101 Dumbest Moments in Business; Business 2.0 Annual Roll Call Includes Companies Such as Google, Wal-Mart and JPMorgan Chase

Business Wire, Jan 26, 2006

NEW YORK -- Business 2.0's February issue features an annual roll call of the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business. This year's list even includes some brilliant companies: Google is on the list twice!

Grand Prize Winner, Dumbest Moment of 2005-- "Bubble Trouble": AvalonBay Communities is converting a boarded-up Massachusetts mental institution Danvers State Hospital into a 497-unit complex of high-end apartments and condos. That sound you hear? The loud hissing from the wildly inflated housing bubble, which tops the list with priceless moments of real estate insanity.

No. 2 "Investment bank error in your favor; collect an additional $1.43 billion." The judge in billionaire Ronald Perelman's lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, exasperated by the latter's delays in handing over documents, instructs jurors to assume that the firm committed fraud. The jury awards Perelman $1.45 billion; he had reportedly offered to settle for $20 million.

No. 18 "Don't be stupid." A new Google employee posted a statement on his blog in which he says he spent his first day in an HR presentation about "nothing in particular." In a subsequent post, he reveals that the company expects unprecedented revenues and profit growth in 2005, projections that Google has yet to share with Wall Street.

No. 29--Winner Dumbest Moment, Public Relations--"Men on the other hand, have a charming self-destructive quality." Speaking at an ad industry event, WPP Group's Neil French says there aren't more female creative directors "because they're crap" and they eventually "wimp out" and "go off and suckle something." Two weeks later WPP accepts French's resignation.

No. 34--Winner Dumbest Moment, Advertising--Fighting a proposal that would limit superstores in Flagstaff Ariz., Wal-Mart signs off on an ad that asks, "Should we let government tell us what we can read? Of course not...So why should we allow local government to limit where we shop?" The ad is illustrated with a vintage photo of Nazi supporters throwing books into a bonfire. Wal-Mart later apologizes, saying it had not appreciated the photo's "historical context."

No. 64--"Told you we shouldn't have rented that list from the department of Homeland Security." Blaming a mailing-list vendor for providing bad information, JPMorgan Chase apologizes for sending a form letter about its credit card services to an Arab American man in CA addressed to "Palestinian Bomber."

No. 101--"Little big man." As the result of a typo in a spreadsheet, Electronic Arts issues an update to Madden NFL 06 that reduces 6'3", 305-pound NY Jets lineman Michael King to a height of 7 inches. The next day, EA fixes the bug--to a chorus of complaints from customers who enjoyed watching the shin-high blocker get steamrollered by full-size players such as seven-time All-Pro linebacker Derrick Brooks of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The full list is available now at www.business2.com. Deputy editor Adam Horowitz and co-writer Owen Thomas are available for interviews.