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Great
Predictions
“We
don’t like their sound, and guitar music
is on the way out.”
-Decca
Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
“Computers in the future may weigh no more than
1.5 tons.”
-Popular
Mechanics, forecasting the relentless
march of science, 1949.
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
-Thomas
Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
“I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked
with the best people, and I can assure you
that data processing is a fad that won’t
last out the year.”
-The
editor in charge of business books for
Prentice Hall, 1957.
“But what ... is it good for?”
-Engineer
at the Advanced Computing Systems Division
of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in
their home.”
-Ken
Olson, president, chairman and founder of
Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.
“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously
considered as a means of communication.
The device is inherently of no value to
us.”
-Western
Union internal memo, 1876.
“The wireless music box has no imaginable
commercial value. Who would pay for a
message sent to nobody in particular?”
-David
Sarnoff’s associates in response to his
urgings for investment in the radio in the
1920s.
“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn
better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be
feasible.”
-A
Yale University management professor in
response to Fred Smith’s paper proposing
reliable overnight delivery service.
(Smith went on to found Federal Express
Corp.)
“A cookie store is a bad
idea. Besides, the market research reports
say America likes crispy cookies, not soft
and chewy cookies like you make.”
-Response
to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs.
Fields’ Cookies.
“Drill
for oil? You mean drill into the ground to
try and find oil? You’re crazy.”
-Drillers
who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his
project to drill for oil in 1859.
“Stocks
have reached what looks like a permanently
high plateau.”
-Irving
Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale
University, 1929.
“Airplanes
are interesting toys but of no military
value.”
-Marechal
Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy,
Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
“Louis
Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous
fiction.”
-Pierre
Pachet, Professor of Physiology at
Toulouse, 1872.
“The
abdomen, the chest, and the brain will
forever be shut from the intrusion of the
wise and humane surgeon.”
-Sir
John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon,
appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen
Victoria, 1873.
“640K
ought to be enough for anybody.”
-
Bill Gates, 1981.
"You'll
sink, not like a lead balloon, but even
faster, like a lead zeppelin."
-Keith
Moon (drummer of the Who), warning
guitarist Jimmy Page that the new group he
intended to form with singer Robert Plant
and drummer John Bonham had no chance of
success, 1968.
The
new band decided to form anyway, took
their name from Moon's putdown, and became
the dominant Rock'n'roll band of the
1970s.
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