Top ten bad business decisions

10. Drake neglects to patent oil drill

In 1858 Seneca Oil Company sent Edwin Drake to Titusville, Pennsylvania, to investigate ways to extract oil from the ground. Oil bubbled up in the area, and sometimes it was collected from the surface, but the idea of drilling for it, in the same way that salt mines were drilled at the time, seemed far-fetched.

Drake met with one failed attempt after another, but finally figured out a way to get a cast-iron pipe deep into the earth’s surface, and in August 1859 he struck oil 69 feet down. Oil was officially in business.

But neither Drake nor Seneca had the business sense to patent the drill. Other entrepreneurs began using this method to extract oil in the surrounding areas, and an oil boom began.

The increased output led to lower prices, which put Drake out of business just four years after his invention launched the boom.

By 1870 he was sick and impoverished, but the people of Titusville convinced the Pennsylvania legislature to grant him a $1,500 stipend, which was paid annually until his death in 1880.