#softkey
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cgtygesen.bsky.social
He was such a dipshit that Mattel fired him after they acquired Softkey. He got his start doing hostile takeovers in the educational software industry (FFS!)
March 2, 2025 at 11:17 PM
canadianerrant.bsky.social
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftKey Kevin O'Leary has always been a piece of shit.
SoftKey - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
February 16, 2025 at 12:53 AM
joesobo.bsky.social
I'll never forgive O'Leary for running Brøderbund into the ground when he owned Softkey.

The same Softkey that illegally took shareware games and duping customers into buying them.
January 9, 2026 at 5:56 PM
aescas.bsky.social
all my homies hate Kevin O'Leary

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftKey

(for ruining the edutainment game industry and also a lot of other reasons)
April 14, 2026 at 11:49 PM
lei-lei.bsky.social
2003, the year where old PSX games get a second wind, sometimes for the worse

i must bring up the Cleopatra Fortune US release where a ZeniMax label stylized it after a PC Softkey Smartsaver release from 1999-2000 like there's gonna be an AOL installer on it
Cleopatra Fortune, Japan 2001 Cleopatra'S fortune, US 2003
September 13, 2026 at 1:37 AM
herrhugo.bsky.social
Softkey, ur praktisch👍
July 8, 2025 at 1:52 PM
masnick.com
Every time the media presents Kevin O'Leary as a good business person I like to remind people of how he got rich, by selling a sketchy software company to Mattel (who did no due diligence) for billions they had to write down a few months later.

archive.is/HL67I#select...
By 1983, O’Leary saw the potential in the emerging software and personal computer industries. He formed SoftKey Software Products Inc. in the basement of his Toronto home, convincing computer companies to bundle his software into their products. SoftKey moved to Boston and focused on the booming field of educational software. By 1993, it was trading on Nasdaq and had revenues of $110-million—and a loss of $57-million. The company grew by making a string of acquisitions. SoftKey’s most prominent takeover was of San Francisco-based The Learning Company (TLC). Prior to the sale, TLC hired the Center for Financial Research and Analysis (CFRA), a forensic accounting firm, to examine its suitor’s financials. CFRA alleged that SoftKey may have overstated its earnings by bundling various general and administrative costs into write-offs. CFRA was also unhappy with SoftKey’s decision to fire its auditor, Arthur Andersen, after the accounting firm found deficiencies in the company’s internal controls. CFRA noted that SoftKey’s audit committee “holds several questionable members, including the CEO… as well as an outside member associated with two public companies charged with financial improprieties and another member who is a paid consultant to the company.” Yet SoftKey’s acquisition of TLC went through, and SoftKey adopted the TLC name. By 1996, TLC had 3,000 employees and was the biggest educational software company in the world. It continued to grow via acquisitions, driving revenues up over $800-million. But SEC filing shows that TLC suffered net losses of $376-million in 1996, $495-million in 1997 and $105-million in 1998. Moreover, TLC’s accumulated deficit topped $1.1-billion by the end of 1998. That same year, toy giant Mattel Inc. made a takeover bid for TLC, without doing proper due diligence. Desperate to reverse a steep slide in the company’s stock price, Mattel CEO Jill Barad seized on educational software as a driver of future growth. The takeover shocked many, largely because TLC was seen, according to software-industry analyst Sean McGowan, as a well-known “house of cards” that was burdened with tired brands—not helped by the fact that O’Leary had slashed R&D from 24 down to 11 percent of expenditures. “There was a lot of [TLC] inventory out there that was not moving very well,” McGowan says. “They pumped up the sales by repackaging and distributing to convenience stores and drugstores.” Indeed, TLC was later accused in a shareholders’ lawsuit and by a Mattel executive of “stuffing the channels”—shipping product at the end of a quarter and recording it as revenue, even though much of the merchandise would be returned. “Stuffing the channels was part of the business back then,” says a former TLC sales rep based in California. In the end, Mattel purchased TLC for about $4-billion in the spring of 1999. O’Leary took over as president of Mattel’s new TLC digital division. Weeks after the sale, CFRA produced a critical report on Mattel, claiming TLC was already experiencing collapsing revenue, a surge in receivables and a deterioration of operating cash flow. In the third quarter of 1999, Mattel expected profits of $50-million from the TLC division. Instead, it was a loss of $105-million (the next quarter losses rose to $206 -million), which wiped out more than $2-billion in shareholder value in one day, as the company’s share price slid from nearly $17 to $11.69. In short, O’Leary had sold Mattel a turkey. One investors' lawsuit says O’Leary cashed in his Mattel shares just before the losses were announced when the stock was at its peak, pocketing almost $6-million.
November 7, 2025 at 11:02 PM
dianeellison.bsky.social
And about those "stats", here is the report. Ms Dickinson would be correct in saying that he is once again misrepresenting (a.k.a. lying) information.
leger360.com/wp-content/u...

