Top 10 Times One Person DESTROYED a Company

Ratner Group
Gerald Ratner grew his family's modest jewelry brand into an empire on the philosophy that the loudest voice commands the most business. He learned the hard way that it's sometimes best to shut up. While speaking at a convention in 1991, the Ratner Group’s CEO joked about his company’s cost-effective mass production. He said the jewelry is so affordable because “it’s total crap.” His company’s stock plummeted as insulted customers lost faith in the quality of Ratner products. The company won them back after the CEO’s resignation and a rebrand. Today, Signet Jewelers is one of the biggest names in the industry. As for their old one, the consequence of a business rep getting too candid is called the “Ratner effect.”

OGX Petroleo
Energy industrialist Eike Batista quickly went from being one of the world’s richest men to a negative net worth. As hard as his companies were hit by his gambles, OGX Petroleo was particularly devastated. Batista got lucky when the company discovered major crude oil reserves. The parent company EBX Group spent the next few years driving Brazil’s infrastructure and energy, before finally going bust in 2012. Batista overpromised, underdelivered, and overspent on other ventures and an extravagant lifestyle. OGX then filed for the biggest bankruptcy in the history of Latin America. Under new leadership, it rebranded as Dommo Energia in 2017 and was sold to PetroRio in 2022. Meanwhile, the ever-reckless Batista was sentenced to 30 years in prison for corruption.

Turing Pharmaceuticals
Turing Pharmaceuticals broke out in 2015 with several major manufacturing licenses. Then Martin Shrekli raised the price for Daraprim, an antiparasitic used to treat HIV, from $13.50 per pill to $750. This reprehensible price hike made the so-called “pharma bro” a pariah. The company’s reputation was further damaged by his callous social media presence and dubious pledges to make treatment more affordable. Shkreli claims the controversy prompted investigations into a potential Ponzi scheme and misappropriation of funds for his company Retrophin. He was ultimately convicted on securities fraud and conspiracy in 2017. Turing maintained ties after rebranding as Vyera Pharmaceuticals that year. But with Shrekli’s audacity leaving the company in a financial and legal mess, Vyera filed for bankruptcy in 2023.

Long-Term Capital Management
Scientific strategy and secrecy made Long-Term Capital Management an anomaly on Wall Street. For all of John Meriwether’s brilliance, his leadership methods were not a long-term investment. His hedge fund saw three years of unrivaled profit before taking a hit from the 1997 financial crisis in Asia. After Russia defaulted on its debts the following year, LTCM lost billions in months. The decision to publicize some closely guarded trading methods further shook potential investors’ faith. The next closed-door deal was for a bailout, but LTCM dissolved in 2000. Experts blame Meriwether’s very foundation of a fund that trusted the numbers and subverted trends, thus alienating potential partners. It would unfortunately not be the last time market volatility bested Meriwether's rationalist strategies.

WeWork
The workspace design company WeWork was ironically felled by unprofessional leadership. Publicly, CEO Adam Neumann’s eccentric image and excessive office culture undermined the company’s credibility. Privately, he overindulged in illicit substances. He also directly manipulated business ties to serve his personal life and lofty ambitions for WeWork. Finally, in 2019, controversy over the business model and Neumann himself prompted him to delay the IPO launch. The CEO then voted himself out as the company became a laughing stock. WeWork is now considered a cautionary tale about giving too much power and agency to the head of an office. Even after COVID-19’s impact on workspaces led to bankruptcy in 2023, WeWork continues to reject Neumann’s efforts to buy it back.

Chesapeake Energy
Innovations like fracking turned Chesapeake Energy into one of America's most powerful natural gas companies going into the 2010s. But CEO Aubrey McClendon’s own prosperity was partly based on financial creativity. In 2012, it came out that he was financing operations with personal loans from his company's own lenders. After his dismissal, McClendon was sued by his old company for selling data, then investigated for market manipulation. Forbes wasn't kidding when it dubbed him “America's Most Reckless Billionaire” before these revelations. McClendon’s schemes and downfall severely damaged Chesapeake’s value. They experienced years of financial volatility before rebranding as Expand Energy Corporation following a merger in 2024. The day after he was indicted in 2016, McClendon died in a car wreck.

Research In Motion
Mike Lazaridis and initial partner Doug Fregin essentially reinvented the cellphone with the multipurpose device BlackBerry. Unfortunately, he was less smart about business. That is where Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie came in, but he too downplayed the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. Despite the BlackBerry's superior engineering, other smartphones’ marketing and technical innovations convinced RIM to adapt. It was too late, and the two CEOs resigned shortly before the company was renamed BlackBerry Limited in 2013. They would both become cautionary figures for failing to recognize market trajectory. However, Balsillie and Lazaridis himself later acknowledged that it was the latter who fought the principles of restructuring. The struggling BlackBerry Limited discontinued its namesake product in 2022.

Eastern Airlines
An industry staple for almost seven decades, Eastern Airlines struggled to adapt to that industry’s deregulation in the ‘80s. Powerhouse manager Frank Lorenzo of Texas Air was poised to revive the company. The first order of business was a labor dispute, which Lorenzo actually made worse with harsh policies and deals. Pilots and flight attendants joined the labor strike, and the FAA issued a massive fine over safety violations. By 1991, Eastern was completely out of money. Lorenzo’s folly would go down as a tragedy of aggressive management. The punchline is that he bounced back after selling off Eastern’s assets to his other companies. Revivals of the airline have since failed to get off the ground.

Barings Bank
It took Barings Banks 233 years to become one of the world’s leading merchant banks. It took Nick Leeson three years to tear it down. The derivatives trader was transferred to the company’s Singapore office after he was denied a UK broker’s license for failing to report a legal issue on his application. In 1992, he invested Barings’s own money in futures without authorization, hiding shortfalls in an error account. Finally, the 1995 Kobe earthquake destabilized Asian markets and led to the discovery of Leeson’s no-longer-lucrative corruption. He ultimately cost Barings almost £1 billion, before the ING Group bought the company in 1995 for a single quid. Meanwhile, Leeson got four years in prison, his banking career killed alongside a centuries-old financial institution.

WorldCom
“Telecom Cowboy” Bernard Ebbers’s company was one of the biggest in its industry. It turns out this was not accomplished honestly. WorldCom filed for bankruptcy in 2002, after Cynthia Cooper’s internal audit revealed extensive accounting fraud to bolster the company’s stock. Up to $11 billion in overstatements were ultimately reported. Ebbers ousted his fellow executives, but investigations and convictions framed him as the mastermind. He had already fallen out of favor with the company over his lack of strategy following a failed merger with Sprint. The disgraced, financially devastated WorldCom would eventually be sold to Verizon in 2006 under the name MCI Inc. And in the years since his downfall, the once-renowned Ebbers is synonymous with executive incompetence and corruption.