What Could Have Been - 5 Tech Giants That Lost It All

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Oftentimes, it seems like corporate giants are too big to fail - that nothing can ever knock them down. But, while that may be true at one point in time, it’s almost never true over the long term. In fact, the only thing that’s guaranteed is that every company someday eventually fails - no matter how big. 5 companies that once seemed like this but eventually fell are Xerox, Sun Microsystems, Fairchild Semiconductor, AT&T Bell Labs, and Juniper Networks. Each of these companies not only dominated their respective fields but gave rise to new giants from Cisco and Intel to Apple and Microsoft. This video explains the stories of 5 of the most influential companies in history and their eventual demise.

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Timestamps:
0:00 - Xerox
2:18 - Fairchild Semiconductor
4:39 - Sun Microsystems
7:06 - AT&T Bell Labs
8:54 - Juniper Networks

Resources:

Disclaimer:
This video is not a solicitation or personal financial advice. All investing involves risk. Please do your own research.

[shadowninja]

I can't believe you didn't mention how Xerox had the chance to be first movers in the personal computer space, but they threw it all away because they bought into the hype about the "paper-less office" that this new technology would lead to (which Xerox's upper management didn't want, since they made the bulk of their profits selling paper). Xerox invented things like the computer mouse, etc., and just sat on it. Eventually their tech people got fed up with Xerox trying to stop their products from ever seeing the light of day that they went to work for Steve Jobs and other competitors.

[ryanspaceYT]

Massive W to all these companies for allowing us to have cellphones, computers and other tech that made our lives better.

[jonathanwindham]

Xerox also developed the graphical user interface, and mouse, and let it slip through their fingers.

[Wizznilliam]

You could have added Motorola to this too. I worked there for 20 years. They were a HUGE company at the top of SEVERAL technologies in multiple tech sectors, including semiconductors. But somehow management completely screwed it all up and it is now a minor shadow of its former self.

[kryptonman]

what will be the scenario after another half a century - IBM, Volkswagen, Apple ....

[arya_jahan]

WOW... the fact that you talked about Xerox without mentioning how Xerox was sitting on a GOLD MINE known as the first Graphical User Interface aka GUI computer is insane.

TLDR:
For the Gen-Z, let me explain how it used to be in the past before Xerox's invention. When working with computers, instructions were given to computers in a language that it could understand. So, for example, the action of copy and pasting something meant that it was up to the user to know the exact language / code to make the computer initiate that particular action. Now the user simply right clicks on the item, clicks "copy", goes to where they want to move the item, then right clicks again on "paste" - all done visually and by moving the mouse.
Xerox was sitting on this revolutionary way of allowing users to fundamentally change the ease of use and allow the "everyday" person to use the tool which we know as Personal Computer (PC).
This is where Steve Jobs came in, saw the massive potential, then took this idea and marketed it as his own / Apple's.

[Papasot]

I really like this type of documentary you made today, keep it up 👍

[Shaf_nur]

Makes me realize that how poor management leads to lack of innovation and caused the downfall of these companies which were setting industry standards 😢

[connerwilliams]

You're basically my new news program that I watch all the time

[julianmartinez]

Now, for Episode 2: Yahoo!, Nokia, IBM...

[Danny-bdch]

OH boy, selling 8% bonds. The end is near.

[Papasot]

5:34 Only one of the editions of Minecraft is written on Java, this is the original one and it only runs on computers. All other devices run Minecraft Bedrock edition which is written in C++.

[xraymind]

SGI wanted to make high end graphic workstations. Their engineers wanted to make consumer graphic chip. So the engineers founded Nvidia and ArtX, which was bought by ATI and then AMD. SGI could have owned the graphic chip business.

[rhyami]

This is a well done video. :-) I would add a Atari, Mozilla, Correll, and Commodore to this list. When Commodore released the Amiga computer in the 80s, it could do things that customers didn't get from windows until the late 90s. Commodore lost its way, even when the Commodore 64 was so incredibly popular with families. It was a shame to see.


From the early 80s until the mid 90s, were perfect was present in most offices and schools. When windows 95 came out, the once unbeatable word perfect began to fade away. I never knew why, and I sure would like to.

[yvesgysel]

You forgot Kodak. They had an excellent R&D department. Some of the best engineers. They invented the "Digital Camera" already in the early 70ies. However, management did not like it at all cause their cash cow was selling filmrols and developing photographs. Kodak is gone now. A real giant in the past. I am still not over it. 😢

[sloo]

Thing was, Xerox could have been bigger than IBM, Apple and Microsoft if they knew about what they had with the Mouse and the GUI and had the inkling of what Steve and the guys were doing. I know Kodak is not an IT giant but other than that, also a big fall from grace.

[Papasot]

I just realised you look exactly like my 5th grade science teacher 😂

[ThrowBackZone]

I used to love Java in college. It's crazy how they didn't capitalize on it more.

[ZelX-]

Silo is a scam. It literally does nothing you can't do for free.

[Bryghtpath]

Xerox wasn’t just about copiers—they were pioneers of the personal computer and even Ethernet! It’s amazing to think that the tech giants we rely on today were built on Xerox’s innovations.