance.

This is something that I feel is going to get very unhinged very fast. Yeah, probably. You sound very sick. I do sound very sick. I don't know. Hopefully people aren't like, ew, I can't listen to his sick voice. I like your sick voice, so. Here's the thing. I have a naturally deep voice, something that I do artificially raise when it is that I am doing a lot of different productions because it is that people normally when they see me, they think that I'm upset when I'm not. However, when I am sick,

I cannot raise it. Not only can I not raise it, but it simultaneously becomes more gravelly and raspy because of the drainage down in my lungs. We went to look at a house today and the realtor was like, oh my God, you have the deepest voice I've ever heard. And I was a music teacher, so I was always looking for deep voices. And that made me laugh. The secret is illness.

That's just what it is. But guys, before we begin, don't forget we have limited, I think we have like seven spots left for our second Japan trip. We're going to be going to Mount Fuji. So like we're going to do like Hakone and a bunch of the towns leading up to Mount Fuji.

which I think is honestly a super fun trip. So if that's something that interests you, it will be in November. So make sure to check the link that we'll have in the description. Oh, and definitely jump on that because I'm saying this right now. I haven't advertised this thing at all, like quite literally at all. So as soon as I start doing that this week, once it is that I'm recovered, the spots are likely going to disappear very fast. So I would highly recommend jumping on it if you are at all interested.

Yes. And now let's see what James has in store for us. He said it was going to be funny. So I'm excited. Okay. So I read like the first, literally the first like a page and a half of this. That's it. That's the only thing that I've actually done. So anything that I see on here, anything that I mispronounce, I do firmly apologize. But we're going to get into weird stuff because what I understand is we're going to be talking about companies. Not just like companies, but like failed companies and why it is they really screwed up.

So the history of failed companies is something that is filled with many different numerous stories. Some of these companies are able to blame their failures on unforeseen changes in the market. And you can easily understand how an early competitor of Kleenex would be run into the ground by just how dominant Kleenex was because many people don't call tissues, you know, tissues by their real name. Instead, they call them Kleenex. I call them tissues because Kleenex

My dad always stressed not calling a product by the brand. I don't know why he did this, but...

He always stressed that to us. See, that's a really interesting thing to bring up because in my case, it was the exact opposite. It wasn't that things were stressed, but it was like, oh, it's the catch-all term that would apply to everything, even though it's a very specific brand. Like Band-Aid. Band-Aid is not... You have medical bandages. Those are not Band-Aids. Band-Aid is a very specific brand. I think he did that because you have to remember he was born in Haiti. He moved to Canada. He moved to New York to go to

med school, and then he moved to Trinidad. So in all of those countries, things would be called by different names. You can't just call... Because in Trinidad, the dominant laundry detergent brand is Breeze. So people would call it Breeze. My dad would always say... Instead of Tide or something? Right. Because we don't have... I mean, I'm sure they have Tide now, but it wasn't Tide. It was a powdered detergent. So he would always say...

call it laundry detergent because someone from another place wouldn't know what Breeze is because really, honestly, it's not... I don't think... I've never... I haven't even thought of Breeze until right now because... But that's what we called it. I mean, honestly, among all the things you could have said, that is arguably the most legitimate answer that you could possibly get. So because he lived in so many places, because he knew we were not going to stay in Trinidad and we were going to move to the US for college, I'm sure he just wanted us to know that, hey, maybe call it by the actual name because...

No one's going to know what you're talking about. It's true. I mean, hell, that same thing happens to this day. And that's why you've probably never heard anyone in your life saying that they just binged something like this afternoon. No, no, you're going to say that you Googled something.

No one says that they Yahoo'd something. No one says that they AOL'd something. I Bing things all the time. You Bing things? I Bing things all over the internet. Considering how Bing has a reputation online of being completely unhinged, I don't doubt that whatsoever. No, I don't mean to Bing. I'm joking. No, no. Hey, hey, you've seen the meme though. And this is what I think of when I think of you right here sometimes, right? Like,

Oh no, are you about to insult me? Well, not insult, but it's like, you know how there's that thing of like, if you Google something for mental illness or for like, oh, like how... Oh, on Google, it's like, hey, these are resources to help me, but Bing will give you a step-by-step guide on exactly... How to make a body disappear. And that it's like, Google will like, give a whole thing for like... The FBI. FBI, suicide hotline and all this before giving you anything. And Bing will just be like, step one, get lied. Yeah.

Step two, get a bathtub. Like genuinely. See, the thing though is I don't know the differences between images, the like Bing images and Google images, but Google images is exclusively AI now, which pisses me off. Like I cannot research anything. Oh, so much of it is so bad now. No, it's literally just AI. Like I thought there was an option to turn it off. I can't find the option anymore. So I don't know what happened. Fair enough.

So on a lot of the stuff that we described, though, it's not just because something happens externally. Sometimes companies fail because of internal forces. They fail to innovate. They fail to keep up with changing the bands to the market as well as the needs of their customers. And so today we're going to cover a few examples of companies that didn't have to fail yet. Oh, dear God, they did so anyways because of bad leadership and management and really just general screwing things up.

First up on our list is Kodak, which, okay, I'm somewhat familiar with this story here in the first place because it is genuinely hilarious for how unfortunate this is in a stupid way. The camera company? Like the film company? Yes, the film company. And you'll understand why. Started way back in 1881, Kodak was initially a partnership by George Eastman and Henry Strong to develop a film roll camera.

and they struck success by being the first company to develop the customer's film for them.

They would essentially sell a $25 camera preloaded with 100 exposures. Once finished taking your photos, the customer could either choose to develop it themselves or for just $10, you could send the entire thing to Kodak's headquarters in Rochester, New York, and they would develop the photos and send you back the camera with your prints. I'm sorry if you heard like a little hiccup or hiss right there here. That is literally my lungs trying to not give out while doing this. Do you want me to read this?

You will. If I if it gets bad, we will switch off. This is the whole thing. It's hurting me to listen to you talk. So I cannot imagine the listeners right now. Listen, I promised the people on Patreon that I would be giving them episodes. And damn it, I am giving them episodes. I made a promise. You're going to give them episodes until your lungs actually give out. And then guess what? Nobody gets episodes. Yeah.

But I did it. Wait, do I? Oh, you'd have to like fully die for me to get your life insurance. Wow. Wow. No, no, no, no. It's good to know where your thoughts actually go. I'm just trying to. We have a child. I can't just be like income less because you are stubborn. You have told me about what you'd be doing for income after I die here. OK, so I mean, let's let's be real here.

