10 CEOs Who HATED Their Own Product

10 Times CEOs Hated Their Own Product

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re discussing our picks for the times CEOs, VPs, and other execs bashed their own company’s products.

Stephen Elop & Nokia

In the early days of cell phones, Nokia was a major competitor. But over time, it began to lose its dominance. After several years of slumping sales, the company brought in new CEO Stephen Elop in 2010. He was not shy about making his mark. Just a few months after taking the job, he issued a now-infamous memo blasting the company, comparing it to an oil rig on fire in the ocean. Elop slammed Nokia for failing to innovate and losing market share to the iPhone, Android, and cheap Chinese models. He criticized its operating system for being slow and difficult to work with, and he accused leadership of lacking accountability and not collaborating with each other. Unsurprisingly, he was not a popular CEO.

John McAfee & McAfee Antivirus Software

You might not know that the creator of everyone’s least favorite pre-installed software had a wild life. He was a presidential candidate, a murder suspect, and an enthusiastic user of illicit substances. McAfee created the first commercial antivirus software in 1987, and remained in charge of McAfee Associates until 1994, when he sold his stake. He later criticized the software, complaining about how useless it had become and calling it bloatware. In 2013, McAfee released an outrageous satire video featuring himself in a silk dressing gown, lighting a cigarette with a hundred-dollar bill. Surrounded by women and guns, he claims that he still receives tons of complaints about McAfee Antivirus from people demanding to know how to uninstall it. The video was quintessentially John McAfee.

Akio Toyoda & Toyota's Boring Cars

As a former racecar driver, it makes sense that Akio Toyoda likes exciting cars that are fun to drive. But that’s not exactly what his family’s company, Toyota Motors, is known for. Toyotas have a reputation for being practical, reliable cars for middle class families. Subsidiary Lexus is basically a higher-end version of the same thing. So in 2017, when Akio Toyoda told investors he was tired of hearing people say the company’s cars were boring, people took note. The CEO agreed that they were boring, and he vowed in that moment that the cars would never be described that way again.

John Sylvan & Keurig Coffee Pods

He didn’t just criticize his own product. The founder of Keurig once said he sometimes wishes he’d never invented the K-Cup. John Sylvan originally intended the single-serving coffee pod to be used by office workers as an alternative to going to Starbucks or Dunkin every day. He never expected them to become so popular in people’s homes – or for billions of them to be stuffing landfills. The environmental issue really weighed on his mind, and Sylvan said he didn’t buy K-Cups himself. Keurig claims that its pods are now recyclable, but you still have to take them apart, and lots of recycling programs don’t accept them. Sylvan, unfortunately, is on point in his criticism.

Colonel Sanders & KFC

After Harlan Sanders sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken corporation in 1964, he stayed on as a brand ambassador, appearing in commercials and traveling all over North America to promote it. But since he no longer owned the company, he no longer controlled the recipes, and the new guys in charge started changing things to make the food simpler and cheaper to produce. Colonel Sanders did not like this, especially the changes to the gravy. He called it “sludge” that tasted like “wallpaper paste.” Things got so bad that Sanders sued the new owners for using his image to promote food he didn’t approve of. They settled for $1 million. Meanwhile, a franchisee tried to sue Sanders for libel, but he was unsuccessful.

Sean Parker & Facebook

He was the social media giant’s first president, and now he’s one of its major critics. But unlike John Sylvan and his K-Cups, Parker admits he knew exactly what he was doing when he and other creators designed it to be addictive and ultra-popular. Yet in 2017, Parker acknowledged that he hadn’t predicted the consequences of Facebook and other social media platforms amassing billions of users. He worried that it was affecting productivity, having negative impacts on kids, and who knows what else. It’s no secret that lots of tech billionaires limit their kids’ screen time. Maybe we should take a cue from them.

Howard Moskowitz & Dr Pepper

Do you ever wonder how processed food companies make their products so darn delicious and addictive? It turns out they hire experts who make that their only job. They experiment with levels of sugar, salt, and flavor to find the combo that consumers love the most and keep coming back for. Experimental psychologist Howard Moskowitz is one of them. Dr Pepper hired him in 2004 to help them compete against Coke and Pepsi, and he came up with Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper. But Moskowitz himself hates it. While having lunch with writer Michael Moss, Moskowitz said he doesn’t drink soda at all and described Dr Pepper as “terrible,” “overwhelming,” and “just awful.” That kind of makes his accomplishments with the product even more impressive.

Steve Jobs and Apple’s Extended Keyboard

Jobs was famous for hating buttons. Some even joked it was the reason he wore turtlenecks instead of dress shirts. When he introduced the iPhone, its most distinguishing feature was its lack of a physical keyboard. So it’s unsurprising that Jobs hated Apple’s famous Extended Keyboard. Many Mac loyalists love this keyboard. Although it’s been discontinued since 1994, some people still seek them out to use with their modern Macs. But it has a lot of buttons, which made it enemy number one to Jobs. Once, while speaking to some students, he complained, “This keyboard represents everything about Apple that I hate.” He then pried the function keys off the keyboard one by one. That was a man dedicated to getting rid of buttons.

Gerald Ratner’s Family Jewelry Business

This CEO has become an infamous example of how not to talk about your company’s products. After Ratner inherited his family’s jewelry chain, he massively expanded the business by offering super-low prices. It was extremely successful, but he managed to throw it all away after one terrible speech in 1991. While addressing a British entrepreneurs’ group, he joked that some of the company’s products were “total crap” and extremely cheaply made. The audience laughed, but when customers read his remarks in newspapers, the effect was devastating. The company lost half a billion pounds in value almost overnight. Ratner hired a chairman to do damage control, who later fired Ratner. The company changed its name from Ratner Group to Signet Group and has since recovered.

Martin Bally & Campbell Soup

Gerald Ratner was joking when he called his company’s products crap, but Martin Bally most certainly wasn’t. The former Campbell Soup vice president was caught on a secret recording trashing the ingredients, calling the products unhealthy, and saying they’re made for poor people. He also threw in some racist remarks for good measure. The audio was captured by a former Campbell’s employee who was fired after reporting the incident to his manager and has since filed a lawsuit against the company. Campbell’s later confirmed that the recording was legitimate and fired Bally. It hasn’t suffered the same backlash that Ratner Group did, but Bally will probably have a hard time finding another job anytime soon.

Which of these execs do you think were right, and which ones were being too harsh? Let us know in the comments below.