The Tragic End of Iomega (Zip Drive)

In three years, the Zip drive took Iomega from $141 million in sales to $1.74 billion. In 2008, what was left of the company was sold for $213 million. Most people blame the click of death, the CD or the USB stick. But Iomega was already losing money in 1998, and its own annual reports say why: it pushed the Zip drive into new PCs at low prices, betting on disk sales that never came. This is the story of a razor-and-blade bet, and why a bet on the blade only works if people still need the blade. Paper Empires: one decision at a time. CHAPTERS 0:00 Click. Click. Click. 0:55 From Utah to the Zip 2:22 Give away the razor 3:53 The blades stop selling 6:03 The fall to $213 million 7:44 Was it the click? SOURCES 1. Iomega 10-K FY1997 - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 2. Iomega 10-K FY1998 - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 3. Iomega 10-K405 FY1999 - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 4. Iomega 10-K FY2000 - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 5. Iomega 10-K FY2002 - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 6. Iomega 8-K, 1998 (CEO change) - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 7. EMC / Iomega merger announcement, 8 Apr 2008 - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/da... 8. InternetNews, EMC's first offer - https://internetnews.com/storage/emc-... 9. Forbes, "Topsy-turvy", 20 May 1997 - https://www.forbes.com/1997/05/20/top... 10. Fortune, Joseph Nocera, "Five Lessons From Iomega", 2 Aug 1999 - https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu... 11. Deseret News, 20 Aug 1999 - https://www.deseret.com/1999/8/20/194... 12. Rinaldi v. Iomega settlement notice - https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb.mit.ed... 13. Globe and Mail, "Lawyers are big winners in Iomega suit" - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/techn... 14. Steve Gibson, GRC, Click of Death - https://www.grc.com/tip/codfaq1.htm 15. Hackaday, "From Zip To Nought", 24 Mar 2026 - https://hackaday.com/2026/03/24/from-... 16. Wikipedia: Iomega / Zip drive / Click of death - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iomega MEDIA CREDITS Product photos from Wikimedia Commons (background removed; CC BY-SA images adapted under the same licence): Iomega Zip 100 drive with a disk (CC BY 2.0); Iomega ZIP100 Disk (CC BY-SA 4.0); ZIP Drive 100, 5 (CC BY-SA 3.0); ZIP 250 USB Drive (CC BY 2.0); Internal zip drive inside computer (public domain); Iomega Clik! PocketZip (public domain); Bernoulli 230 (GFDL); Floppy disk 2009 G1 (public domain); SanDisk Cruzer USB (public domain); ST3320620AS hard disk (public domain). Stock footage: Mixkit (mixkit.co, Mixkit Stock Video Free License). Scenes marked as illustrations are AI-generated, not real photographs; no real person is shown. The Fortune 1999 view is paraphrased, not quoted. Iomega's click-of-death figure is the company's own. This video is for information and storytelling only and is not financial advice. #Iomega #ZipDrive #BusinessDocumentary