Brilliant Predictions

" 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.

"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."

"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
-- Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio &Grandfather of Television."

"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.

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."
-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers ."
-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
-- Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project

"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

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out"
-- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles

"But what .. is it good for?"
-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981

"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.)

"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.


*But haven't all these predictionsbeen eclipsed by Bush Adminstration predictions on Iraq?