BTW quick question - if you start business this way, how does one usually continue...

Spoiler: the same way.
Stats from Leger report (available through link above) SoftKey International (originally SoftKey Software Products, Inc.) was a software company founded by Kevin O'Leary in 1986 in Toronto, Ontario.!"' It was known as The Learning Company from 1995 to 1999 after acquiring The Learning Company and taking its name. SoftKey played a major role in the dissolution of the edutainment industry by the turn of the millennium 21 Contributing factors include its reduction of the market price by releasing shovelware discs of freeware and shareware, 3 hostile takeovers of major edutainment software companies, reduction of these acquisitions to a skeleton staff, and questionable financial practices to maintain its stock price. [21 In 1999, the company was acquired by Mattel in what Businessweek called one of "the Worst Deals of All Time". 41 It was subsequently folded into Mattel Interactive, citation needed Riverdeep Interactive Learning, and Software MacKiev. SoftKey International, a Canadian software company, faced several issues that contributed to its decline, including: Owner at the time: Kevin O'Leary Hostile takeovers SoftKey acquired other edutainment software companies through hostile takeovers, which resulted in the firing of many staff members. a Questionable financial practices# SoftKey used questionable financial practices to maintain its stock price. * Reduction of market price, SoftKey released freeware and shareware discs, which reduced the market price. ( Talent exodus SoftKey's new ownership led to many talented employees leaving the company. & Slowing revenue growth The Learning Company's revenue growth had already slowed before Mattel's acquisition. In 1999, Mattel acquired SoftKey for $4.2 billion, and Businessweek called it one of "the Worst Deals of All Time". SoftKey was folded into Mattel Interactive, Riverdeep Interactive Learning, and Software MacKiev.
December 31, 2024 at 6:20 AM
johnrebending.com
wikipedia kinda cooked softkey here
screenshot of the wikipedia intro paragraph for Softkey International Text below: SoftKey International (originally SoftKey Software Products, Inc.) was a software company founded by Kevin O'Leary in 1986 in Toronto, Ontario.[1] It was known as The Learning Company from 1995 to 1999 after acquiring The Learning Company and taking its name. SoftKey played a major role in the dissolution of the edutainment industry by the turn of the millennium.[2] Contributing factors include its reduction of the market price by releasing shovelware discs of freeware and shareware,[3] hostile takeovers of major edutainment software companies, reduction of these acquisitions to a skeleton staff, and questionable financial practices to maintain its stock price.[2] In 1999, the company was acquired by Mattel in what Businessweek called one of "the Worst Deals of All Time".[4] It was subsequently folded into Mattel Interactive,[citation needed] Riverdeep Interactive Learning, and Software MacKiev.
January 2, 2026 at 10:20 PM
olenargy.bsky.social
O’Leary nearly destroyed Mattel by selling SoftKey to them in one of the biggest scam deals in history.
March 15, 2026 at 5:09 PM
elscan.bsky.social
#Portrait of a child

#softkey #girl #child #portraitphotography
May 31, 2026 at 9:12 AM
fuzzynumbers.bsky.social
Softkey wolf.
January 17, 2025 at 5:28 AM
masnick.com
Every time I see O'Leary I feel compelled to remind people how he made his original fortune by selling The Learning Company to Mattel for billions, getting immediately accused of fraud, tossed out, and having Mattel give away what was left for basically nothing. time.com/archive/6906...
It’s not the first bit of unpleasantness for O’Leary. For most of the 1990s, he was the president of educational-software company Softkey, which he co-founded with fellow Canadian entrepreneur Michael Perik. O’Leary and Perik sold the firm, which they renamed the Learning Company, to Mattel in 1999 for $3.6 billion. But almost immediately the deal turned sour. The Learning Company lost $200 million in the second half of 1999 alone. O’Leary and Perik, who joined Mattel after the merger, left the toy company six months later in a management shake-up. In 2001, Mattel disposed of the Learning Company by giving away most of the division to a private-equity firm for free. Anyone who can pick a corporate pocket for $3.6 billion is a pretty cool customer, but there are many lingering questions about the business that O’Leary and Perik delivered to Mattel in return for that money. “It was an ugly mess,” says Bernard Stolar, a software-industry veteran who was brought in by Mattel to take over the Learning Company from O’Leary and Perik. “There had been an awful lot of mismanagement at the company.” Shareholders sued Mattel over the Learning Company deal, naming O’Leary and Perik, along with other members of the toy company’s management, as defendants. In the complaint, the shareholders alleged that under O’Leary and Perik the Learning Company used “accounting manipulations” to gain market share and drive up the company’s stock price. According to the suit, a sales manager at the Learning Company at the time of the Mattel merger told employees that he “suspected the ‘Learning Company is broke’ and is ‘cooking the books.’ ” Mattel paid shareholders $122 million to settle the suit. O’Leary and Perik settled as well. O’Leary did not return multiple calls for comment. In the past, O’Leary has blamed the problems at the Learning Company on the technology meltdown and a culture clash between the management of his company and Mattel.
September 11, 2025 at 10:33 PM
oplopanax.ca
Reminder that O'Leary's claim to fame (how he got rich) was selling a CD-ROM educational software company on the eve of the .COM boom.

