[bmelton]

Uber may indeed have poor management, but I believe you paint with far too broad a brush in this scenario.

MOST companies fail. 75% of venture backed companies fail quickly. Only about 50% of all businesses are capable of lasting 5 years, and only about 35% are able to last 10 years.

We have all seen companies that were offering products you wanted, but that closed for one reason or another, and it is not in every case that you can attribute it to bad management.

[Arizhel]

Companies can fold while offering products that are in-demand. The problem is that you have to have enough demand, and sell at a price that allows you to be profitable at that demand level. So it's quite possible for a company to have a product that's in-demand, such as glittery pink mechanical computer keyboards (there's got to be a few people out there who want them after all), but not be able to sell them at a price high enough to keep the company afloat. So glittery pink mechanical keyboards surely have some demand, but it's not going to be high, and the manufacturing cost of such things is going to be high, so between the low volume and high cost, that means you need to charge boutique prices. If you can't get enough people to buy them, then the company goes under.

But this is still attributable to "bad management". Good management would not even try to sell a low-volume product where they cannot price it high enough to make up for the limited demand and volume, and would instead come up with a better business plan in the first place.

[iamatworknow]

You don't even need to make up your keyboard example -- just look at Pebble.

[Arizhel]

Very good point. By most accounts a great product, but not great enough to get either enough volume, or fetch a high enough price.

[JustSomeNobody]

What were those reasons?