Stingray: a blog for salty Christians

March 22, 2006

Famous predictions that didn't quite pan through

Do you ever feel as if you’re spinning your wheels and the the world is wrongly ignoring you? Perhaps it’s a boss who doesn’t appreciate your consistent, high-quality work and instead passes out promotions to the office brown-nosers. Perhaps you even feel that your work for God should be at least a little more appreciated in this world.

Sometimes people make big mistakes in judging others or in judging ideas. And I mean big mistakes. Check these out and see how they’ve stood the test of time.

“We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out.”
—Decca Recording Company executive rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

“We don’t think they’ll do anything in this market.”
—The President of Capitol Records on the eve of the Beatles’ first U.S. tour.

Elvis Presley: “You ain’t goin’ nowhere,son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”
—Jim Denny, manager of the Grand Ol’ Opry when he fired Presley after one performance.

“Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh only 1 1/2 tons.”
—Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, March 1949

“I think there is a world market for about five computers.”
—Attributed to Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”
—Ken Olson, president, chairman, and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value.”
—Editorial in the Boston Post, 1865.

“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 (not verified by Cerf and Navasky).

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
—Harry M. Warner, president of Warner Brothers Pictures, about 1927.

“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.”
—Lord Kelvin, British mathemetician, physicist, and president of the British Royal Society, about 1895.

“Professor Goddard…does not know the relation of action and reaction, and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react”.
—1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard’s revolutionary rocket work.

“[Airplanes] are interesting toys, but of no military value.”
—Maréchal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Supérieure de Guerre, 1911.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
—Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
—Attributed to Bill Gates, 1981.

Johann Sebastian Bach: “(His) compositions are deprived of beauty, of harmony, and of clarity of melody.”
—German music critic, 1737.

Ludwig van Beethoven: “An orgy of vulgar noise.”
—German composer reviewing the first performance of Beethovan’s Fifth Symphony. 1808.

Frederic Chopin: “Had he submitted… (his) music to a teacher, the latter, it is to be hoped, would have torn it up and thrown it at his feet - and this is what we symbolically wish to do.”
—German critic. 1833.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: “Far too noisy, my dear Mozart. Far too many notes.”
—Emperor Ferdinand of Austria after a performance of the “Marriage of Figaro”. 1786