"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
-- Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943
"I have travelled 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 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 Corp.)
"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 3M
"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.
"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau,"
-- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.
"Aeroplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
-- Marshal Ferdinard Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de
Guerre.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.
"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.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981