"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, 1948, 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 Corporation, 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 1920's.
"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 Corporation).
"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."
"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.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the
way out."
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.
"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the
experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't
do this."
-- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique
adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.
"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 H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal
computer.
"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between
action and reaction and the need to have something better than a
vacuum against which to react.
He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high
schools."
-- 1921, New York Times editorial about Robert
Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.
"You want to have consistent and uniform muscle
development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a
fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development
as an unalterable condition of weight training."
-- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the
"unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.
"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.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of
Patents, 1899.
"Louis Pastuer'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.
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