Anyway, look out for the Gabby OnlyFans after Steven's death. Uh-huh. Gabby, you probably just signed a death warrant for me. Do you have any idea how many people- But only of natural causes. Only of natural causes. Only of- Someone developed a time machine to throw me into it to rapidly age me as quickly as possible to expire. Okay.

So yes, essentially, they would send the entire film off to Rochester, New York. They would develop the photos, send you back the camera with your prints, negatives, and the new roll of film.

In World War I, Kodak would set up a photographic school in Rochester to train pilots on how to take pictures of the enemy positions as part of aerial reconnaissance. Now, interestingly enough, during the 1910s and 20s, Kodak was on the cutting edge of welfare capitalism. This is where a company becomes so intertwined with the local community and its workers, they provide more than the industry standard when it comes to benefits.

This started with George Eastman himself selling a large portion of his own stock in the company back to the employees at prices that were way below market value. This would lead to some of these employees becoming quite prosperous in their retirement as Kodak would utterly demolish its competition. Really, a very innovative and generous thing to do.

But in addition to these stocks, the company would offer life insurance, disability benefits, retirement annuity plans at a time where other business owners were just still trying to see how poorly they could treat their workers without riots or strikes occurring.

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Ironically, George Eastman was terrified of labor unions, and so he began this benevolent treatment of employees to try and keep them from forming a union, like literally kill them with kindness, basically.

Regardless of the reason for doing so, the people in charge at Kodak grew a reputation for taking care of their employees that sounds very similar to the reputation that Google has today for treating its employees when it comes to perks of the job. But aren't the hours terrible? Well, it's more so that for Google, a lot of those cushy tech jobs that people had have long since disappeared. Basically, the tech bubble, like I still remember from the early to mid 2010s,

Anytime someone lost their job, what was it that they were told? Go do something in tech. Learn to code, basically. But what happened in 2020 during the pandemic when everybody was like, hey, if you do this, this, this, this, this, you can get a job in tech and then everything will be set. And then right after the pandemic ended, what happened to tech?

It exploded and not in a good way, basically with the advent of AI and then coupled with the whole deluge of people that tried to get work from home tech jobs. It completely saturated the market and destroying the tech industry along with other things. But those were two parts that really damaged the labor aspect of it. Anyway, it should be noted also that Eastman was right.

about the whole thing with unions no attempt at forming a union ever worked at Kodak for the entire of the 20th century like his plan did work so treat your employees well and they won't form a union that was the whole plan yeah can he tell that to every other company I don't know Amazon could probably learn a couple things but we'll we'll we'll see we'll see you know

Now Eastman, it doesn't end well for him. He would later commit suicide due to a combination of poor health and the way that the Great Depression really just hammered his company. Like he'd been forced to lay off 20% of his entire workforce. And Kodak was one of the companies that suffered the least in the country during the Depression.

Yet even in the darkest moments, hope can still flourish. In 1936, Kodak would launch the Kodachrome, which would be one of its most successful products. Kodachrome was one of the first color films that worked on both motion picture and still photography, and it gained a special love amongst professional photographers who needed to take photos meant for being printed in magazines and newspapers. Like many other companies at the time, when World War II broke out, Kodak would start working with the government to support the war effort.

The company would produce film, cameras, microfilm, pontoons, synthetic fibers, RDX explosives, variable time blast fuses, and even

hand grenades for the government. Like this camera company is literally making explosives. And I just, I love that. We need to do a whole thing on like, oh, what did X company do during World War II? Because the amount of weird shit that happened. What did Dawn Dish Soap? Did Dawn Dish Soap exist back then? I would need to look it up. I don't think that it did. Maybe it was a parent company that would later create Dawn, but we'll need to see. Like after all, there was that whole lingerie company that made vests for pigeons. Pigeon vests.

It'll be covered before. I know. I remember. Bras and paratroopers episode. Yeah, bras and paratroopers. Ah, I love that one. Anyway, yes. So the company is producing all this and a team of Kodak scientists would participate in the Manhattan Project enriching uranium-235 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

The spread and reach of Kodak would explode after World War II ended. They made the cameras used in U-2 spy planes for long-range aerial surveillance. They designed optical sensors for NASA satellites. Between 1936 and 1966, they doubled the amount of employees they had. It was at this point that Kodak would basically permeate the market. After the war, middle-class Americans were prospering, and many could now afford a camera for the family to record memories.

Their film of choice? Well, Kodak, of course. Kodak films began to be used in the majority of American households. Make it a Kodak moment was a famous slogan used by many years for Kodak. And that phrase came to be associated with a perfect moment for taking a picture to capture a memory. So how could a company this synonymous with photos fail? They failed to innovate. They failed to get with the times.

Unfortunately, technology, and I remember this, technology was going to develop in a way that they didn't innovate rapidly enough for. I see a lot of companies doing that today. And it's so sad because you can like see them not changing with the times. And it's like, why would you do that? Correct. You could see what's happening. Why won't you change?

So I know the big thing it's going to bring up here is Fujifilm. And this is the thing that I need to mention here on a side note. And I'm not even sure if it's mentioned here in the script, but I just need to say this. This is where Japanese firms were really starting to take things over. And it was scaring the ever-loving shit out of the people in America. This is where the whole idea of the yellow peril and the rise of Japan...

There was this genuine belief over the course of the late 70s, really heading into the 80s, that Japan was going to overtake the United States as the number one economy because of how rapidly they were pulling themselves up.

Why would we be worried about that? Oh, no. I would do a whole thing on the Japanese golden age. But why would the U.S. economy have had to be number one? Because it's more so of a... Well, okay. Yes. Why? That's pretty much anything that any country actively tries to do is to improve themselves and make sure they're dominant. Our economy would probably keep doing what our economy does and they would just be doing it better. Because a lot of it was driving American businesses out of business.

Oh, no. Which is, that's a bad thing for an economy. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If you don't have competitors, you don't improve. Yeah.

Yeah, it's true. So if you don't improve and you don't innovate, you don't deserve to be in business. Okay, it's true. But I'm going to need to specify something here just so that you're aware of what was going on. You're not providing the best experience for your customers. That's on you. Okay, I'm going to have to specify something here in the first place because we're talking about Japanese firms providing the best experience, especially considering treatment of workers and what is actually done within Japan now. No. But you know what the Zaibatsu, these massive conglomerates would basically get?

