Fun Fact of the Day: 10.03.12 Terrible Predictions

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We all have our list — common way to start presentations on ‘Consumer of 2020’ or such lot.  But this is good enough.

 

First, all those predictions about new technology NEVER being adopted; you’d thing we’d learn:

 

  • “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.

 

  • “One day there will be a telephone in every major city in the USA” –

— Alexander Graham Bell, c.1880.

  • “The telephone may be appropriate for our American cousins, but not here, because we have an adequate supply of messenger boys.” – group of British experts, c.1900.

  • “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”

— Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

  • “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty.” – President of Michigan Savings Bank, 1903, advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Company.

  • “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.)

 

“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

 

  • “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

— Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

 

  • “640K ought to be enough for anybody.”

— Bill Gates, 1981

 

  • “$100 million dollars is way too much to pay for Microsoft.”

— IBM, 1982

 

Second, there are always the fun one’s about movies and music…

 

  • “Who the h_ll wants to hear actors talk?”

— H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

 

  • “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”

— Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

 

Third, I found these two just plain sad.  Would have been nice to end war.  Would have been really nice to fly a helicopter to work (as long as I can hear the Shipping News)

  • “Before the twentieth century closes, the earth will be purged of its foulest shame, the killing of men in battle under the name of war.” – Andrew Carnegie.
  • “Automobiles will start to decline as soon as the last shot is fired in World War 2. Instead of a car in every garage, there will be a helicopter.” – Harry Bruno, aviation publicist, 1943.

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