There are many (often overlapping) lists of “silly statements” or anecdotes where someone misjudges current or future events in a ridiculous manner. Examples of such statements include record companies not wanting to sign the pre-fame Beatles and Billy Gates having naive thoughts about computer memory.
Below I will discuss some of these statements, to show that they were not necessarily that silly.
The majority of the entries from the used source (cf. below) seem legitimate; the cited examples are cherry-picked.
I make interpretations largely on the raw texts, without considering a greater (unknown) textual context. Lack of this context, as well as the environmental context, can lead to misinterpretation. I suspect that this lack of context is behind the perceived silliness of many entries.
An important special case is that a statement appears silly today, but might have been both correct and perfectly non-silly in the right time-frame, say no longer than ten years from the date the statement was made.
Some of the cited blunders might have happened as claimed; others might be merely attributed or urban legends.
Many statements might have been reasonable estimates at the time, just faulty. Notably, every now-and-then a horse with horrible odds wins.
Success and quality are not necessarily linked, and many statements could merely reflect that the maker of the statement was more rational or had a more refined taste than the great masses.
The true blunders appear to fall into two main categories: Firstly, not predicting a future paradigm shift (e.g. the move from vacuum tubes to transistors or the later move to integrated circuits). Secondly, completely misjudging the current situation.
The examples are quoted verbatim (including attributions; but with loss of formatting) from a page titled “Bad Predictions”e:
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." – Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
The reader is supposed to laugh at this in light of the millions, possibly billions, of computers present today. However, the quote never says anything about 2010 (the year this article is written). Seeing that he uses the word “is”, he might well have meant 1943—and might very well have been right. It is certainly highly unlikely that he would have considered the long-term number to be less than several times five, seeing that the number of universities and governments with an interest was likely to grow over time, as prices of computers dropped and their abilities rose, and as computers became needed to keep a competitive edge.
While he is unlikely to have foreseen the extreme changes in prices and abilities that did follow, it is a near certainty that he expected considerable changes. He could for instance look back at stunning developments of aeroplanes in the previous few decades, or contemplate how movies went from jerking, silent, and black-and-white movies to “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gone with the Wind” in roughly the same time frame. What he would have answered when asked about the world-market close to seventy years later is a matter of speculation—but it would not have been “maybe five”.
"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." – Popular Mechanics, 1949
Very similar, both in interpretations and analysis. The one point that I find worthy of criticism is the reduction in the number of vacuum tubes: By analogy with transistor-based computers, this is hard for me to reconcile with a preservation of capabilities—then again, my knowledge of the hardware architecture of vacuum tube computers is very superficial, and I could misjudge this issue.
"640K ought to be enough for anybody." – Attributed to Bill Gates, 1981, but believed to be an urban legend.
This hinges on whether Gates was speaking for 1981 or the long-term: Unlike the preceding examples, there is no clear “likeliest candidate”.
It is notable, however, that there likely were many at the time who did not foresee the immense shift in computer use that would follow during the next few years—and it is almost funny that Microsoft became a leader in wasteful use of hardware and over-optimistic assumptions about what hardware a “standard” computer had.
"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.
This is likely a pure blunder; however, it is unclear whether the sender misjudged the telephone entirely, or merely failed to consider future improvements.
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" – H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
This might have been less of a blunder and more of an attempt to keep the silent technology afloat by propaganda. Notably, Warner must have known about theater, where the voice of an actor is, arguably, his greatest asset.
Another angle is that silent movies differ from “talkies” in character, even to such a degree that they could be considered a separate art form. It is conceivable that the statement was related to this difference, and expressed a preference for the “silent art”. Certainly, many of the classic silent movies are highly enjoyable—more so than some of the Hollywood movies of today.
Looking back at this from 2023, with more readings on movie topics behind me, this angle seems quite plausible, as many appear to have viewed “talkies” as a fad and/or as something that led to worse movie making.
(Considering the repeated introduction and disappearance of 3D movies, it is not a given that even something as revolutionary as “talkies” would be a non-fad.)
"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 HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.
The vast majority of all humans who feel that they have a great idea, are willing to make sacrifices for that idea, and so on, will eventually prove to be failures—and if businesses were to invest in every promising idea proposed by someone without a track-record, they would lose more money than they earned.
Notably, both the idea and the capabilities of the involved people must be correct—as must timing, market, whatnot.
In effect, this example is comparable to calling someone stupid for not having bought a lottery ticket that turned out to be a winner.
"I see no good reasons why the views given in this volume should shock the religious sensibilities of anyone." – Charles Darwin, The Origin Of Species, 1869.
Darwin was right, IMO: While religious sensibilities were shocked, the reasons were not good... However, this points to a typical problem among great thinkers: They tend to over-estimate the rationality and intelligence of others (at least until they have had a few painful lessons).
"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.
I am not aware of the Nautilus—nor do I know whether it comes even close to solving the problem. Fact remains: The problem has so far not seen a practical and complete solution. Even world-leading body builders, for whom this is one of the main priorities, are imperfect in this regard.
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." – Albert Einstein, 1932.
If Einstein said that “There is not the slightest indication[...]” concerning a field he had expertise in, he was likely correct. Notably, this statement is very different form e.g. “The atom cannot be split.”—and no error need have been made, if he was merely summing up the current scientific consensus.
(The second half of the statement could arguably be attacked as too restrictive, depending on what he meant by “at will”.)
"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." – Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
The airplanes of the day or airplanes in general? He may well have been right in the first case.
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