Why Did The Concorde Fail?
The Plane So Beautiful Nobody Could Stop Paying
📜 What Happened
Britain and France knew by the late 1960s that supersonic passenger flight couldn't be profitable — fuel costs, tiny cabins, sonic-boom bans over land. They finished it anyway: too much invested, too much national pride. It flew 27 years, a magnificent machine losing money on champagne-service for 100 passengers, and gave economics its most famous term: the 'Concorde fallacy' — the textbook name for throwing good money after bad.
☠️ The Fatal Mistake
Both governments knew the answer and kept paying to avoid admitting it — prestige became the budget line that couldn't be questioned.
🧠 The Lesson (Free for You)
Sunk costs are already gone; they vote in every meeting anyway. When a project's best argument is 'we've come too far to stop,' it stopped being an investment and became a monument.
📕 The Antidote Book
'Never quit' is terrible advice. Godin's model: every pursuit follows one of three curves — the DIP (starts fun, gets brutally hard, then pays off enormously for those who push through: the artificial barrier that…
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