1. The $12 Million Assumption
Average Loss: $12M
"Our data is good enough" - 40% inconsistency discovered post-investment
š Unity $110M, GE Predix Examples
2. The Expertise Blindspot
Average Loss: $8M
Data scientists validate, ops teams discover production failures
š Watson, Tay, Alexa Examples
3. The POC-to-Production Canyon
Average Loss: $6M
94% accuracy in POC, 61% in production - 88% of POCs abandoned
š 70-88% Industry Failure Rate
4. The Platform Delusion
Average Loss: $8M
Premium platform purchased, data still unusable
š Palantir, Databricks Examples
5. The Compliance Time Bomb
Average Loss: $6M + Fines
Regulatory requirements discovered post-deployment
š GDPR, FDA, EU AI Act Examples
6. The Executive Dashboard Disaster
Average Loss: $4M
AI-powered insights based on 35% duplicate data
š Equifax, Marketing Attribution
7. The Vendor Integration Maze
Average Loss: $5M
Promised APIs don't exist, 6-month rebuild required
š Salesforce, ERP AI Examples