Famous and Wrong Predictions compiled by John Jan Popovic

WRONG BUSINESS PREDICTIONS
They really ought to have known better.

"Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for future improvements."
-- Julius Frontenus, 10 A.D.

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WRONG BUSINESS PREDICTIONS
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"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'"
-- Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer


Hewlett Packard excuse to Steve Jobs, who founded Apple Computers instead.
We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.


Thomas J. Watson, chairman of the board of IBM.
I think there's a world market for about five computers.



"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
-- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
[This is actually right: computers these days usually do weigh no more than 1.5 tons.]

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943


Ken Olson, president of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.


"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 [DEC went on to founder in the PC market.]


"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

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on TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE
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"Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys which distract our attention from serious things. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."
-- Henry David Thoreau

"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 broadcast in the 1920s, before existed only point to point Marconigram.

"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.]


"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming."
-- Lee De Forest, 1926

"Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine."
-- R.S. Lambert, Canadian Broadcaster, 1936

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on CINEMA
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Gary Cooper, after turning down the lead role in Gone With The Wind.
I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper.
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
-- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper."
-- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone
With The Wind"

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on RADIO and TV BROADCASTING
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"Radio has no future."
-- Lord Kelvin

David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urging investment in the radio in the 1920's.
No imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?

Lee DeForest, inventor
While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.
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on TRAVEL
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Lt. Joseph Ives after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.
Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality.

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AUDIO RECORDING INDUSTRY
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"They'll never make it --We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962

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AC/DC ELECTRICITY
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"Fooling around with alternating currents is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever. It's too dangerous... it could kill a man as quick as a bolt of lightning. Direct current is safe."
-- Thomas Edison

"Just as certain as death, [George] Westinghouse will kill a customer within six months after he puts in a system of any size."
-- Thomas Edison

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MESCELANEA
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Business Week, August 2, 1968
With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the US market.



Response to Debbi Fields' idea of Mrs. Fields' Cookies
Market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.


Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929
Stocks have reached a permanently high plateau.


"The ordinary 'horseless carriage' is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle."
-- Literary Digest, 1899


"By no possibility can the carriage of freight or passengers through mid-air compete with their carriage on the earth's surface. The field for aerial navigation is then limited to military use and for sporting purposes. The former is doubtful, the latter is fairly certain."
-- Hugh Dryden, 1908



"The [flying] machines will eventually be fast; they will be used in sport but they should not be thought of as commercial carriers."
-- Octave Chanute, 1910


"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


Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.
- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, October 16, 1929.