what is now regarded as one of the worst deals in American history.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftKey...
SoftKey - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
March 15, 2026 at 4:50 PM
mightygodking.com
if you don't know Kevin O'Leary's actual business history, it is honestly kind of amazing he's rich. In order:

1. he starts Softkey and manages to cut a deal with printer manufacturers to have his mediocre software be the thing that gets bundled with printer sales. This gets him a lot of money
November 7, 2025 at 7:26 PM
awr.bsky.social
like for me yeah i remember yobis basic spelling tricks and spyfox and the magic school bus games but also im like. 30 lol. MS nuked their Home division forever ago and kevin o leary destroyed SoftKey/TLC in ‘99 for a quick buck
May 17, 2026 at 9:17 PM
lorddalek.bsky.social
SoftKey and Kevin O'Leary were the original Vulture Capitalists. A lot of good companies like MECC and Broderbund got destroyed by his visionless consolidation plans.
September 19, 2026 at 6:00 PM
kithrup.bsky.social
You can get a special keyboard driver with a softkey to switch between normal and sarcastic.

I, of course, am completely serious 100% of the time, so I have no need of such a keyboard.
October 2, 2024 at 11:13 PM
devsalvatrix.bsky.social
Who came out of this GREAT? Mitt Romney and Bain Capital group – they were the architects behind the TLC shell game and made a killing from the sale to Mattel. And TV personality Kevin O'Leary who was the founder of SoftKey, the initial corporate predator that flayed TLC and wore its skin. 😵‍💫

10/11
August 14, 2026 at 11:38 AM
myneighbortoppero.bsky.social
Softkey, leave it to Kevin O'Leary to make a low-quality release like that.
April 15, 2026 at 2:01 PM
devsalvatrix.bsky.social
SSI was acquired by Mindscape (famous for Chessmaster). Mindscape was then purchased by The Learning Company (TLC) who also purchased Broderbund and merged us all together. TLC was by this point basically a holding company (formerly SoftKey) wearing TLC’s skin from a previous acquisition…

2/11
August 14, 2026 at 11:31 AM
wildweasel486.bsky.social
Random game from my collection Saturday once again!

British Open Championship Golf - would you believe this is from the System Shock people? Would you also believe this is a poorly advertised demo version? SoftKey did this a lot in the late 90s, this Special Edition is missing half the game!
November 2, 2024 at 4:06 PM
deviledeggpress.com
The one part of the story I'd love to know more about is O'Leary/SoftKey getting control of Informatrix 2000, the Canadian tax software company, which I'd argue was the key link in the entire chain. The reports suggested quite a bit of corporate drama at Informatrix led up to O'Leary's takeover.
September 18, 2026 at 1:58 PM
superjet-spade.bsky.social
Spade's Throwback of the Day: youtu.be/-_y_aDdAmjM

Another Secret Passage, a 2021 Neo Geo revisit of a tune I originally wrote on Master System in 2018.

#SNK #NeoGeo #YM2610 #OPNB #FMSynth #chiptune
Another Secret Passage ~Softkey Passage Revisited~ (SNK Neo Geo Song)
YouTube video by SuperJet Spade
youtu.be
January 8, 2026 at 12:42 PM
macgarden.bitbang.social.ap.brid.gy
SoftKey MediaClips

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/softkey-mediaclips

MediaClips clipart collection by Softkey

#macgarden #clipart #softkeymultimediainc
October 19, 2025 at 10:01 PM