Al Lewis
AUTHOR OF BUSINESS BLUNDERS
A long-time financial journalist who has seen enough.
Business Blunders
A Newsletter about the Biggest Missteps in Business
“It’s good to learn from your mistakes. It’s better to learn from other people’s mistakes.” – Warren Buffett
Business is great, until somebody blows it.
Subscribe free or paid to a newsletter that tracks the ethical lapses, frauds and critical errors in judgment that continue to plague the financial world.
Business Blunders, as you will read, are both tragic and comic, and never seem to stop repeating themselves.
Here's what you'll find at businessblunders.com
Stop And Steal A Brinks truck spilled $300,000. For dozens of bystanders it was 'finders keepers.' Take this poll. What would you do?
FEMA Fatale This Week In Blunders – April 20-26
JPMorgan Chase On A Chase This Week In Blunders – April 13-19
Ethereum Delirium Two brothers allegedly stole $25 million worth of crypto. Now they claim they should be allowed to keep it
Mars Bars M&Ms maker allegedly gets Twixt out of millions
Losing $8 Billion In A Dollar Store Money doesn't grow on Dollar Tree
The Idiot Economy Wall Street luminaries finally realize that they put buffoons in charge of the global economy
Peter Principal This Week In Blunders – March 30-April 6
Big Law Squeals Like A Pig Allegedly high-powered law firms prove they can't even defend themselves
JPMorgan Chumps A young fraudster duped the nation's largest bank out of $175 million. Now she doesn't want to wear her ankle bracelet
Loan Sharks, How Cliché This Week In Blunders – March 23-29
Bankrupt Barbie 23andMe's CEO Anne Wojcicki resigns as DNA testing company files Chapter 11
Send Musk To Mars This Week In Blunders – March 16-22
Netflop Somehow the streaming-video giant blew $55 million on a whack-job director
Slumlord Award This Week In Blunders – March 9-15
Getting The Lead Out Magellan executives lied about their blood-testing devices, putting thousands of lead-poisoning victims at risk
Suck-Up Sam This Week In Blunders - March 2-8
Aloha Suckers Another bankster holiday is in the making because Americans never learn
Croaking At Kroger Whatever this grocery giant's CEO did, it's costing him millions
A Bloody Mess This Week In Blunders - Feb. 23-March 1
All Fyred Up Again Billy McFarland is selling $25,000 tickets for Fyre 2. Who's in?
Natural Born Killers This Week In Blunders – Feb. 16-22
The Fugitive After three years on the run, a CNBC financial analyst pleads guilty to fraud
Property Sex A Justice Department crackdown on landlords who sexually harass tenants hasn't ended the nightmare
Battle Of The Oligarchs This Week In Blunders – Feb. 9-15
Freeing The Wolves The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is on pause. Jordan Belfort fans never had it so good.
Money Mule This Week In Blunders - Feb. 1- Feb 8
China’s Jolly Rogers Anyone who knows what the Federal Reserve will do next can make billions. A senior Fed advisor allegedly sold China an insider track.
The Forgotten Ponzi This Week In Blunders – Jan. 26-31
Trumpflation Does anyone really think our new president can end inflation?
Drunks Wanted This Week in Blunders – Jan. 19-25
Blowing A Fartcoin Are meme coins heralding the next market crash?
Billionaires Are Destroying Everything, And They Know It The World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Risks Report is a roadmap for the devastation to come
Chicken Soup For The Soulless This Week In Blunders – Jan. 12-18
Can Musk Single-Handedly Capture A Regulator? A relatively petty case against the multibillionaire may signal who is really running the country
You Can Plunder, Too Private Equity firms want average Americans to join in the looting
Florida Man Goes To The Movies This Week In Blunders – Jan. 5-11
Bigots Fly Free United Airlines may be under fire for its diversity efforts, but it just settled a nasty racial discrimination case
Lock ‘Em Up Welcome to the Business Blunders Hall of Shame commemorating top business leaders convicted of felonies
Tip Your Banker? This Week in Blunders – Dec. 29 - Jan. 4
Business Blunders Hall Of Shame From magnate to inmate: These are the nation's most notable white-collar convicts
Unshackling Ponzi Perps It’s a bad idea to let convicted swindlers go free. Biden just gave clemency to a slew of them
Married To Madoff Victims of a fraud that regulators missed decades ago are finally getting most of their money back
MAGA Mad About Musk This Week in Blunders – Dec. 22-28
Biggest Business Blunders of 2024 It was an ignominious year for economic forecasters, CrowdStrike, Boeing, FTX, Mattel, Truth Social, Red Lobster, Fisker, Spirit Airlines, TicketMaster and the dumbest bank embezzler in history
Go To Zelle This Week in Blunders – Dec. 15-21
Basketball Jones Former Harlem Globetrotter and NC State point guard gets seven years for a Covid-19 loan scam
A CEO’s Road To Hell It began with forbidden love and ended in felony charges for Comtech’s Ken Peterman
Sorry About That Opiod Thing This Week In Blunders – Dec. 8-14
Spoiled, Rotten Day Trader Ian G. Bell touted a wealthy background to allegedly dupe investors in his money-losing investment scheme
Shot In The Back Did maddening back pain drive Luigi Mangione to murder UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson?
The Killionaire Here's why the man who gunned down UnitedHealthcare's CEO became an instant folk hero
Enron Was A Parody Of Itself Here's where CEO Ken Lay ate before he died
Big Blunders Come In Small Packages Macys blames an employee for hiding 'small package delivery' expenses. Anyone remember the boxes at Miniscribe?
