These Are History's Most Expensive Mistakes

Is Fukushima one that comes close to chernobyl?

Ronald "Lepidus" Wayne

You forgot to mention fixing Hubble mistake that ended up costing over 1 billion

We have the USA in recent months also.

Seattle light rail did the same track size mistake too. They were not even embarrassed by it.

Gain of function research is probably the most expensive mistake ever made.

21:14 Gulf of America.

If Blockbuster had bought Netflix, Netflix would not be the company it is today.

So as an englishman I look at the sncf 'error' the cost of $110000000 and compare it to Hs2 and think - you guys have no idea how bad we are!!!

But wait a second... I despise SNCF as much as any French citizen caught in their strikes, late or cancelled (usually at vacation), but.... just buying the new trains cost 15b. The cost to fix was 110m. Then the trains worked. This is a rounding error basically (but yes it looks stupid 😊)

Waiting for the AI bubble to pop.....

The Mars probe loss is extra faceplam, coz NASA has always worked in metric, right from the beginning, as do all scientists, since its far more accurate (and simpler) than imperial. Also, why the rest of the world outside the US use metric. NASA only ever recalculated into imperial for public release to the US population. Hence why NASA always has any data both internally and to subcontrators in metric. That was not new back in the 90s, that had been known for decades. It was Lockheed Martin, who thought, they knew better than the eggheads at NASA. Ofc NASA didnt check, coz they gave Lockheed Martin the specifications in metric, as always, nobody at NASA used imperial and never had. That 1 is entirely on Lockheed Martin, they knew better, or should have, not their first time working with NASA.

I’m not inclined to consider Chernobyl the worst disaster in history. Or even the worst man-made disaster in history. In terms of sheer body count, there are innumerable other artificial and natural disasters that far exceed Chernobyl.
Chernobyl has the rather dubious owner of being the worst NUCLEAR disaster. Its effects will be felt for generations to come.

0:34 is very important to understand how dilution works.. dude would've probably been very rich but not getting anywhere near the tres commas without some other investments along the way

I remember being really pissed off at the Chernobyl-disaster as a kid (I was 6). Here, in Finland, I had to stay indoors for TWO WEEKS! That's an eternity in little kid time. I couldn't see anything wrong outside, but my parents told me it's invisible, like light when it passes air. Even though they had taught me all sorts of amazing things, this was just sus, but since my friends at kindergarten had the same issue and we couldn't go out there either... Took a few years before I figured out it was probably a good move.

In other words upper management and accounting causes all but 1 of these?

The exclusion zone is currently at 2600 km^2 (corresponding to a roughly 29 km radius circle), it's not a 2600 km radius.

Good Vide Thanks

39:40- And then russia bombed it....... So no , it won't be lasting that long.......

33:38 Given this is a video about, inter alia, maths errors, it's hilarious: "45% of the company was divided up between Jobs and Wozniak and Wayne got the other 10%". So that leaves 45%, doesn't it? Which tells you what actually happened. Perhaps Simon went slightly off-script for a moment, there.

A large softdrinks producer from Belgium introduced a new model glass bottle,just to find out the average bottle opener could not open that bottle😅

I'm surprised you didn't mention the drone strike on that new Chernobyl dome

On Chernobyl, that figure doesn't take in to account the wider costs, like the fallout rain that fell on the Lake District, Scotland and Wales rendering the sheep and their products unsafe, the cost of the Mark and Release system and compensation and of course the cost of government administration of it until 2012 is not insignificant. And that's just one effect in one country

Simon stop lying we know you're not English we know the YouTube algorithm created you as an overseer of the writers in the basement / mouthpiece to crank out YouTube videos

