There have been a lot of boneheaded business decisions over the years, but the folks over at MSN seem to think they’ve distilled it down to an elite 8 of nearsighted, addle-brained, wrong-minded missteps. See if you agree.

Herewith, the list according to MSN:

1. Former $35 billion search engine company Excite, who spent billions acquiring every site under the sun, opting not to purchase then-upstart Google for $1 million in 1999.

2. Ross Perot not being able to come to a deal to buy Microsoft in 1979. Perot says the asking price was between $40-$60 million while Bill Gates says it was between $6-$15 million.

3. Decca records rejecting the Beatles after an audition in 1962.

4. Apple founder Steve Jobs being ousted by John Sculley, the CEO he hired, in 1985.

5. AOL and Time Warner’s merger at the peak of the first dotcom bubble in 2000.

6. Building the tallest building in the world in Dubai as the city-state sank into billions of dollars worth of debt amid a collapsing real estate market.

7. ABC passing up on a chance to air The Cosby Show, which would become one of the biggest and most era-defining TV hits of the 1980s.

8. Edwin Drake’s failure to patent his groundbreaking (literally and figuratively) method for drilling oil.

I was going to make this a poll, but I have a hunch that there are plenty of bad biz moves that people think are more deserving of a spot on this list…

The 8 Dumbest Business Decisions [MSN]

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