Everyone makes mistakes, but certain companies have done some pretty stupid illogical or just downright dangerous things to maximize their profits.

Sometimes companies fail by letting innovation pass them by, while others are active participants in their humiliating collapse.

Let's explore the most embarrassingly stupid corporate decisions that bankrupted companies.

Have you ever heard of something so contradictory as a deadly safety device?

Japanese automotive parts company Takata Corporation produced airbags that were far from safe

between the late 1990s and 2018.

Reports from governments and companies like Honda indicated that 18 people died and 180 people sustained injuries thanks to these dangerous airbags.

What made Takata's airbags so deadly was the ammonium nitrate propellant inside them.

This substance was used in the controlled explosion that caused airbags to deploy

instead of the standard propellant sodium azide. When ammonium nitrate is exposed to moisture or

temperature swings for a prolonged period of time, it becomes highly unstable. In 1999, Takata switched to

using this cheaper, highly volatile compound just to save costs.

Over the years, numerous airbags deployed with excessive force sending metal shrapnel flying

through the car, killing drivers rather than saving them. Even worse, it turned out that the company

knew about these deadly airbags as early as 2009,

and submitted fake test data and reports to consumers to cover up the dangers of their airbags.

After the scandal was discovered, the company hemorrhaged money until it declared bankruptcy in 2017,

and millions of cars were recalled in the largest auto product recall in U.S.

history. Worryingly, some of these potentially deadly cars are still out on the road today.

To check if your airbag is safe, head over to the New York Times where they have a handy list of affected vehicles.

Now, most people assume that Blockbuster met its demise thanks to the rise of online streaming services.

While that's not far from the truth, the full story is far more awkward and embarrassing.

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