Best-Read Blunders Of 2025
Here's what clicked the most for me on Substack this year. Not my best work, not the biggest story, not even the most-important development – but it clicked.
“Be mindful of clickbait - sensational stories designed to humiliate. Click with compassion.” – Monica Lewinsky
Thanks for sticking with me in 2025 through some of the year’s most painful moments in business.
Laugh when you should be crying, I always say.
Or at least wisen up to the mistakes business leaders repeat each year because they’re trapped in a quarterly mindset, or perhaps they are just plain dumb, mean, disturbed or greedy – and got to where they are because they’re also quite lucky.
Taking an inventory of my work this year, I decided to list the most-viewed posts for each month. I put up more than 160 posts in 2025, and I never really thought about what might to the top of my chart. So surprise, surprise.
Perhaps it’s just timing or how well a story was shared or promoted by others.
Sometimes, it’s just putting the word, “sex” in a headline.
Other times I’ve been surprised by more thoughtful posts about authors whose ideas resonate with me.
Both Paul Vigna’s The Almighiter and Dr. Erik Lie’s Catching Cheats: Everyday Forensics To Unmask Business Fraud made the list.
Here are the top-viewed posts for each month of 2025:
December: JPMorgan Chase Can Check Their Butts A young entrepreneur duped the bank out of $175 million. Now her defense lawyers are billing the bank for cellulite butter.
November: A Dead Billionaire Defaults Gary Winnick, the late founder of a failed telecom startup, sacks his lender from beyond the grave.
October: Dr. Lie Erik Lie, a finance professor at the University of Iowa, catches cheats. His numbers don’t lie.
September: Bible Lessons From A Billionaire Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel says we should worry about the Antichrist. He would know.
August: Stop Counting! Stop Counting! Donald Trump can fire the commissioner at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, but we may still suffer a sagging labor market.
July: The Gods Or Money A new book, “The Almightier,” pulls back the temple curtains and reveals what mankind really worships.
June: Silicon Valley Sex Farm OneTaste executives face prison time for a forced labor scheme.
May: Lost In Love Top CEOs who kissed away their jobs.
April: Peter Principle Peter Navarro is a crackpot economist whose forecasts are often muddled with blind ideology, ridiculous conspiracy theories and dubious sources. Nevertheless, some of his predictions for 2025 came true.
March: Bankrupt Barbie 23andMe’s CEO Anne Wojcicki resigns as DNA testing company files Chapter 11.
February: Property Sex A Justice Department crackdown on landlords who sexually harass tenants hasn’t ended the nightmare.
January: Unshackling Ponzi Perps It’s a bad idea to let convicted swindlers go free. Biden just gave clemency to a slew of them.
Read More:
The Business Blunders Archive Highlighting the folly that plagues our financial world.
The Business Blunders Hall Of Shame Remembering the nation’s most notorious white-collar convicts.
Blunder Lists Tracking the biggest mistakes in business for those who would rather learn from history than repeat it themselves.
Behind Business Blunders In a rare podcast appearance, hosts want to know who is the intended audience for Business Blunders, and what is my goal for this publication? Like I know?