BlackBerry CEO Dismissed iPhone Threat: "We'll Be Fine." BlackBerry Lost 97% of Its Value.

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone on January 9, 2007, BlackBerry co-CEO Mike Lazaridis pulled his partner Jim Balsillie in front of a computer to watch the livestream. "These guys are really, really good," Lazaridis warned. "This is different." Balsillie's response: "It's OK—we'll be fine." He also publicly declared the iPhone was "one more entrant into an already very busy space" and that calling it a "sea-change for BlackBerry" would be "overstating it." At that moment, BlackBerry controlled 20% of the smartphone market. Their stock would hit an all-time high of $147.55 in June 2008, valuing the company at $75 billion. Today, BlackBerry trades at $3.44 with a market cap of $2 billion—a 97% decline. Apple, meanwhile, is worth over $3 trillion and has sold 2.5 billion iPhones. The man who said "we'll be fine" resigned in January 2012 as the company imploded.