![]() ![]() Colussy, a former head of Pan-Am now retired and working on his golf game in Palm Beach, heard about Motorola’s plans to “de-orbit” the system and decided he would buy Iridium and somehow turn around one of the biggest blunders in the history of business. That is, until Dan Colussy got a wild idea. ![]() ![]() And when no real buyers seemed to materialize, it looked like Iridium would go down as just a “science experiment.” Bankruptcy was inevitable-the largest to that point in American history. Only months after launching service, it was $11 billion in debt, burning through $100 million a month and crippled by baroque rate plans and agreements that forced calls through Moscow, Beijing, Fucino, Italy, and elsewhere. The only problem was that Iridium the company was a commercial disaster. Its constellation of 66 satellites in polar orbit was a mind-boggling technical accomplishment, surely the future of communication. In the early 1990s, Motorola developed a revolutionary satellite system called Iridium that promised to be its crowning achievement. an enlightening narrative of how new communications infrastructures often come about.” - The Economist, “A Book of the Year 2016” ![]()
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