What? Imagine getting free loans from the government, basically, where you're getting subsidized so that they're able to drive the price point of all of their goods way below market value in other places so that they can basically corner the market because they're producing things so cheaply because they're being subsidized that they're able to drive other companies out of business. And then once those companies are out of business, prices go up. You see where that can be abusive, right? Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I'm talking about. I need to do a whole episode on the Japanese. Yeah, kind of. Or how Walmart ran out or undercut all of the mom and pop shops for a lot of things. Yeah, imagine like Walmart, but if Walmart was being supported by the government to take you over.

That's a lot of stuff. I need to do a future episode on Japan. Like that would make that would make so much sense. We're talking about these Zybatsus. Anyway, in 1984, Fujifilm made a hard push to break into the American market with lower priced film and supplies. They topped it off by outbidding Kodak to become the official film of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics as well. A price war developed between the two film giants in 1997. Meanwhile, digital photography loomed on the horizon.

What's the most ironic thing about Kodak is that they invented the first digital camera. No way. Yes, they did. Yes, they did. But here's the problem. I remember seeing a skit about this on TikTok and it was hilarious because it's so true. The whole thing was like Kodak inventing a digital camera.

Why did they not push it? Because their entire business model was based off of film. So why would they out-innovate themselves and destroy their own business? So they just abandoned it, basically. They didn't push it. The lack of forethought. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Here's the thing. As a content creator, right? Content and how content is pushed and a different site, they change constantly. They change rapidly. Attention spans change. Algorithms change. You're constantly like trying to work your butt off to like make content that people want to see. You know what I'm saying? It's like if you just made the exact, like if I was making the exact same content I started off making and then I was like, oh my God, here's this new revolutionary type of content that I could make. And then I was like, nah.

I'm just going to keep doing exactly what I've been doing. And then everybody else starts making that exact content that I could have been making. Exactly. Oh, man. Yeah, that was Kodak. That was literally what Kodak did. But like the thing is, how did nobody stop and think about this for like five seconds?

Yeah. How? As the digital camera rose to prominence in the 90s and early 2000s, Kodak scientist Peter Dillon would develop the first integral color image sensors and single sensor color video cameras. And these two inventions were vital for the development of smartphone cameras, digital cameras, digital camcorders, digital cinema cameras, medical imaging cameras, automobile camera warning systems, and drones, and so much more. But even with that head start that they got by having created the technology first, they

Kodak failed to acknowledge the importance of what they'd set into motion. And while companies like Sony and HP were making the first generation of commercially available digital cameras, Kodak was instead trying to diversify its chemical operations, which mostly resulted in large losses. Eventually, it finally made the wise business move of selling off most of its chemical operations and instead focusing again on the world of photography.

Finally, in 2001, under the leadership of the new CEO, George Fisher, Kodak would begin making a hard push to break into the digital camera market. Mind you, they could have done this literally a decade prior. But because they'd waited so long, their competitors had time to figure out how to cut costs and undercut the prices at which Kodak sold cameras nearly as soon as they hit the market, which ruined their digital camera sales.

And the craziest part, their digital cameras introduced under the EasyShare product line were actually really good. They integrated perfectly with Kodak printers, and you could literally set the camera up on top of the printer, connecting it to the printer, and print out your photos without the need of a computer. Like, literally, this is something you could just do, which at the time when computers were not very common is unheard of. But at this point, it was too little too late.

A new CEO came into the year 2005 and tried to shake things up by selling off large portions of the company, including its in-house development and manufacturing. This also included laying off 50,000 employees between 2004 and 2007. In 2009, they announced they would stop producing Kodachrome after nearly 75 years of being in production. The writing was basically on the wall now.

In 2010, Kodak was removed from the S&P 500. In 2012, it would close what had proven to be its last profitable product line when it exited the consumer inkjet printer industry for good. In early 2012, Kodak would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They would also sell many of their patents to companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon in order to raise half a billion dollars as part of their bankruptcy proceedings.

In 2018, they even tried to start their own cryptocurrency. Twice. Not once, twice. And both of these failed miserably. By now, they're active only in the business world and only in four categories. Traditional print, digital print, advanced material and chemicals and brands.

That really was like that last one is a true sign of just how far the company has fallen. One of the four remaining branches of their business brand is solely to license out Kodak patents to third parties. That's right. This company develops so many patents, they can still fund a large amount of the remaining business basically by just licensing them out. It's essentially why the company even still exists to this day.

But if it makes you feel any better about how the fall of Kodak happened, just know that up until the 1950s, they almost never hired any minorities. That was something they just didn't do. It was an all-white workforce in the first 70 years it existed. Kind of makes sense because segregation was a thing in the 1950s.

Yeah. I mean, especially when you're talking about a technical developed field, it's a thing that you could have two things. One, there could be an institutional element where they literally won't do it, which you're probably going to expect in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, right? The other aspect is that considering education levels and where people are going to get educated, you're not likely to then see more minority people who are educated in that specific tech field.

until going potentially into the 70s or 80s. Yeah, because weren't these schools like the first person to go to a non-segregated school? Isn't she like in her 70s or something crazy? I think so, yeah. Just not that old. Yeah, no, it's not that old. And that was non-segregated for like the South. What was that? Was it Alabama or was it Mississippi or Georgia? I know my dad left the US around like the 80s, 70s, 80s, somewhere there.

I went to Trinidad. And so when we moved back here in 2010, I remember him being just like so distrusting of white people, so distrusting of them. And all of us were like, dude, what's wrong? Like, what's going on? And it was literally because he had been here for like... Business taxes. We're stressing about all the time and all the money you spent on your taxes. This is my bill?

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Hello, my name is Matt. And I'm McKinley. We are the father-son team that brings you History Dispatches. History Dispatches is a short daily history show where we talk about topics from all over the world and all throughout history. We talk about people, places, events, and even objects. While anything is fair game, we have a soft spot.

for the weird, the wacky, and the obscure things you may have never even heard of. Do you have any examples? How about Wojtek, the bear who rose to the rank of corporal in the Polish army? Or the Great Emu War? Or how about the biggest treasure take in the history of piracy? That sounds cool, but do you have a story about the head of Oliver Cromwell? Or one about the ancient library of Alexandria? And a story about the first woman to climb Mount Everest would be cool.

Well, we got those as well. Every weekday, there's something new and fun. Sweet. So how do I get this trove of goodness? All you have to do is go to HistoryDispatches.com or just look for History Dispatches in your favorite podcast app.

So the people understand Gabby's father is 85 years old. He was born in 1937, like 1937. So he has seen all of it. And so he was just not the fact that I had the goal to marry a white man and be like, hey, dad. And then he loved you is crazy. Gabby, to be fair among you've told me quite literally every guy who has ever met your father, your father hated you.

