Business 2.0 Magazine '101 Dumbest Moments in Business' of 2003 Includes GM and Chrysler
SAN FRANCISCO--Jan. 28, 2004--| Fourth Annual Collection of Business Buffoonery Features First Tie for Grand Prize: Former NYSE CEO Dick Grasso and Former Strong Financial Chairman Dick Strong |
The latest issue of Business 2.0 (www.business2.com), on newsstands Feb. 2, features the magazine's fourth annual list of the "101 Dumbest Moments in Business," highlighting the most comical corporate blunders and biggest business mistakes of 2003.
This edition includes the first-ever tie for the top spot--a tale of "Two Greedy Richards," as the magazine puts it--between the firestorm surrounding New York Stock Exchange CEO Dick Grasso's exorbitant salary and pension and Strong Financial founder and chairman Dick Strong's unethical "market-timing" trades to line his own pockets. Both executives subsequently resigned.
The Business 2.0 list also reveals some lesser-known but just as appalling lapses in corporate judgment. Making the list are technology firms, media organizations, airlines, retail businesses, automobile manufacturers, e-businesses, fast-food chains, and many others.
The following are the top 10 "dumbest moments" of 2003 according to this year's "101 Dumbest Moments in Business":
1. The New York Stock Exchange board decides to pay CEO Dick Grasso his $139.5 million pension up front. When public outrage ensues, Grasso agrees not to take another $48 million he has coming to him and then promptly resigns, claiming he was fired--which entitles him to another $58 million.
1. (TIE) Investigations into the mutual-fund industry reveal that Dick Strong, the founder and chairman of Strong Financial, made $600,000 through market-timing trades contrary to his own company's rules. He is immediately forced to resign.
3. Urban Outfitters sells a Monopoly knockoff called Ghettopoly, in which the classic game pieces such as the top hat, shoe, and car are replaced with machine guns, marijuana leaves, and rocks of crack cocaine. In reaction to protests, the retailer discontinues the game.
4. A Dairy Queen franchisee is successfully sued by a female customer after an employee allegedly slides into her booth, pulls down her sweater, bites her on the breast, and declares, "I am like Dracula."
5. The CEO of Clear Channel Radio tries to "backpedal" after disc jockeys at three of the company's radio stations urge listeners to violently attack bicyclists.
6. Nielsen/NetRatings issues a report mistakenly describing an online game site called Blunt Truth as "an educational resource for marijuana."
7. Evite sends out apologies to its users for having cited Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, as a "reason to party."
8. General Motors is forced to come up with a new name for its Buick LaCrosse sedan in Canada when executives discover that crosse is a slang term for masturbation in Quebec.
9. Ikea pulls a new children's bunk bed called Gutvik from its catalogs in Germany after customers point out that the word sounds like a German phrase meaning "good f**k."
10. Chrysler announces its sponsorship of the Lingerie Bowl, a pay-per-view televised football game to be played by scantily clad female models during halftime of the Super Bowl. After coming under fire for the event's sexist nature, the company first reportedly pressures the event's producers to change the uniforms to sports bras and volleyball shorts, and then drops its sponsorship altogether.
"The seemingly endless supply of corporate goofs and business errors never ceases to amaze our editors and readers. This year was no exception," said Josh Quittner, editor of Business 2.0. "The '101 Dumbest Moments in Business' also provides a worthwhile opportunity for our readers to learn from the corporate blunders of the past year."
The January/February 2004 issue of Business 2.0 will be on newsstands on Feb. 2, 2004. Executive editor Adam Horowitz is available for commentary upon request.
The release of the "101 Dumbest Moments in Business" magazine feature coincides with the publication of a new book, The Dumbest Moments in Business History, written by Horowitz and the editors of Business 2.0 and published by Portfolio, an imprint of the Penguin Group (www.penguingroup.com).
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