Thread by @level39

History is littered with bad predictions from so-called "experts" who were unable to see the obvious future that was right in front of them.

In the future people will look back and wonder how today's experts couldn't see #Bitcoin as an unavoidable Schelling point 🧵👇

“Rail travel at great speed is not possible because passengers would be unable to breathe and would die of asphyxia.”

—Dr Dionysys Larder, Professor, University College London, 1830

“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

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.”

—Sir William Preece, chief engineer of the British Post Office, 1876

“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

“When the Paris Exhibition closes electric light will close with it and no more be heard of.”

—Sir Erasmus Wilson, professor at Oxford, 1878

“No, it will make war impossible."

—Hiram Maxim, 1893, inventor of the machine gun, in response to English scientist Havelock Ellis’s question “Won’t this weapon make war more terrible?”

“Radio has no future.”
“Heavier than air flying machines are impossible.”
“X-rays will prove to be a hoax.”

—Lord Kelvin, British Mathematician and Physicist, c.1895

“Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will ever use it.”

—Thomas Edison, promoter of direct current (DC), 1889

“My imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.”

—H.G. Wells, British novelist, 1901

“Flight by machines heavier than air is impractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible.”

—Simon Newcomb, mathematician and astronomer, c.1902

“The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.”

—President of the Michigan Savings Bank, advising Horace Rackham (Henry Ford’s lawyer) not to invest in the Ford Motor Company, 1903. (Rackham made $12.5 million from his $5,000 investment in Ford).

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.”

—Marechal Ferdinand Foch, 1911. Foch was Supreme Allied Commander during the final year of the First World War.

“The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.”

—Comment by an Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, at a tank demonstration, 1916

“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, c.1920

“That Professor Goddard...does not know the relation of action to reaction...he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools”

—1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work. The remark was retracted in the July 17, 1969 issue

“While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.”

—Lee de Forest, inventor and early radio pioneer, 1926

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”

—H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau…I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months.”

—Irving Fisher, American Economist, 1929, nine days before the stock market crash

“Talking films are a very interesting invention, but I do not believe they will remain long in fashion.”

—Louis-Jean Lumière, inventor of the cinematograph, 1929

“There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be attainable. It would mean the atom would have to be shattered at will.”

—Albert Einstein, 1932

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

—Thomas Watson, Chairman and CEO of IBM, 1943

“The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives”

—Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project, 1945

“Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night”

—Darryl F. Zanuck, film producer, 1946

“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

“The potential world market for photocopiers consists of 5,000 at maximum.”

—IBM, to the founders of Xerox, arguing that photocopiers wouldn’t have a large enough market to justify production, 1959

“But what...is it good for?”

—Robert Lloyd, Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over…nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”

—Paul Ehrlich, 1968

“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 what would eventually become Federal Express, c.1962

“Cellular phones will absolutely not replace local wire systems.”

—Marty Cooper, inventor of the mobile phone, 1981

“The idea of a personal communicator in every pocket is nothing more than a pipe-dream fueled by greed.”

—Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, 1992

“I predict that the internet will go spectacularly supernova, and in 1996 it will catastrophically implode”

—Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet, 1995

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

—Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977

“The internet will fade away because most people have nothing to say to each other. By 2005 it will be clear that the internet’s impact on the global economy has been no greater than the fax machine.”

—Paul Krugman, Economist, 1998

“Subscription models for music are bankrupt. I think you could make the Second Coming of Jesus himself available on subscription and it wouldn’t be successful.”

—Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, 2003

“I don’t know… there just aren’t that many videos I want to watch.”

—Steve Chen, founder of YouTube, expressing doubts about YouTube’s viability as a company, 2005

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.”

—Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, 2007