Yeah, that's because I used to date skater boys. Avril Lavigne's influence. He was a skater boy. And I didn't say, see you later, boy. For anyone who has not physically seen me, I do not look like a skater boy. No, he does not. He's like the first man that I've dated. And I used to just date skater boys. Emphasis on boy.

Anyway, with that, we're going to move on to speaking of failed relationships. How about failed companies? Oops, sorry. I don't know. Oh, segregation. Because Kodak wouldn't hire minorities. This is Kodak's fault, actually.

Anyway, Circuit City, which, oh man, I remember Circuit City. Wait, what is Circuit City? Wait, you haven't heard of Circuit City? I'm, babe, I moved here in like 2010. I don't know a lot of things. Okay, fair enough. All right, Circuit City and Radio Shack, I remember we're like in every mall. I know Radio Shack because when we would come to visit for like Christmas.

I think my mom used to buy phones at Radio Shack. I don't know. Oh, we had a walkie talkie from Radio Shack. Yeah. And they make batteries. They did batteries. They did walkie talkies. They did RC cars and like drone devices for kids and all kinds of things. Because when we would come to the US on vacation, which we did like once a year or twice a year, depending, we would go to Radio Shack and get techie stuff.

Yeah, yeah, that was Radio Shack and then also Circuit City, which on that note, in 1949, Samuel Wurtzel would start a company in Richmond, Virginia, selling television sets. After spending 20 years developing his business and opening various smaller concept stores, he passed his business off to his son, Alan.

Now, Alan Wurzel would see the vision of his father and expanded upon it. In 1978, the company would rebrand as Circuit City and began opening a series of stores that grew larger and larger throughout the 1980s. This would lead to them developing stores in the new and popular big box electronic retail format that their largest competitor, Best Buy, was perfecting. It was known for its wide selection of products, competitive prices, and excellent customer service.

In 1988, Circuit City would make its largest mistake looking back on things today. They had an opportunity to buy Best Buy for only $30 million, which is around $67 million in today's money, which, oh my God, that is such a steal in comparison.

Even though Best Buy obviously suffers from stuff here today, it's still going pretty strong in my opinion, at least I think. I think pre-COVID-19, Best Buy was doing really well because you could go to Best Buy and you could be looking for a product and they would have it in store. But now you go to Best Buy, and I don't know if it's just a Kentucky thing, but now you go to Best Buy and they have to order it. Like, what's the point of the store then? Just...

Go just close the store. We'll just buy it online. Nothing is ever in store. Sorry, I'm turning into Karen, but like be so for real. I hate Best Buy because you try to buy something and they don't ever have it ever.

hey, all of my computers come from Best Buy. So if some person from Best Buy is listening to this, ignore my wife and please sponsor me. I'm begging you, please. I don't think they have the budget. When was the last time you saw a Best Buy ad? That's true, actually. I don't know what exactly they do for advertising. Everybody's just buying their electronics from like the person who makes the electronic now. Because why do I have to go into the store for them to order it online for me? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But like,

Best Buy is about to be on this fucking list. Well, okay, then. All right. Well, either way. Yeah, so they had this opportunity to buy Best Buy. Where were we? But their current CEO at the time, Richard Sharp, believed that he could open a store in Best Buy's hometown of Minneapolis and easily outsell his competitor. This turned out to be a pipe dream from a fool. And for the rest of its existence, Circuit City would be plagued with being outsold by Best Buy consistently.

Best Buy had set up their stores in better parts of town and their stores were updated more regularly, whereas many Circuit City stores were just kind of old and ugly.

In 1991, the CEO, Richard Sharp, would decide that the company was going to start selling used cars for some reason. What the hell? What? Okay. And they started a new company called CarMax. The goal of CarMax was to revolutionize used car retailing through a combination of large selection, as in 400 plus used cars at each store, low, no haggle pricing, guaranteed quality, and a consumer-friendly shopping experience. And that

Mostly accomplished. Okay. But the large portion of its time owning CarMax, Circuit City would use the profits from its car selling to support its failing retail electronics division. In retrospect, maybe they should have just come up with some good ideas and strategies instead of branching out into entirely different type of sales. Real. So they invested all this money into setting up a used car sales service.

And then use the money they made from that, which apparently did well, to prop up their other bullshit. That's not a bad idea. That's what I do with my shorts on my YouTube channel. Okay. Yeah. Fair, but you still make something. All right. Yeah. But like my shorts, I will pay my editor to make my longs that nobody watches. So I'm just saying right now, if you're hearing this, go watch my YouTube videos. They're really good.

It's true, actually, on that note here, for anyone who is interested. So I do a lot of geopolitics and history behind geopolitical issues. Gabby does scientific analysis of historical stuff, like in the case of Agent Orange and other chemical weapons. Because it wasn't just orange. It was Agent Blue. There was Agent Green. There was Agent White. There was Agent Pink. There was Agent Purple. Go listen to it.

Everyone has heard of chlorine gas. Do you want to know in excruciating detail what chlorine gas does to the human body and lungs? The cat's about to turn off the computer, guys. It's been nice knowing you. The dog and the cat have actually jumped up onto the bed where we have everything located in here. And they're just chilling now. They're sleepy. It's 1 a.m. They're not wrong for this. It's true. All right. So the company's next largest mistake would come in July of 2000. Circuit City would decide to leave the large appliance business entirely.

This was dumbfounding for most who heard about it because just the previous year, Circuit City had been the second largest appliances retailer in the United States behind only Sears.

So they decided to abandon what they were the second biggest entity in the country for to just focus on other. Okay. All right. Their executives were so busy trying to make up lost profits that they shuttered the most profitable part of their business. The company had earned nearly $1.6 billion in sales revenue from large appliances in 1999.

Why would they do that? Well, they were getting their asses beat in the retail electronics game by Best Buy, and they thought if they freed up space in their warehouses and saved on cost of delivering appliances, they could make up the difference caused by not selling appliances anymore. Oh my god. This proved to be disastrous. What did they do with the new space provided by having to not display appliances anymore?

They filled them with rows of self-serve computer electronics, peripherals, softwares, and computer accessories, as well as movies and music on CD and DVDs. Oh my God.

The cost to retrofit all the existing stores, remove the appliances, and replace them with lower-cost items? $1.5 billion. And if you'll notice, that's less than the $1.6 billion they made just selling appliances the year prior. Circuit City had to close down pretty early because I've never heard of them. Not even like a little bit.

