“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
— Widely attributed to Charles H. Duell, Director of the U.S. Patent Office in 1899, though some are uncertain who really made the comment.
“There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.”
— Nobel Physicist Robert Millikan, 1923.
“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.”
— Boston Post, 1865.
In 1861 a German named Phillip Reiss invented a machine that could transmit music and he was about to develop the telephone. However, every expert in Germany convinced him such a device would be useless because the telegraph (Morse Code) already worked so well. Not many years later Alexander Graham Bell “invented” the telephone and became a wealthy man. Germany was Bell’s first and largest customer.
— Reiss: 1861, Bell: 1876.
“640K ought to be enough for anybody”
— Bill Gates, Microsoft, 1981.
“There is no need for any individual to have a computer in their home.”
— Ken Olson, President of DEC, 1977.
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
— Thomas Watson, IBM, 1943.
“Fred Smith came up with the idea of an overnight delivery service while he was a student at Yale. His business professor, the United States Postal Service, UPS, and almost every expert in the U.S. said that such an idea would never work. Fred Smith is the Founder of Federal Express.”
— 1971 to present.
In 1937 Chester Carlson invented the process of making photocopies, called “xerography” at that time, from the Greek words xeros for “dry” and graphos for “writing”. Almost every company Mr. Carlson approached, including General Electric, IBM, Kodak, RCA, and many more, along with the experts, said the idea had no merit. Why? Because no one in their right mind would buy an expensive copy machine when carbon paper was so cheap, plentiful, and convenient. The company that eventually recognized the importance of Mr. Carlson’s machine came to be known as “Xerox.” Of the estimated $150 million that Mr. Carlson earned from Xerox, he had given $100 million to charity by the time he died suddenly in 1968.
— 1937 to present.