We all love predictions. And all of us, including eminent persons, make them all the time. But as the following quotes will show, predictions can go horribly wrong, especially in the fields of science and technology and even politics and entertainment. As a marketer, do not always go by what people have to say about your new business or product; if you are totally convinced, go ahead boldly.

1. “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” Michael Dell of Dell Computers about Apple in 1997, the year Steve Jobs came back to the company he founded.

2. “The iPhone] is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard which makes it not a very good e-mail machine…” Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s then CEO, in 2007.

3. “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.” The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer in 1903 not to invest in the Ford Motor Co.

4. “Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” Darryl Zanuck, movie producer,20th Century Fox, in 1946.

5. “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), in 1977.

6.“With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.” Business Week, 1968.

7.“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” Decca Records after rejecting The Beatles in 1962.

8.  “Children just aren’t interested in witches and wizards anymore.” An anonymous publishing executive to J.K. Rowling in 1996.

9.  “The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000, at most.” IBM to Xerox in 1959.

10. “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.” Yale University professor  to Fred Smith, on his paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. Smith went on to found FedEx.

11. “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

12. “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.

13. “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.

14. “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

15. “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.

16. “A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.” A response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields’ Cookies.

 17. “Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” William Thomson, Lord Kelvin British scientist, 1899.

18. “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 founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.

19. “It will be years – not in my time – before a woman will become Prime Minister.” Margaret Thatcher, 1974.

20. “Ours has been the first, and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality.” Joseph Ives, after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.

21.  “Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.” Workers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

22. “Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”  Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929, just before the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

23. “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.

24. “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.” Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre, in 1904.

25. “There will never be a bigger plane built.” A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin-engine plane that could hold ten people.

26. “Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction.” Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

27. “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.

28. “Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances.” Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of television.

29. “That virus [HIV] is a pussycat.” Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, 1988.

30. “I promise you [that] in [the] 21^st century, Narendra Modi will never become the Prime Minister of the country…but if he wants to distribute tea here, we will find a place for him.” Mani Shankar Aiyar, member of INC that got decimated in the 2014 Indian general elections.

Be careful before making predictions. And always treat any prediction, even if made by the most respected person on earth, with a handful of salt.

Visual courtesy :  https://www.flickr.com/photos/capitrueno