Yeah, I remember seeing Circuit City stores when I was a kid. And I don't remember when they disappeared, but I'm pretty sure it was the early 2000s. Yeah, that's why I would never know because I didn't start coming to the US until I was like five years old, four years old.

Yeah. The company had also gone in heavy trying to develop the DIVX format years prior, which never launched off the ground because it was a stupid idea. DIVX was developed by Circuit City and launched in 1997 as an alternative to DVD. DIVX discs cost $5 each, which was nice, but they could only be played for 48 hours on proprietary setup layers for a continuation fee was required to continue viewing.

The player was connected to a phone line to check whether the disc was still valid. Oh my, this is like early horrible Netflix. Opposition to the format and limited acceptance by the public led Circuit City to discontinue the format in 1999, and they took a $114 million loss to close their DIVX division. But the largest stupid idea Circuit City ever made was yet to come. That would occur when employees would later call Black Wednesday.

In 2003, Circuit City would convert to a single hourly pay structure in all stores, eliminating commissioned sales. Oh my God, no. No, literally the thing that kills off any employee incentives. Many previously commissioned sales associates were offered new positions as hourly product specialists, while 3,900 salespeople were laid off, saving the company about $130 million a year.

Many company insiders later revealed that they thought this was the most influential company decision. It would ultimately lead to its demise. So our editor, James, he wrote this in here. He was actually, oh my God, James was actually working as a commissioned salesman for Circuit City on that very day.

And he remembered the vibe when he got to work extra early that day and every single employee was there also. It felt like a funeral. One by one, the sales associates would be called back into a conference room, told how much they had sold in the prior six months on an average, and then how much that broke down to hourly. If you sold more than $15 an hour on average, you were... Wait, what? If you were sold more, not less, more than $15 an hour on average, you were fired.

and given a severance package that included an option to come back to work for the company after 10 weeks had passed at a lower rate. But yeah, that's right. They fired all their best salespeople on purpose. So I'm convinced the person in charge of Circuit City

Did not want Circuit City to succeed. Like, I think whoever was running the show was a hater of Circuit. Like, somebody wronged them. It has to. Like, what? No, somebody wronged them. And they decided to spend the rest of their time gaining control of Circuit City to destroy it. Like, who...

That has to be the case here. That has to be the case because I refuse to believe a business person, a person who owned a successful business, made any of these decisions. I'm so sorry. That's not even... No. They fired 4,000 people that day, many who had worked for the company for over a decade and would have been experienced sales associates.

What the hell? It's like, okay, guys, personal tip. I'm going to dump this. This is personal lore that you're getting access here to right now. I don't know if I've said this here before. Before it is that I worked for the company that I would work before my last lab job. I worked as an inbound sales representative selling internet packages for Viasat Satellite Internet. And I worked for a third-party company called Conduit. And I can tell you this definitively right now. Conduit...

I loved the people of that job. I hated the company and the job with a burning passion, specifically because they had a bullshit sales system where essentially I was out of 83 sales associates. I was number two or number three in the entire company.

I sold that much. Despite this, my bonus at the end of one month, I remember I sold a ludicrous amount of stuff to the point that I should have gotten from that month, despite my $12 an hour or $14 an hour wage rate, I should have gotten an additional like $2,000 bonus. I only got $500.

Because they stole all of it because of their bullshit sales metrics because I didn't sell DirecTV packages as well. You know what's crazy? When you... When we got married, your first job was making $12 an hour.

And then you got fired from that job. And then you started working for Conduit. Conduit. That's what it was. Making 14? I think that was... Oh, no. I think that was also $12 an hour. That was also $12 an hour. Yeah, you're right. That was. Then we got pregnant with Joya. So you were like, I need to make a little bit more than $12 an hour. So you went to work for TQL. Which was...

Which was also an awful job. Where you made, I think it was $14 an hour. Well, it was $35,000 a year, but when you, which should have been more, but when you divided it into all the hours you worked, then it was only just above $14 an hour. And then you got fired from that job when Joy was like three months old. And then you went to work for it

The lab. The lab. And that like... That was just straight up $14 an hour. Yeah. But it was way less hours. And also, I did get overtime from that. Yeah. So...

But I just don't understand. We would never have been able to survive off of what you used to make out of college today, like in today's economy. Absolutely not. We literally say this all the time. Sorry, we're off track again. But we say this all the time. We're like, oh, yeah, back in our day, five years ago, we could survive off of $40 a week. And now I'm like that $40 would be gone in like

One day. It is truly insane. It should not... It's not a reasonable thing to be able to say back in my day and only be referring to five or six years ago. Yeah. That doesn't... Like, it needs to be at least a decade. At least. But it doesn't make sense. It's just the amount of money we did not have and we were so lucky to be able to make it. Just thinking about people having more money now and not being able to... It's crazy. Like, I just...

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Gotta love the economy. I don't understand the economy, which makes it scarier. I think it's like when people are like, I don't understand science. And then they're like vilifying things are actually trying to help them. That's me with the economy. Yeah, no, I get that. I don't understand it. So to me, that's my conspiracy theory. It's not real. The economy isn't real. Yeah, they're using it to control it.

economies are used to control people that is that is okay but it's not in the way that you are saying it is okay anyway where were oh yeah james and getting fired from circuit city oh we just have to talk about all the times steve's been fired it's a lot yeah and not his fault he just literally has the worst luck

So the decision would essentially ruin Circuit City. Within a few months, James and most of his co-workers had found new jobs and the quality of service at Circuit City eroded quickly. This wasn't helped by their attempt to lower wages again in 2007. So they fired another 3,400 people and then filled most of those positions with employees making just above minimum wage who were being paid a mere $7.40 an hour. Oh my God, that is what I made when I worked at Kroger. My

My first ever job... Well, I had the first job that I made minimum, which was $7.25. I remember when I got a job at Kroger and they said, oh yes, we pay above minimum wage. Minimum wage is $7.25. I got paid $7.40 an hour. So the above minimum wage... You're a baller.

Dude. It was so bad. What'd you do with all that extra 20 cents? So ironically, this is back in the day that remember fuel cost around like $4. This is when fuel cost above $4 a gallon, right? And I drove the Mountaineer. Oh. So that thing was a gas guzzler. I spent half my paycheck

per week just going to and from work um question who do i need to talk to about bringing back the mercury mercury mountaineer probably like a little bit more fuel efficient if anybody listening knows who to count contact just let me know because that car so fun in the snow so yeah this left a bad taste in customers mouths and the business continued to fall

Hilariously enough, in 2008, Circuit City was offered a lifeline by proposal to purchase it from none other than video rental giant Blockbuster Video for a billion dollars. Blockbuster tried to put Circuit City. Isn't there like one Blockbuster left? Oh my God. Yeah, there's literally one. Wait, why didn't Blockbuster innovate? They could have done something here.

