World's Worst Predictions

1. Theoretically, television may be feasible, but I consider it impossibility--a development which we should waste little time dreaming about.- Lee de Forest, 1926, inventor of the cathode ray tube
2. I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. - Thomas J. Watson, 1943, Chairman of the Board of IBM
3. It doesn't matter what he does, he will never amount to anything.- Albert Einstein's teacher to his father, 1895
4. 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
5. We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962
6. Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927
7. 640K ought to be enough for anybody.- Bill Gates, 1981
8. Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction. - Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872
9. Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
10. We don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.- Hewlett-Packard's rejection of Steve Jobs, who went on to found Apple Computers
11. In 1939 The New York Times said the problem of TV was that people had to glue their eyes to a screen, and that the average American wouldn't have time for it
12. An English astronomy professor said in the early 19th century that air travel at high speed would be impossible because passengers would suffocate
13. Airplanes are interesting toys, but they have no military value.- Marshal Ferdinand Foch in 1911
14. Whatever happens, the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping.- Frank Knox, U.S. Secretary of the Navy, on December 4, 1941