In 2007, BlackBerry commanded 50% of the US smartphone market.
When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, Blackberry’s CEO simply said, “It’s ok…we’ll be fine.”
Today, Apple is worth over $3 trillion. BlackBerry? They stopped making phones altogether.
The culprit wasn’t stupidity. BlackBerry’s executives were brilliant.
The real villain was Fear:
- Fear of changing what made them successful
- Fear of alienating their core customers
- Fear of cannibalizing their own products
In the latest episode of “A Case Study in Corporate Fear,” I analyze how BlackBerry’s fears ultimately ended up destroying the smartphone pioneer faster than they could text “WTF.”
You can listen on the FEAR website or Apple and Spotify
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A big thank you to Wondercraft Studios and my team of researchers and fact-checkers at FEAR Incorporated.