A closer look
If you ever feel bad about a mistake at work, just remember that the New Zealand government accidentally sold a multi-million dollar public asset for the price of a cheap sandwich. Game theory and auction design are incredibly delicate. By using a flawed 'Vickrey auction'—where the highest bidder wins but only has to pay the amount of the second-highest bid—they completely failed to anticipate that nobody else would bid on certain licenses. A company bid millions to ensure they won, but the second highest bid was literally a few bucks, so that's all they paid.
