Intel and Toyota made perfectly logical decisions. That’s exactly how they killed their best brands

Pentium was once one of the most recognized technology brands in the world. Scion was Toyota’s most successful attempt to reach a new generation of buyers.

Neither failed because of a bad launch, a weak product, or a flawed strategy. Both were killed by something far more insidious: a long sequence of individually rational decisions that nobody stopped to question. In both cases, the organizations involved misunderstood the same fundamental principle — brands do not fail because they are poorly conceived.