Stratrix
Decision Forks

The Reversal

Why publicly reverse a position they'd staked out?

78%
of the 18 settled decisions on record held
14 held4 reversed0 held in part3 too early to call

Held over settled: 18 records whose verdict is in, from forks between 1985–2025, with 3 still too early to call and counted in neither. This is what happened to the companies on record, not the odds for your decision. The corpus covers decisions documented well enough to verify, which skews toward companies that lasted long enough to be written about.

SAP, Adobe, Hyundai, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Mercedes-Benz, New York Times, Walmart and 12 more faced this decision. Below is what was on the table, what each chose, and what it returned.

The record

  1. 2020

    SAP

    Held

    Whether to force the cloud transition by ending legacy ECC support on a hard date, or keep persuading customers to migrate voluntarily

    • Set hard end-of-support date — Stop ECC security patches after December 2030 to force migrationchose this
    • Persuade customers on merits — Sell the cloud on benefits and let customers choose to migrate
    • Keep legacy running indefinitely — Continue extending support and collecting maintenance revenue

    Stated reasonERP switching costs create total inertia that persuasion cannot overcome, so removing the option to stand still was the only way to drive migration

    What happened
    • 2024 cloud revenue: €17.14 billion, up 25%
    • 2024 software license revenue: down 21% to €1.40 billion
    • 2024 restructuring scope and cost: scope expanded to 9,000–10,000 positions and cost to approximately €3 billion
    Read the full analysis →
  2. 2013

    Adobe

    Held

    Whether to end perpetual licenses and go subscription-only

    • Keep perpetual licenses available — Continue selling boxed buy-once software alongside subscription
    • Go subscription-only — Retire Creative Suite and offer only Creative Cloud subscriptionschose this

    Stated reasonOptional subscription ran a year and demand outpaced forecasts, confirming customers were choosing subscription while having no alternative to defect to

    What happened
    • 2014 Subscription vs product revenue: Subscription revenue hit $2.08 billion and overtook product revenue of $1.63 billion; total revenue recovered to $4.15 billion
    • 2013 Product revenue: Product revenue fell from $3.34 billion to $2.47 billion
    • 2013 Operating income: Operating income fell from $1.18 billion to $423 million
    Read the full analysis →
  3. 2022

    Hyundai

    Held

    Whether to commit multi-billion-dollar capital to a dedicated US EV platform and factory ahead of demand

    • Build dedicated US EV plant — Commit billions to a purpose-built EV factory on the ground where cars sell.chose this
    • Wait for demand to prove out — Hold back major capital until the EV surge was visible.

    Stated reasonCommitting large capital to a plan the company already believed in, building EVs at scale where they sell

    Committed$7.6 billion (the Georgia Metaplant investment; an adjacent $4.3 billion battery JV with LG Energy Solution was co-located)

    What happened
    • 2024-10 Metaplant production start: full production began, first model the 2025 Ioniq 5, ahead of the original plan
    • 2025-07 Georgia-built recall: NHTSA recall 25V482 covered Georgia-built 2025 Ioniq 5s for loosely torqued bus-bar bolts; no fires or crashes reported at filing
    • 2023 US EV sales rank: Hyundai (with Kia) surpassed Ford and GM for second place in US EV sales behind Tesla
    Read the full analysis →
  4. 1985

    Coca-Cola

    Reversed

    Whether to reformulate Coca-Cola's 99-year-old flagship formula

    • Reformulate to sweeter recipe — Replace original Coke with the new, sweeter formulachose this
    • Keep the original formula — Leave the 99-year-old recipe unchanged

    Stated reasonBlind taste tests showed the new, sweeter formula beat both Pepsi and original Coke, and Coke's share had eroded for twenty years

    What happened
    • 1985-06 consumer backlash: hotline calls climbed to some 8,000 a day by June, alongside roughly 40,000 letters
    • 1985-07-11 reversal of the decision: Coca-Cola brought back the original formula as 'Coca-Cola Classic' 79 days after launch
    • 1985 sales recovery: Coca-Cola Classic came roaring back, outselling both New Coke and Pepsi and reclaiming the lead
    Read the full analysis →
  5. 2016

    AT&T

    Reversed

    Whether AT&T should buy its way into media via debt-financed acquisitions or stay focused on connectivity

    • Buy content and integrate — Acquire DirecTV and Time Warner and pursue vertical integrationchose this
    • Stay a connectivity company — Remain focused on the wireless and wireline network business

    Stated reasonAT&T sought vertical integration to own the pipes and the content flowing through them and escape the wireless price war

    Committed$108.7 billion (Announced transaction value for Time Warner at the October 2016 fork; DirecTV ($67.1 billion) was the earlier 2014 deal.)

    What happened
    • 2021 net debt: net debt at December 31, 2021 stood around $156 billion
    • 2022-04-08 WarnerMedia exit proceeds: AT&T received $40.4 billion in cash and retained debt to deconsolidate the business
    • 2025-07-02 DirecTV full exit: the last 70% of DirecTV sold to TPG, completing AT&T's full exit
    Read the full analysis →
  6. 2021

    Mercedes-Benz

    Held

    How to electrify: bet on premium flagships or scale volume EVs?

    • Premium flagship EV bet — Electrify the six-figure top of the range like EQS and EQEchose this
    • Electrify volume cars — Electrify the mainstream cars people were already buying

    Stated reasonMercedes bet that its buyers would pay more for an electric version, selling desire at the top of the range.

