"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,
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
"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 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.
"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.
"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.
"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
Admiral William
Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project.
"This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He's doomed."
Harry Guggenheim,
millionaire aviation enthusiast.
"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.
"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific
advances."
Dr. Lee De Forest,
inventor of the vacuum tube and father of
television.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Charles H. Duell,
Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.
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