They Said It Couldn't Be Done

They Said It Couldn't Be Done

Oldies ... but a good reminder!

"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 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 Corp.)

"Who ... 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"

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in
their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and
founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

"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

"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

"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." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of
Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." --
Charles H. Duel

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous
fiction." -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at
Toulouse, 1872

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

"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

Cited on
http://www.interweavers.com/brett/humor/cantdo.html.
Submitted by John Connell, DNA/OPAC