    Committed€40 billion committed (invested in BEVs 2022–2030 per the 2021 pledge)

    What happened
    • 2024 US EQS sales: EQS sedan and SUV sales fell 52% to just 6,963 units
    • 2024 US EQE sales: The EQE fell 39% to 11,660
    • 2025 Full-year BEV deliveries vs BMW: Mercedes sold 168,800 BEVs, down 9%, while BMW sold 442,072, up 3.6%
    Read the full analysis →
  7. 2022

    New York Times

    Held

    Whether to acquire The Athletic to expand the subscription bundle

    • Acquire The Athletic — Buy the sports site for $550M all-cash to add subscribers and productchose this
    • Grow subscribers organically — Reach the milestone on the strength of journalism alone

    Stated reasonTo buy something the bundle needs, adding a sports product and subscribers to the multiproduct strategy

    Committed$550 million all-cash (included about $26.7 million to accelerate employee stock options; net asset price closer to $523.5 million)

    What happened
    • 2024 Bundle ARPU: Bundle/multiproduct average subscribers surged 44.2% while bundle ARPU fell 6.7%
    • 2024 Total subscribers and revenue: 11.43 million total subscribers, about $2.586 billion revenue, $381.3 million free cash flow
    • 2022-02-02 Total subscriptions milestone: Passed ten million subscriptions, reached with The Athletic's ~1.2M subscribers
    Read the full analysis →
  8. 2022

    Walmart

    Held

    Whether to keep gating third-party sellers or open the marketplace at scale on top of stores and ads

    • Keep gated onboarding — Retain 'Request to sell' vetting that mostly declined sellers
    • Open the seller floodgates — Replace gate with self-serve flow and weaponize stores plus adschose this
    • Buy e-commerce credibility — Acquire a platform and leadership rather than build

    Stated reasonMore sellers mean more products and searches, feeding the ad business that turns a low-margin marketplace into a real business

    Committed$3.3 billion (Jet.com acquisition, $3B cash plus up to $300M in stock)

    What happened
    • 2024 Walmart Connect ad growth: Walmart Connect grew 26% while global ecommerce grew 21%
    • 2025 Active seller count: Marketplace crossed 200,000 active sellers, adding 44,000 in five months
    • 2025-09 Seller vetting quality: CNBC found vetting made more lax, uncovering impersonating sellers and counterfeit products
    Read the full analysis →
  9. 2023

    Volkswagen

    Held

    How to allocate the €180 billion plan between electrification and combustion engines

    • All-in on electric — Direct the full budget to electrification and wind down engines
    • Dual-track hedge — Fund electrification while reserving about a third for combustionchose this

    Stated reasonThe combustion cash flow funds the electric transition, so engine investment was preserved in parallel

    Committedabout €180 billion (across 2023 to 2027; roughly a third (~€60 billion) reserved for combustion)

    What happened
    • 2024-06 combustion share of investment plan: CFO confirmed 'It is a third and it will stay a third'
    • 2026 peak investment envelope: pared back from €180B to €165B to €160B across successive five-year windows
    • 2026-04 Chattanooga production: halted ID.4 production to build the combustion Atlas SUV
    Read the full analysis →
  10. 2023

    Airbnb

    Reversed

    Whether to abandon Experiences or freeze intake to protect the core

    • Exit Experiences entirely — Abandon the category and retreat to renting homes
    • Freeze new submissions only — Pause intake and prune supply while existing listings stay livechose this

    Stated reasonThe company needed to protect the core service and cut mediocre supply that erodes trust

    What happened
    • 2024-05 removed listings: removed roughly 5,000 Experiences listings for not meeting standards, canceling forward reservations
    • 2024-09 submissions reopened: reopened host submissions after a roughly 17-month pause
    • 2025-05-13 category relaunch: relaunched Experiences and introduced a new Services vertical across 260 cities
    Read the full analysis →
  11. 2023

    Netflix

    Held

    Whether to keep tolerating password sharing or enforce a crackdown to find new paying subscribers

    • Keep tolerating shared logins — Continue winking at password sharing as free marketing
    • Enforce a crackdown — End tolerance and require shared users to paychose this

    Stated reasonNetflix needed growth it could no longer summon from new households and reached for the one untapped pool of paying customers it had been sitting on

    What happened
    • 2024 Paying subscribers added: added roughly 50 million paying subscribers in the eighteen months that followed
    • 2024 Revenue and net income: revenue grew 15% to $9.4 billion with net income up 79% to $2.3 billion
    • 2023 Daily U.S. sign-ups: daily sign-ups reaching 73,000 — a 102% jump
    Read the full analysis →
  12. 2024

    Universal Music

    Held

    Whether to pull UMG's catalog off TikTok over royalty terms or accept the proposed deal

    • Pull catalog off TikTok — Let the license expire and stop licensing content to TikTokchose this
    • Accept TikTok's deal — Sign the proposed deal worth less than the previous one

    Stated reasonTikTok proposed a deal worth less than the previous one and far less than fair market value while accounting for only about 1% of UMG's revenue

    What happened
    • 2024 streaming demand for previously popular tracks: popular tracks previously on TikTok saw a 2-3% stream increase when removed
    • 2024 licensing deal terms: UMG and TikTok announced a new agreement with 'improved remuneration'; financial terms were not disclosed
    • 2024-04-11 Taylor Swift catalog on TikTok: Taylor Swift's music returned to TikTok on April 11, 2024 while the broader ban remained in force
    Read the full analysis →

The other 9 on record

2015AppleHeld2022NetflixHeld2023SalesforceHeld2018MicrosoftHeld2023ToyotaHeld2025SouthwestReversed2024ShellToo early to call2025BPToo early to call2025AtlassianToo early to call