I, and that sucks. I loved going to Blockbuster as a kid. I, my favorite thing, we had Friday night movie night and we would go to Blockbuster for, for movies. And I remember there was one story and this is again, personal lore bit for me. I embarrassed myself so badly and I kept it hidden from my parents where each week the kids got to alternate between the movie that they would choose and

I chose a Sonic the Hedgehog one that I swore was a new one that I had not seen before. Turns out the previous month I had and my parents insistently told me that I had seen it and I told them no, I clearly hadn't. So I watched it with them again. Again. Pretending you hadn't seen it. And I pretended that I hadn't seen it because I quickly realized within like five minutes like, oh shit, I had seen this before.

And that was, but my parents had already paid for it because they rented it from Blockbuster. So I couldn't take it back. You know, I don't understand Blockbuster. So it was a rental movie service. Yeah. Rental movie. Later on, they added games. You could rent games. In Trinidad, we would have like DVD stores, right? Yes. And so you stop and you'd buy the DVD. You could do that too. But the gag is all of the fucking DVDs.

were pirated. Oh my God. But these were official.

DVD store. You couldn't get the original. What? We used to come to the US and buy the actual DVDs for our DVD collection. But every fucking DVD, and I'm not even joking, they'd be like, we have, on the big signs out front, they'd be like, we have the brand new High School Musical 3. And then you'd get that DVD. And guess what? It was a phone recording of somebody in the US watching it. Fucking way. I wish, my aunt probably still has some of these DVDs. But

But like my I'm not even joking. High School Musical 3. I have not seen High School Musical 3 like the actual movie. I've seen a phone recording, blurry, fuzzy, the worst recording ever of a camera recording. Like somebody went to a movie theater in the US. They filmed High School Musical 3. They put it on a DVD.

That is the DVD that I bought thinking, oh my God, it's a DVD. No. It's not. You guys are getting access to so much Stikui and not Gabby B. Lord here. Like, you're getting so much right now. Listen, it's the Caribbean. Like, what were we supposed to do? Like, the amount of time it would have taken for them to, I guess, import those. I don't know what the DVD stores were on, but like, literally, I'm not even joking. All of them were bootleg. So my mom used to come to the US and like actually buy the DVDs. Um,

But we came to the US like once a year, maybe twice if we were like lucky or just like my parents were not feeling like working that time that year. We couldn't get all that. So we'd stop at a DVD store and it was just bootleg, just bootlegs. I'm not even joking. That is genuinely hilarious. God, can you imagine it from this? A blockbuster and Circuit City combined. It still would have failed. It likely would have failed, but that is still hilarious.

All right. So on November 4th, 2008, Circuit City would announce that it was going to close 155 stores and lay off 17% of its workforce by the end of that year as a result of continuing difficulties in remaining profitable. On November 7th, 2008, Circuit City would lay off between 500 and 800 corporate employees from its Richmond, Virginia headquarters. The approximately 1,000 remaining corporate employees were consolidated into one building to further reduce costs and improve profitability.

On November 10, 2008, Circuit City would file for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the Eastern District of Virginia. At that time, Circuit City's stock traded well below $1 per share and was removed from listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The final day of operations for all of Circuit City's stores was March 8, 2009,

And it died there. It was resurrected in 2018 as an online retailer in the exact same way as competitors Camp USA and Tiger Direct and was purchased by the same company who bought those companies. Now, an online-only ghost of itself, you can still technically buy something from Circuit City, but it is nowhere close to the actual business that ran for over 50 years and started from a TV store in Richmond.

Oh, man. Also, I just want to point out back to the sorry, back to bootleg DVD things. They all came with the anti-piracy thing at the beginning. Like my mom did not know what a bootleg DVD was until years later when my brother and I found out and we're explaining. Oh, yeah. So like all the DVDs that they sell back home were not like the actual DVD. And my mom was mind blown because they all came with the anti-piracy like.

You know, you wouldn't steal a car. Oh my God. That advertisement. Oh, that thing failed. That thing failed so miserably. Fun tidbit for anyone in here. Gabby, do you know why that thing failed? Why? So,

When those advertisements started going off saying that, oh, you wouldn't download a car. Like, why would you download a song or a movie? I fucking would if I could. Are you kidding? Well, not only that would people think this, but there was a bigger problem. What? The majority of people who had access to the internet did not know that it was possible to do that in the first place. See, that's hard. Ironically, the advertisement in the wake, and they have studies of this, in the wake of

Or in the aftermath of that happening, of those ads going out, the rate of illegal downloads drastically increased because all of a sudden, all these kids who had no idea that you could download free music or free movies suddenly were going and searching ways to find them.

- LimeWire. - Literally LimeWire. - Do you remember LimeWire? - Yes. - Like you could be downloading a virus or you're downloading "Buy Your Drink" by D-Pain. - Uh-huh. - Like there was no inventory. - Yup. - Like, oh, I'm trying to download, I don't know, something by Chris Brown and you would probably get a Chris Brown song or you'll get some guy, just yeah. - Yeah.

Oh man, what a time to be alive. Not that I ever used LimeWire. I've heard stories. Yeah, Gabby, you talking about bootleg copies of things in Trinidad doesn't really help me believe you made that statement. I didn't know they were bootleg until years later. I know. I was buying them from a legitimate... Legitimate stores. Legitimate stores. All of the TV stores were like that. I'm not from like...

A fancy place. I was from like Sangre Grande, okay? I know. Like I was not the capital city. It was nowhere near the capital city. If you go Google Sangre Grande right now, I'm in the neighborhood group. They're going through it every day, every day. They had like one good park and they close it down. Oh man. So like what we've previously mentioned here to round things off for our stories of failed companies who fail to innovate, of course, is the big daddy of them all that everyone references all the time, Blockbuster Video.

Started by David Cook in 1985, which is actually that's a pretty late time. I thought it would have started earlier. The meteoric rise of Blockbuster is truly one of the greatest examples of a success story that one can find in the history of retail. It would be even more amazing if it weren't shattered by the historic collapse of the company less than 30 years later. Let's dive a little deeper and find out why.

