Articles Contained in SIRS Enduring Issues 2006.

Originally Published: 20 That Made History, June 27, 2005; pp. 58+.

"Picture a hallway. You're walking down it, alone. Before you reach the end, you need to reach a decision. Your engineers have been hard at work on a daring new product. But now the stakes have grown so big that...well, you wouldn't be betting just the farm at this point. You'd be betting the farm, the house, and the kids. And your rival--a far more established firm--has upped the ante, promising a product that has sent your engineers back to the drawing board. Now you're about to meet with your biggest potential customer. And you have two choices. You can make a bet that--if it doesn't bankrupt your company outright--might repay itself sometime in the next couple of decades. Or you can keep your chips safe for another day. What do you do? If your instincts say, 'Walk away,' you've made a sound decision--one that would probably pass any discounted-cash-flow test with flying colors. You've also just killed the 707: The plane that vaulted Boeing past Douglas Aircraft." (FORTUNE) The article profiles the 20 most historical business decisions made since Fortune's creation 75 years ago. "Many of these epic decisions were breathtakingly smart. Some were appallingly stupid. But all of them shaped the modern world of business."

Records created from non-MARC resource.