6 Companies That Accidentally Created Their Own Enemies

Teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Netflix made Blockbuster a proposal: Buy them for $50 million. This was a sum Blockbuster could scrounge up out of nothing but Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan late fees, and they'd give themselves a much-needed online presence on the cheap. Blockbuster rejected the idea. After all, why partner with a failing company like Netflix when they could partner with one that would surely be around for centuries to come? You know, like Enron or Circuit City?

Netflix would spend much of the early 2000s begging Blockbuster to reconsider their offer, but to no avail. With no one to buy them, Netflix continued to expand their DVD-by-mail business on their own, barely surviving a desperate and belated attempt by Blockbuster to enter the market. Then, in 2007, the internet was finally ready for a movie streaming service, and so was Netflix. Today Netflix is worth 3,000 times what Blockbuster could've bought them for in 2000. Meanwhile, the last Blockbuster in the world is dying a slow death in Oregon after losing all of its customers to streaming sites like Netflix. Like they've always said since time immemorial, never look a gift BoJack Horseman in the mouth.

Yes, Hulk Hogan's rise to SmackDown legend happened at the American Wrestling Association, the then-biggest wrestling promoter in America. But Hogan had a small problem with the AWA: Its owner, Verne Gagne, thought he was a terrible wrestler. Gagne was the kind of wrestling purist who hated Hogan's flashy demeanor and lack of wrestling background. At first he didn't even let Hogan be anything but a heel (villain), only switching him to a face (hero) because the fans wouldn't quit cheering for him.

But that was as far as Gagne was willing to budge. Audiences (and Hogan) wanted to see the mustachioed maniac win the AWA World Heavyweight Championship, but Gagne, who decided all the match outcomes, felt the title should be held by somebody who had a legitimate amateur wrestling background, like Gagne himself. Incidentally, Gagne won his own world championship ten times.

Via Wikimedia CommonsAnd really, who could possibly prefer boisterous, charismatic Hulk Hogan over somebody's uncle in a Speedo?

Luckily for Hogan, a young go-getter named Vince McMahon was trying to expand his small-time World Wrestling Federation from coast to coast (his very own McMahonifest Destiny). He heard that Hogan was frustrated with his position in the AWA and offered him a deal that included a run as WWF World Heavyweight Champion. With the Hulkster as the WWF's marquee attraction, McMahon's company started its rise, evolving into the top wrestling promotion in the world. Today, McMahon's renamed WWE is a multi-billion-dollar company, while the AWA floundered in the '80s and closed for good in 1990, definitively answering the question of what happens when you don't let Hulkamania run wild.

Hulk Hogan’s PastamaniaBut not too wild, because things tend to get stupid fast with that guy.

One worker, for instance, figured out that he had singlehandedly made Atari $20 million, and in exchange was only paid $20,000 a year and wasn't credited for any of his work. And when four programmers went to Atari CEO Ray Kassar to ask for better pay and to receive credit for the titles they produced. Kassar, famed for his tact and diplomacy, told the four, "You are no more important to Atari than the person on the assembly line who puts the cartridges in the box."

Atari probably felt they could get away with this because nobody designed games for the Atari 2600 console but Atari. So if you were tired of working for the company, it's not like you could take your very specific skill set to the competitors. Atari was literally the only game in town. But what the company didn't count on was gamers' extraordinary ability to carry a grudge.

The "Gang of Four" was so pissed at their boss that they did the one thing Atari never expected: They quit Atari, but still kept making Atari games. The quartet formed a little startup known as Activision, becoming the first ever third-party developers for the Atari 2600. And once Activision proved it could be done (Atari sued to stop them and lost), every company from 20th Century Fox to Quaker fucking Oats hastily jumped on the bandwagon to produce Atari cartridges.

Ralston PurinaTo varying degrees of success milk-curdling terribleness.

Atari quickly saw its market share plummet, and it was eventually sold off by parent company Warner Communications. Meanwhile, Activision has gone on to become a mega-publisher responsible for half of every gamer's Top Ten list. Sadly, there's no information on the cartridge packers' continued success in the industry.

Within a decade, Giant was making more Schwinn bicycles than Schwinn themselves. At one point, 80 percent of their manufacturing was being handled by Giant. You could almost say that Giant had gotten better at being Schwinn than Schwinn was. At least, that's what Giant thought. So in 1986, Giant began producing bikes under their own brand name, totally independent of -- and competing with -- their former partners.

Schwinn didn't stand a chance. Not only did they suddenly have a competitor who knew all of their trade secrets and produced similar-quality bikes for less money, but they also simultaneously lost their biggest distributor. The company couldn't stay competitive, and by 1992 had to declare bankruptcy to cover its $75 million debt. The moral of this story is apparently that you shouldn't ever teach anybody anything, because of course corporate fables have the worst morals.

Naturally, Boeing's Martin S, which looked like it was held together with nothing more than toothpicks and a belief in the Monroe Doctrine, was damaged in a crash. But when the millionaire inquired about ordering replacement parts, he was told it would be months before they arrived. Boeing's response to this news was to announce that he could probably build a better plane than Martin's in that time. And then he did, because being a millionaire tycoon means never having to say you were being sarcastic.

Boeing called his Navy engineer buddy George Conrad Westervelt (best '80s frat house villain name ever), and the two decided to go ahead start their own airplane company. Boeing and Westervelt built their first plane together in June 1916, and Boeing formed the Pacific Aero Products Company a month later. He would later rename it the Boeing Airplane Company, because by now you may have noticed that the man has a bit of an ego problem.

Conveniently, World War I broke out around this time, and through Westervelt, Boeing managed to snatch up a military contract. This put them in direct competition with the Glenn L. Martin Company, whose slow-ass customer service was the reason Boeing got into the business in the first place. Today, Lockheed Martin and Boeing are still the two biggest names and bitterest of rivals in the aerospace industry. All because Martin wouldn't overnight a new lantern crank (or whatever parts an airplane had back then).

Jeff Silvers is a freelance writer who has spent years watching Hulk Hogan matches and Netflix in preparation for this article. He has a website at jeffsilvers.com.

You just never want to be a Public Enemy.

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For more, check out 5 Big Companies Who Went Insane Trying To Get Ahead and 6 Companies That Rigged The Game (And Changed The World).

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