"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
1981: Bill Gates
"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 19,000 vacuum tubes
and weighs 30
tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh
1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949.
"I think there's a world market for about five computers."
Thomas J. Watson, chairman of the board of IBM.
"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 of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977
"It will be gone by June."
Blad 'Variety' in 1955 over Rock 'n Roll.
"It will be years - not in my time - before a woman will become Prime
Minister."
Margaret Thatcher, 1974
"You'd better learn secretarial skills or else get married."
Modelling agency, rejecting Marilyn Monroe in 1944.
"Radio has no future."
"X-rays are clearly a hoax."
"The aeroplane is scientifically impossible."
Royal Society president William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, 1897-9
"You ought to go back to driving a truck."
Concert manager, firing Elvis Presley in 1954.
"There will be one million cases of AIDS in Britain by 1991."
World Health Organisation in a 1989 report. It over-estimated by 992,301 cases.
"We don't like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out."
Decca executive, 1962, after turning down the Beatles.
"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."
Business Week, August 2, 1968
"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.)
1. Korte Inleiding
