This document provides numerous examples of past predictions that turned out to be false as technology advanced in unexpected ways. Some key quotes that were proven wrong include Charles Duell claiming in 1899 that all inventions had already been invented, Thomas Watson predicting in 1943 that the world market for computers would be five computers, and Bill Gates stating in 1981 that 640K of memory would be enough for anyone. The document serves as a cautionary tale about making definitive predictions, especially regarding emerging technologies.
1. FALSE PREDICTIONS
It's risky to say that something can't or won't be done, especially when
technology is concerned. Here are some past quotations that still haunt their
speakers today:
INVENTION – "Everything that can be invented has been invented." (Charles H.
Duell, commissioner of the US Patent Office, recommending that his office
should be abolished - 1899)
COMPUTERS – "I think there is a world market for about five computers".
(Thomas J. Watson Jr., chairman of IBM - 1943)
COMPUTERS – "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in
their home." (Kenneth Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation - 1977)
COMPUTERS – "640 K [of computer memory] ought to be enough for anybody."
(Bill Gates, founder and CEO of Microsoft - 1981)
COMPUTERS – “By 1990 75-80 percent of IBM compatible computers will be
sold with OS/2." (Bill Gates, founder and CEO of Microsoft - January, 1988)
COMPUTERS – "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 gone through college yet.'" (Steve Jobs,
founder of Apple Computer attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and
Steve Wozniak's PC)
COMPUTERS – "I predict that the last mainframe will be unplugged on March 15,
1996." (Stewart Alsop, InfoWorld columnist - March 1991)
COMPUTERS – "We see a corporate market of maybe 15,000 PCs a year by
1990." (DataQuest - 1984) Compare that with this one:
COPIERS – "The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most."
(IBM to the founders of Xerox as it turned down their proposal - 1959)
INTERNET – "Almost all of the many predictions now being made about 1996
hinge on the Internet's continuing exponential growth. But I predict the Internet
will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse."
(Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com and inventor of Ethernet - 1995)
TELEGRAPH – "I watched his countenance closely, to see if he was not
deranged ... and I was assured by other senators after he left the room that they
had no confidence in it." (U.S. Senator Smith of Indiana, after witnessing a
demonstration of Samuel Morse’s telegraph - 1842)
TELEPHONE – "Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice
over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical
value." (Boston Post, on the telephone - 1865)
TELEPHONE – "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)
2. TELEPHONE – "The Americans think we need of the telephone, but we do not.
We have plenty of messenger boys." (Sir William Preece, chief engineer of
Britain's Post Office - 1876)
PHONOGRAPH – "The phonograph has no commercial value at all." (Thomas
Edison)
MUSIC – "Guitar music is on the way out."(Decca Records, declining to record a
new group called The Beatles - 1962)
RADIO – "Radio has no future." (Lord Kelvin - 1897)
RADIO – "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who
would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" (David Sarnoff's
associates responding to his urgings for investment in radio - April 1912)
RADIO – "The radio craze will die out in time." (Thomas Edison - 1922)
MOVIES – "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" (H.M.Warner, Warner
Brothers - 1927)
TELEVISION – "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 DeForest, radio development pioneer
and inventor of the vacuum tube)
TELEVISION – "Television won't last because people will soon get tired of
staring at a plywood box every night." (Darryl Zanuck, Movie Producer, 20th
Century Fox - 1946)
TELEVISION – "Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan." (Mary Somerville,
pioneer of radio educational broadcasts - 1948)
TELEVISION – "The problem with television is that the people must sit and keep
their eyes glued on a screen; The average American family hasn’t time for it.”
(New York Times - 1949)
ELECTRICITY – "Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time.
Nobody will use it, ever." (Thomas Edison - 1889)
NUCLEAR – "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be
obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will."
(Albert Einstein - 1932)
CARS – "That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development
is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical
nature have been introduced." (Scientific American - 1909)
PLANES – "No possible combination of known substances, known forms of
machinery, and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by
which man shall fly long distances through the air." (Simon Newcomb,
astronomer and head of the U. S. Naval Observatory - 1835-1909)
PLANES – "Heavier-than-air flying machines are fantasy. Simple laws of physics
make them impossible." (Lord Kelvin, president, British Royal Society - 1895)
PLANES – "Man will not fly for 50 years. (Wilbur Wright, to brother Orville after a
disappointing flying experiment in 1901. Their first successful flight was in 1903.)
PLANES – "There will never be a bigger plane built." (A Boeing engineer, after
3. the first flight of the 247, a twin-engine plane that holds ten people)
PLANES – "The Americans are good at making fancy cars and refrigerators, but
that doesn't mean they are any good at making aircraft. They are bluffing. They
are excellent at bluffing. (Hermann Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the
Luftwaffe -1942)
SPACE – "A rocket will never be able to leave the earth's atmosphere." (New
York Times -1936)
SPACE – "Space travel is bunk." (Sir Harold Spencer Jones, Astronomer Royal
of the UK - 1957, two weeks before Sputnik orbited the Earth)
SPACE – "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be
used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the
United States." (T. Craven, FCC Commissioner - 1961)
TANKS – "The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd.
It is little short of treasonous." (ADC to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration
- 1916)
TANKS – "Caterpillar land ships are idiotic and useless. Those officers and men
are wasting their time and are not pulling their proper weight in the war" (Fourth
Lord of the British Admiralty, regarding the introduction of tanks in war - 1915)
NEW BUSINESSES – "The concept is interesting and well-informed, but in order
to earn better than a 'C' the idea must be feasible." (Yale professor's comments
on a term paper submitted by Fred Smith for an overnight delivery system. Two
years later, Smith founded Federal Express.)
NEW BUSINESSES – "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, market research
and focus groups confirm that America wants soft, not chewy, cookies." (Investor
rejection letter to Debby Fields, founder of Mrs. Fields' Cookies)
STOCKS – "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high
plateau." (Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University - 1929)
Compiled and posted by Wayne Caswell