Adding my 2 cents worth. 1. IBM's attempt to extort the personal computer world. The original personal 8088- based computer by IBM ca?1982 was so successful it took 80% of the PC market. It had open architecture (engineering decision) which enabled other companies to make plug in boards for the IBM based machine. The financial geniuses at IBM decided to end this and make some money on top. So they developed the the IBM PC-2 with a new "microchannel" plug in board standard. They assumed the IBM dominance would continue. The microchannel standard was closed and parties wanting to build plug in boards had to be licensed, pay unit royalties AND pay additional royalties for the boards they had sold for the earlier open standard. Other personal computer manufacturers would also have to license the microchannel standard if they were to stay in the business. IBM thought they owned the market. But all the other manufacturers got together and developed a different standard. It was based on the original open standard with contacts placed between those of the original pattern. It thus offered the same potential function of the new IBM microchannel standard while remaining compatible with the earlier standard. This new design was left open source. Anyone could use it. The result was that the public stayed with the open design. It was cheaper and more convenient than the new IBM pattern and no problems with royalties. The IBM standard bombed. No one followed it and In a matter years IBM was out of the personal computer market. 80% to zero in 6 years.
2. In 1938 the US Navy designed the Iowa class battleships. The designers intended to use the 16 x 50 gun barrels left over from the Lexington battlecriuses cancelled by treaty. These were the biggest 16 inch guns ever. They took a 700 lb propellant charge. The people responsible for building the Iowas specified the same turrets/barbettes used in the previous built South Dakota class. The SD turrets were too small for the Lexington gun barrels by a mere 2 inches or so per barrel but it could not be fixed. The navy had to rush build smaller 16 x 50 barrels. These took 660 lb propellant charges. This was a failure to communicate situation.
3. A company in the USA called Ampex developed Video record and replay technology on magnetic tape. The patent was sold in a bankruptcy sale for $90,000 to Sony which went on to make billions selling and licensing the technology in VCRs.

3:06 same company supplied trains to Sydney NSW, Australia and had the exact same issue with outer area stations.

Faster, Better, Cheaper = Faster, Worse, Dead Astronauts.

Thank you for saying Gulf of Mexico.

Nobody - NOBODY - in science uses Imaginary / Imperial units, exactly because all scientists understand the risks at hand. The fact that Lockheed did, is a major f***up on their end. As long as everything stays indoors, it doesn't matter which unit system you settle on, but the second it's an (inter)national collaboration, you have to switch to metric. After all, 95% of the planet uses metric. Only 5% doesn't.

So much for all those compartmentalizations.

Correction. Those are all incredible blunders.

Yay, Gulf of MEXICO 🫡
I guess the "Big beautiful Bill" also qualifies as an expensive mistake.

Geezus, that is an incredible blunder.

Next time, if you do another episode of the same subject, is Flying Tiger Air Freight company "not" buying UPS when they had the chance.

40:00 Major update on the Chernobyl disaster, Russia drone striked the newly built container punching a hole through the entire shield and destroying the main disassembly crane for the old reactor. The damage and delay this has caused is catastrophic and the potential for further ecological damage has been greatly increased; it’s nothing short of another war crime committed by Putin’s regime in Ukraine.

The failure of the West to make any attempt to keep Covid out of the West in Jan-Mar 2020 followed when the disease was well establish by costly but ineffective lockdowns the relatively local issues raised by Chernobyl look insignificant.

It is just incredible how cheaply the French fixed their platform issue. UK spent over a billion on some of the individual Elizabeth line stations and this line also has an issue with some stations being at different heights so step free access cannot be provided at all. The tunnels are also too small for the rails to be just raised.

2008 prime moorage collapse of all US major banks,due to lack of oversight.
The Bank bailout cost 444 Billion US dollars ,more than every mistake on your list combined.

Not sure the Apple founder one counts as a mistake, he says he has no regrets, used sound judgement and avoided a job he'd hate.

HS2

“Hidden design flaws” otherwise known as communism

Norway is really good at making expensive mistakes, if you want to take a look... Check out the Norwegian parliament building underground parking garage... Or how about that guy who crashed a $400m navy frigate into a giant tanker ship?

California High Speed Rail System, 15 billion spent and so far, 119 miles installed. I don't think the trains have started running yet.