Can you think of any "Missed Opportunity" stories?

2 replies
Hello,

I'm working on a product - and I'm looking for stories where people missed opportunities. Big opportunities.

For example, Sean Connery missed out on $400 million by not taking the role of Gandolf in Lord of the Rings. (He was promised 15% of the Worldwide Box Office Receipts if he took the role - which would have earned him the biggest payday of any actor. But he turned it down, because he said he couldn't understand the script.)

Any stories of people leaving companies like Microsoft or Google before they got big?

Stories of people leaving bands at the wrong time - just before stardom?

Stories of people just taking the wrong actions at the wrong times - and missing out?

Thanks in advance for your help. It's truly appreciated.

Best,
Jeff
#missed opportunity #stories
  • Profile picture of the author sparrow
    Hey Jeff I got a couple of stories of missed opportunities since I worked in the high tech world all my life

    One in particular still haunts me of missing out

    I was working for a Hi-Tech medical company at the time when one of my co-workers got friendly with the owners of a new company that moved next door to where we worked.

    He got friendly with the new owners because he raced Porsches, after a short while he decided to go to work for them and we also had the invite to go along

    This was at the time when computers were new to the general public

    When we asked who they were and what was the name of the new company, he said this is the first time they got formally organized before they were working out of a garage

    He told us the companies name was "APPLE" then asked us do you think this company will ever do anything

    true story

    Ed



    Originally Posted by Jeff_Gardner View Post

    Hello,

    I'm working on a product - and I'm looking for stories where people missed opportunities. Big opportunities.

    For example, Sean Connery missed out on $400 million by not taking the role of Gandolf in Lord of the Rings. (He was promised 15% of the Worldwide Box Office Receipts if he took the role - which would have earned him the biggest payday of any actor. But he turned it down, because he said he couldn't understand the script.)

    Any stories of people leaving companies like Microsoft or Google before they got big?

    Stories of people leaving bands at the wrong time - just before stardom?

    Stories of people just taking the wrong actions at the wrong times - and missing out?

    Thanks in advance for your help. It's truly appreciated.

    Best,
    Jeff
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[310691].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author grumpyjacksa
    once read an ebook called "salesburger"....

    tells of a guy who borrowed a lot of money to go mine during the goldrush. went down, and sold the claim for a pittance - while left with mountains of debt to repay. the new owner got a "mining engineer", as they were called at the time, and it was found the last digging stopped three feet short of the gold rift.........
    Signature
    Ex-ghostwriter now writing exclusive PLR ebooks - Limited PLR Club
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[310734].message }}

Trending Topics