Historical record
He sold his 10% stake in Apple for $800
Ronald Wayne helped found Apple, then decided the personal risk was larger than the promise. Eleven days later, he was out.
Read the story
Everyone has one.
The internet’s archive of things we almost did.
Stories about the investments, houses, ideas, jobs, trips, companies and decisions that looked very different at the time.
The stack area of the Washington National Records Center. Photograph: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration · public domain · Wikimedia Commons
ESTIMATED
OPPORTUNITY COSTNot calculatedAny present-value figure depends on dilution, splits, dividends, taxes, and a counterfactual assumption that the stake was never sold.
OPPORTUNITY COSTNot calculatedAny present-value figure depends on dilution, splits, dividends, taxes, and a counterfactual assumption that the stake was never sold.
Pain level10/10
Estimated by our entirely unscientific editorial desk.
The hindsight game
Would you have seen it?
Only the facts available then. No peeking at what happened next.
Investing · Public marketsCase 001
Amazon, 2001
Late September 2001
The dot-com bubble has burst. Amazon is losing money, carrying substantial obligations, and trading near a quarterly low. You have only the company’s latest public filing and the market in front of you.
- The share price had fallen from a Q1 2000 high of $91.50 to a Q3 2001 low of $5.97.
- Q2 net sales were $668 million, 16% above the prior-year quarter.
- That same quarter produced a $168 million GAAP net loss, while long-term obligations were about $2.1 billion.
What happened next
The ugly chart was not the whole company.
Amazon survived, diversified far beyond books, and became one of the world’s largest companies. Getting there included years of volatility and more than one severe drawdown.
Documented. Calculated. Occasionally disputed.
Famous misses
2000 · Business
The $50 million Netflix conversation Blockbuster remembers differently
Netflix’s founders say they proposed a sale during a 2000 meeting. A former Blockbuster chief later said there were no serious acquisition talks, making the disagreement part of the record.
Accounts differ
2008 · Business
Yahoo said no to Microsoft’s $44.6 billion proposal
Microsoft offered $31 per share in 2008. Yahoo rejected the proposal, Microsoft raised its price, and the talks ended without a deal; later Yahoo transactions are not clean comparisons.
Documented primary record
1975 · Ideas & Inventions
Kodak built a digital camera in 1975—and faced a harder problem than the legend admits
Steven Sasson’s black-and-white prototype was real. So was Kodak’s later digital work; the honest story is a difficult business transition, not an invention simply hidden in a cupboard.
Documented, popular framing qualified
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1985 · Everyday Life
New Coke lasted 79 days before the original returned
Taste tests favored the reformulation, but they did not measure the attachment people felt to the original. Coca-Cola reversed course quickly and later treated the episode as a lesson in brand meaning.
Company archiveA permanent record
What are we missing right now?
Make a prediction. We’ll preserve the timestamp and let history do the judging.
Make your callRepair will become a status signal
As products get more sealed and disposable, visible repair skills may move from compromise to taste.
STILL WAITINGNight trains will become the trip, not just the transportation
The slow route may win where the airport experience keeps getting faster only on paper.
TOO EARLYSmall local sports will matter more in an algorithmic world
People may pay for the one event their whole town can discuss without a feed deciding first.
STILL WAITINGThe counterweight
Maybe it worked out
01
I didn’t get the agency job. So I built a tiny studio.
The rejection stung for a month. The first independent client stayed for eleven years.
02The house fell through. The move did not.
Losing one address made room for a city they had never seriously considered.
03I missed the flight and made the dinner.
A cancelled weekend became the evening where two old friends finally stopped rushing.