Billion-Dollar Reprobate Bill Hwang lost billions investing 'according to the Will of God.' Now he's going to prison for cheating Wall Street banks
Hitting The 'Undo' Button At FTX Gary Wang wrote the code that enabled an $8 billion fraud. Prosecutors and a federal judge sang his praises
Ponzi Once, Ponzi Twice A New Jersey man got probation for running a $300 million scam. Then he launched a $658 million fraud with ads on Fox News
Hello? What About The $36 Trillion Tab? America's balance sheet is about to get worse and Republicans don't care
A Mouse That Roared A small-time CEO launched a proxy war with $17.32 in his company's brokerage account. Now he's going to prison.
Bozo Bezos The Washington Post's billionaire owner makes a clownish excuse for killing a presidential endorsement
CEOs Gone Wild Abercrombie & Fitch had to know its CEO was a freak
X Marks the Spot An Alabama man hacks the Securities and Exchange Commission with an iPhone, then returns it for a refund
Danger, Will Robinson Destiny Robotics promised AI-powered humanoids that could form meaningful relationships, but it delivered a wig stand
All the Kosher Meals You Can Eat Lufthansa gets sacked with a record fine for banning Jews from a flight
Magic Mushroom ‘Pump and Dump’ Here's what can happen when 'shroom heads take control of a penny stock
InHumana Bad reviews matter, and this health care insurer is paying a hefty price for ignoring them
And the Winner is … Walmart The nation's largest grocer must be loving government efforts to break up the $25 billion Kroger-Albertsons deal
The Incredible Shrinking Billionaire The chips are down for EchoStar's poker-playing Charlie Ergen
Plastic Balls ExxonMobil put polymers in our testicles
Bankster Bonus A top Old National Bank executive bags $2.6 Million after his arrest for allegedly molesting a child
Watery Grave CEOs usually don't implode as literally as OceanGate's Stockton Rush
Drivin’ that Train It's the end of the line for the embattled Norfolk Southern CEO
Stinky Stonk Anatomy of a nightmare investment that's poised to get worse
The Music Man Michael Smith allegedly played his AI-generated music billions of times to bots, ripping off streaming services and artists
One Sorry Ferrari Online gaming CEO hustles car broker and scams investors with an IPO that never happened
Adam Family Brothers allegedly raised $60 million with a phony crypto bot and spent investors' money on new homes and luxury goodsPiggy Banker A Bank CEO robs his own bank while crypto scammers rob him
Clowns In Court An FTX felon wants to take back his guilty plea after prosecutors charged his girlfriend with campaign finance violations
Piggy Banker A Bank CEO robs his own bank while crypto scammers rob him
The Wonders of Blunders Why I follow business failures, and why you should, too.
Holy Payday Batman A CEO bags $250 million driving his hospital chain into bankruptcy
Design Your Life An alleged Ponzi schemer bagged $1 million a day with happy talk
Nike Air Athletic-apparel giant's top executives preach climate change as they rev up their corporate jets
If you can't woo 'em, sue 'em Elon Musk ran off advertisers; now he's suing them for leaving
Drunken Chicken Tyson Foods' suspended chief financial officer could make a comeback
In Real Life A "serial founder" finds a serial sucker in SoftBank
Smoke on the Water Luxury Miami condo association sues to evict chain-smoking fraudster
Beyond Stupid TV stock tips are for chumps
Canary in a CrowdStrike Cybersecurity giant's blunder is a warning for the whole world
Boeing’s Lost Spirit Outsourcing proves bad for business
Lizards of Ozy The chameleons at failed Ozy Media are turning orange
A Harvard Business Blunder Graduates duped in a ridiculous Ponzi scheme
Con Air Fly the felonious skies with Boeing
Smell the Glove Milwaukee Tool reeks of forced Chinese labor, lawsuit alleges
Fisker the Frisker An electric car entrepreneur offers a valuable business lesson: If at first you don't succeed, file, file again
Musk Mouth It takes a genius a long time to address an obvious blunder
Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word A simple apology proved difficult for crypto tycoon Do Kwon after the $45 billion collapse of his Terraform Labs
Epoch Crimes The finance chief of a far-right publication allegedly went far wrong
Ticketbastard Live Nation deserves every ounce of contempt it has provoked
How to Boil a Lobster Endless shrimp didn't drive this soggy seafood chain into bankruptcy
Take Out Your Trash The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. insures bank deposits, bullies, racists and sexual predators
Sam in the Slam FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried invests in beans and rice
Billionaire Prison Time Here's how a hedge fund honcho managed incarceration
‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Saves Crypto promoter charged with dodging $48 million in taxes
The Power of Red Failed Republic First Bancorp learns that 'fans' are fickle
Our Deadhead Fed Head Jerome Powell has flubbed inflation
Google This Billionaire A Silicon Valley legend makes his dumbest trade ever
Don’t Listen to Sam Boeing engineer warns of 'catastrophic accidents and passenger fatalities'
Calling Spirit Airlines on the Ouija Board Will customers miss this carrier if it dies?
Musk’s F-Ing Message The genius of our age is scaring Tesla's customers
A CEO Who Made His Bed Mattress Firm's latest buyer may be short on memory foam
They Bought Crypto From a Klepto FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's trail of tears spills into court
What’s in Your Wallet? Abusing company credit cards is a common employee grift
My Latest Blunder Lessons from an epic failure at The Messenger
Business Blunders
I have always been fascinated by the havoc blunders wreak on investors, lenders, associates, employees, customers and, ultimately, the people who make them. Subscribe to Business Blunders and learn from the biggest mistakes in business.