And the experts speak....
Next time you read an "expert opinion",
consider some of these gems:
Actual statements made by "experts" and the pontiforus:
"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, 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 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.)
"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, British Royal Society (of Science), 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 the Nautilus exercise
machine.
"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." --Marshal
Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles
H. Duel, U.S. Patent Office, 1895
"Louis Pasteur'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.
(And of course, the most famous one...)
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981
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