iPhone, Netflix To BYD: When Industry Giants Mocked Their Rivals Only To Be Dethroned

The technological advancement in the world since the advent of the internet age has flipped the tables over for many legacy giants in the face of upstart companies.

Initially mocked and sometimes derided by industry titans, these tech startups went on to dethrone legacy players and captured not just market share, but built new business models altogether.

The BYD-Tesla saga is the latest example of how innovation and risk appetite on one side and complacency rooted in dominance on the other can change fortunes for companies.

Among the most well-known episode is Elon Musk versus Chinese EV giant BYD. In 2011, Musk laughed at BYD during an interview when asked about the Shenzhen-based company, saying their cars were “not great” and dismissing them as a serious competitor. "Have you seen their car?" the billionaire sneered.

In 2025, BYD overtook Tesla as the world's biggest seller of electric vehicles, marking the first time it has outpaced its American rival in annual sales. Tesla car sales dropped by nearly 9% to 1.64 million vehicles sold worldwide, its second consecutive year of falling car deliveries.

Those figures placed Tesla behind BYD, whose sales of its battery-powered cars rose by almost 28% to more than 2.25 million. The year prior, BYD pulled ahead of Tesla in production volume, with 17,77,965 EVs produced in 2024 which was 4,500 more than Musk's company.

In 2007, then Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer mocked the iPhone, calling it “the most expensive phone in the world” and doubting its appeal to business users. "500 dollars? Fully subsidised? With a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine. We have our strategy. We are very happy with Windows Phone devices in the market today," he said.

The smartphone developed by Steve Jobs' Apple Inc. went on to revolutionise mobile computing and became one of the most successful consumer products ever, while Windows Phone was eventually shut down.

Asked by Bloomberg what he was thinking when he scoffed at the release of the iPhone, Ballmer explained that the device's high price drove his mocking laughter, and he didn't account for Apple's strategy of working with wireless carriers to subsidise the price of the phone in monthly bills. "We should have been in the hardware business sooner, in the smartphone case," he said.

Blockbuster Inc., a dominant American home video rental company, dismissed Netflix Inc.'s DVD-by-mail and streaming model, even rejecting an offer to buy Netflix for $50 million in 2000. CEO John Antioco deemed Netflix, which was at that time unprofitable, a niche business and said "the dot-com hysteria is completely overblown".

But then new technologies let Netflix shift to streaming video over the internet. The company became a global streaming giant, while Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Today, Netflix is not just a streaming platform but one of the largest movie and television content production company in the world.

Nokia, the Finnish mobile phone pioneer, underestimated Android’s potential by sticking to its Symbian operating system and later Windows Phone. The Google-developed OS offered a flexible and customisable experience for both users and manufacturers, as well as a rich ecosystem of apps and services.

Android quickly gained popularity and market share, attracting Samsung, LG, Sony, Huawei, and others. Although Nokia's Symbian OS powered millions of devices worldwide, it failed to adapt to the disruption brought by Android and became outdated and inefficient.

Nokia also made some strategic blunders, such as partnering with Microsoft to use Windows Phone instead of Android, and launching its own Android-based devices too late and too poorly.

Android now powers over 70% of smartphones globally, while Nokia exited the handset market as it failed to adapt to the smartphone revolution.

Kodak, an American company that invented the world's first digital camera in 1975, downplayed digital photography, fearing it would cannibalise its film business. The core business for decades revolved around selling film and processing services. Their leadership feared that fully embracing digital photography would cannibalise their film sales.

Such short-term thinking blinded them to the long-term benefits of being pioneers in the digital space. Eventually, digital cameras and smartphones killed the film market, and Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Today, brands like Samsung, LG, Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, and Sony have emerged as key players in the industry.