The first Blockbuster video location opened in Dallas, Texas in 1985 with an inventory of 8,000 VHS tapes and 2,000 Betamax tapes. An interesting thing to note is that each store would customize its inventory and selection based on local demographics. So you'd go to certain places and then you'd actually find, I thought that was cool, you'd find different inventories in different Blockbusters depending upon where you were because they would actually suit the movies to the more common local taste.

Anyway, within two years, the business was thriving so much that Wayne Bazinga, co-founder of Waste Management, decided to buy the company and take over the majority of its stores. Together with his partner, John Milk, they appreciated the fact that Blockbuster was family-friendly and didn't rent out pornographic movies like many mom-and-pop video stores did at the time.

Huizenga and Melk then used their prior experience from building waste management, as well as lessons learned from McDonald's franchising pioneer Ray Kroc, to expand Blockbuster at a ridiculously fast rate. At a peak of development, Huizenga and Melk opened a new Blockbuster store every 24 hours. In 1989, Nintendo actually filed a lawsuit against Blockbuster for renting out its games.

Blockbuster would win the case, ensuring that video game rental could take place forever after, because that wasn't a thing before. There was a time in the late 1980s, all the way leading up to the turn of the millennium, that saw Blockbuster dominate society.

Everyone you knew had a membership. It was a place you could bump into friends or classmates, co-workers, neighbors. Kids would plan out how they were going to spend their allowances on the weekend and which movie or game they were going to get on Friday after school. It was a cultural mecca and the place where millions of memories were made strolling through the aisles deciding what form of entertainment you were going to take home that day. They even rented out VCRs and video game consoles at some stores.

This was such a cool thing that you could do. And I still remember that being at a time where a lot of people couldn't afford stuff. You know how you've talked about some of the spoiled kids that we would see that would be asking for things where it's like their parents clearly can't afford

something basic and they want and are getting brand new PlayStations and things. Yeah. Even when stuff around the house is quite literally falling apart. Yeah. Blockbuster was this time where you could rent out even people who generally could not afford new consoles and stuff. You could get that.

you could see the latest movies, just like your friends who maybe were a bit more wealthier. You could rent the console to play with them, even if you couldn't actually afford to get the game and all the stuff like they could play at home. Again, I'm from Trinidad, so while I'm sure people had the consoles, we had these...

I don't know if you could have a bootleg console, but that... You can. Oh, God. There's a ton of them. There's a ton of bootlegs. Because I remember they were like selling these like... It was all the rage. Everybody was getting one. And then you would like play it and it would be kind of like the games.

Like on the real consoles, they were not. Because the only gaming system I had until I was a teenager, like 16 years old, was a Nintendo. Like, what is that one with the little square cartridges? The 64. Oh, we know the square one? So the Super Nintendo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it was like the, it was like a gray thing. Super Nintendo. Right. We had a Super Nintendo. That's somebody from New York.

sent in a barrel to my cousin and it wasn't ours. It was my cousin. So we would play it when we went to her house. And that's how I played Mario 64. I think if it was Mario 64, that was on the Nintendo 64. Okay, sure. I think it was the Nintendo 64. That was like, that was the only gaming console I'd ever played.

Until I was 16 years old. Dang. When my mom convinced my dad that, hey, they're so good. They're such good kids and they're homeschooled. They deserve some fun. They have no friends. They just moved to a new country and they're homeschooled. Let's give them a PS2.

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Well, I'm Dan Beecher, and he's award-winning Bible scholar and TikTok sensation, Dr. Dan McClellan. And we want to invite you to the Data Over Dogma podcast. Where our mission is to increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and also to combat the spread of misinformation about the same. But, you know, in a fun way.

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What? The Cars video game. The Cars video game. The Cars video game.

Yeah. So I cannot relate to anything you just said. I'm so sorry. No, it's fair enough. I say this more so as like I remember from my childhood and what I actually really enjoyed because what they talk about for like the kids and their allowances is that was actually me. It was like going to Blockbuster with little allowance or coins that I scrounged up or found from places and getting something from Blockbuster. I really did love that. Right. I had the Cars video game. It was not a bad game. I played it like five times, you know, beginning to end.

So, Huizinga was worried about the rise of new technology threatening their business. He contemplated building a Blockbuster theme park, which he thankfully did not go through with. Instead, he decided to just sell the company to Viacom, which he did in 1994. And Viacom would acquire Blockbuster for $8.4 billion. Oh, my God. Which, I mean, yeah, I guess it was a huge company at that point, so it made sense. Good of him to get out in the 90s. Dear God.

The blockbuster block party concept was a test marketed in Albuquerque, New Mexico and in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1994. It was an entertainment complex aimed at adults creating eight themed areas, housing restaurant games, laser tag arena and motion simulator ride. Basically it looks like it seems like what they're describing is a, uh, uh, almost like a gaddy town slash, uh,

Main event. Yeah, it's like it's like it feels like it's a main event or a Malibu Jacks that is around here, but with more movies and stuff. And so it was housed in a windowless building the size of a city block. This sounds a lot like Dave and Buster's, which has proven to be a sustainable business model. It's interesting to think what would have happened if they'd learned or leaned hard into the block party concept and it could have survived and given Blockbuster a second chance at life later.

The first big mistake Blockbuster made would be under the leadership of its new CEO, John Andioco, who had previously been the CEO of Taco Bell. Because, you know, restaurants, entertainment. Yeah, fast food. Yeah, makes sense. Warner Brothers had made an offer to Blockbuster to have exclusively early access to rent out their movies for a certain period of time before they went on sale to the general public. That's cool. But Blockbuster turned it down. Gabby.

Blockbuster turned down the opportunity to get early access to Warner Brothers movies. And this is in the 90s heading into the early 2000s when those were huge. Damn. Instead, Walmart took up Warner Brothers on their offer and would eventually become the number one retailer of Warner Brothers DVDs in the country.

Ah, Walmart was able to sell their DVDs below wholesale price as a loss leader product in order to get more traffic into their stores to buy other products as well. Yeah, that was the big thing for when they sell a lot of beer because Blockbuster didn't have any other products, so they couldn't just match that kind of price point. Oh, dear God. To show you how misguided the company's decision making was, at one point, Blockbuster entered into a partnership with Enron to create a new video on demand service.

Yes, that Enron. This agreement was supposed to last 20 years and would have seen the first major video streaming service. But Enron backed out, saying they didn't trust Blockbuster to provide enough selection for the service. Enron would say this and then go on to file for bankruptcy shortly afterwards. So maybe it wasn't really Blockbuster's fault, but they sure could have picked a better business partner.

