werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (07/21/85)
The tale is told of Lana Turner's grandfather , who owned a half share in a small firm which made a soft drink called Coca-cola. Despairing of a product burdened with so unappealing a name, he sold out. He had not, however, lost faith in the soft drinks business, so he invested the proceeds in a firm he deemed more likely to flourish -- the Raspberry Cola Company. A few years later, the Coca-cola company, which in the meantime, had done rather better than its one-time co-wowner had anticipated, was offered one of its twice-bankrupt competitors. Its then owner, Charles Guth of Loft, Inc., was willing to let his subsidiary go for a mere $1000. But with an overconfidence born of a virtual monopoly of the soft drink business, Coca- cola spurned the offer, thus missing the opportunity to strangle at birth the Pepsi-Cola Company, the business that would in due course become its arch rival. [From: David Frost's Book of the World's Worst Desisions] -- Craig Werner !philabs!aecom!werner "The world is just a straight man for you sometimes"