In 1998, the company was sold to Warehouse Entertainment. And then, less than five years later, it was sold again to Transworld Entertainment in 2003. And now, we get to the company's biggest mistake.

Blockbuster made a critical error when it walked away from a deal with Netflix, a company worth billions of dollars today. Netflix wanted to sell its company to Blockbuster for $50 million in 2000. And yes, this really happened. Netflix was still a young upstart in these days, having only launched its business three years earlier. If the deal went through, Netflix would have managed Blockbuster's online business, and it stands a good chance that we would have been referring to Blockbuster every time we mentioned a new series of streaming videos. But alas,

it was not meant to be. At the time, Blockbuster could have afforded the purchase since it had raised $465 million in an IPO a year earlier, but Blockbuster passed on the deal, claiming the price was too high. Speaking about what had happened, Netflix's former CFO, Barry McCarthy, says Blockbuster laughed us out of their office.

Three years after Blockbuster had turned down the offer, Netflix had more than a million subscribers. And by 2006, it had 6 million subscribers. Before long, Netflix was no longer an underdog. It was building a loyal and growing customer base.

Now, Blockbuster was skeptical about the potential of renting DVDs online and sending them to customers via mail the way Netflix did. But customers enjoyed Netflix's service because it was convenient. You no longer had to go to a Blockbuster to get a movie you wanted to in order to see it or the game you wanted to play. Instead, you could just go online, select the movie you wanted to see, and voila, it would show up in your mailbox a few days later.

Really, it's not unlike Amazon's entrance to the e-commerce market back in the 1990s. Amazon provided a more convenient way to shop, but it was difficult for many companies at the time to see the potential of e-commerce. As Netflix continued to gain subscribers, it took Blockbuster six years to launch a similar service of its own in 2004 called Blockbuster Online.

As one quote would say, companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slow. This being said by Reed Hastings, Netflix's co-founder and co-CEO. And he couldn't be more right when it came to the case of Blockbuster.

One of Blockbuster's main sources of revenues, as it turns out, was not even just rentals. It was late fees. If you didn't return your movie rental on time, you were charged a dollar a day. Those fees amounted to $800 million in 2000, or 16% of their entire revenue base. Netflix, on the other hand, did not charge any late fees at all. Just one flat fee under a subscription model.

In fact, Hastings started Netflix because he was annoyed about a $40 late fee that he had to pay for renting out Apollo 13 from Blockbuster. And $40 back then would be huge. So Blockbuster thought, hey, we'll just, you know, get rid of the late fees. And so they did, which solved one problem, but it created another. Because now guess what? What? People were just renting out movies and holding on to them forever because there was no late fees.

Yeah, that led to less available movies for people to rent when they walked into the store, which meant that customers complained about that because now there was no selection. The company just couldn't catch a break. It would struggle financially throughout much of its later history. For example, between 96 and 2010, they were only profitable in two of those years, which brings into question the overall viability of Blockbuster's business model even before other competitors entered the market, making it even more difficult for Blockbuster to succeed.

What seems to have been the final nail in the coffin, though, was when activist investors and Blockbuster's board of directors pushed hard for John Antioco to be fired as CEO of the company. This led to the hiring of Jim Keyes as CEO in 2007. Keyes just simply denied being in a business model that wasn't working anymore and effectively drove the company to the ground.

The biggest thing that kept Blockbuster from making a comeback in the 21st century, though, was its debt. Viacom bought Blockbuster in 94 and then spun it out in 2004. And as part of the deal, Blockbuster had to pay $5 per share dividend, which caused Blockbuster to take out a $905 million loan to pay for that dividend. By the time Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010, it had a billion dollars in debt.

As Hastings would say, if it hadn't been for their debt, they could have killed us. You got to remember, at this point in time, Netflix only rented out DVDs by mail. They had no streaming service yet. During bankruptcy proceedings, Blockbuster was purchased by Dish Network for $320 million. This was wildly lower than their nearly $6 billion in revenue they had brought in during its peak in 2004, less than five years earlier.

Like mind you, in 2004, Blockbuster had more than 9,000 stores worldwide. They were a cultural phenomenon. And now they were fighting for their very existence. Blockbuster would die a sad and slow death by a thousand cuts. Every year would bring hundreds of store closures. And in January of 2020, the last remaining store outside of the United States located in Dergaville, New Zealand would close its doors.

Now you would think this is finally the end of the story, but there is actually one blockbuster video location still open to this day. It is located in Bend, Oregon, opened in the year 2000 as a franchise location, and that's why it is still operating today.

In 2019, it became the last Blockbuster, and it manages to have a pretty entertaining account on Twitter. It runs as a normal video rental store, but also houses Blockbuster memorabilia and film props. In August of 2020, the location was listed as an Airbnb rental for a 1990s-themed sleepover on three separate nights in September.

I'd like to point out that the tradition of ill-advised moves from Blockbuster has not changed much as this location tried to start using the store as an Airbnb in the height of the COVID pandemic. It should be noted that this one store didn't have to fire any employees during the pandemic, though, so it's not all bad choices. It's privately owned.

In 2024, it was estimated that about 80% of the store's income came from selling merchandise. Because the majority of the DVD vendors that provided them with movies are now closed, and the remaining ones have minimum orders that are far too large for a single store, all the movies come from Walmart and Target. So the store is primarily running on nostalgia. But it does feel good to know that somewhere in Oregon, there's still a yellow and blue light shining down that says Blockbuster Video on it.

If you'd like to go more in the history of other companies that have failed, let us know here on Patreon. We didn't have to get into touch on some of the other famous companies in this category. Like there's BlackBerry, Nokia, Toys R Us, Polaroid, Compaq, Borders, Pan Am, and so many more. Either way, my friends, that is the end of today's episode. Thank you so much here for listening. I appreciate you all. Now at this point, I have to rest my voice before it is that I crash and burn. It is also like 2 a.m. in the morning now.

Yeah, it's been a while. Sorry. I'm also a little bit sick, but I'm trying to be brave about it. Trying to support coughing. I might even leave the coughing that I have in here of me dying. I literally was like trying to help my breasts so they don't cough. Anyway, goodbye, my friends. Thank you so much for listening. Join us on Patreon and I'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.

What does Sputnik have to do with student loans? How did a set of trembling hands end the Soviet Union? How did inflation kill moon bases? And how did a former president decide to run for a second non-consecutive term? These are among the topics we deal with on the My History Can Beat Up Your Politics podcast. We tell stories of history that relate to today's news events. Give a listen. My History Can Beat Up Your Politics, wherever you get podcasts.