[fragmede]

> Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.

-Lord Kelvin. 1895

> I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. Thomas Watson, IBM. 1943

> On talking films: “They’ll never last.” -Charlie Chaplin.

> This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings… -William Orton, Western Union. 1876

> Television won’t be able to hold any market -Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox. 1946

> Louis Pasteur’s theory of germs is ridiculous fiction. -Pierre Pachet, French physiologist.

> Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. — Marshal Ferdinand Foch 1911

> There’s no chance the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. — Steve Ballmer, CEO Microsoft CEO. 2007

> Stocks have reached a permanently high plateau. — Irving Fisher, Economist. 1929

> Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? —Harry Warner, Warner Bros. 1927

> By 2005, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine. -Paul Krugman, Economist. 1998

[mdp2021]

An important number of those remarks were based on a snapshot of the state of the technology: a fault in not seeing the potential evolution.

Examples of people who could not see non (in some way) dead-ends do not cancel examples of people who correctly saw dead-ends. The lists may even overlap ("if it remains that way it's a dead-end").

[jcalvinowens]

In fairness to Irving Fisher: if you bought into the market at its peak in 1929, you wouldn't recover your original investment until about 1960.

[ksec]

I am just wondering did you have this all somehow saved up or did you pull it out of somewhere? Amazing list of things. Thank You.

[fragmede]

Gosh no. I knew most of that list but I'll be honest and tell you that I used ChatGPT to come up with it. it's a collection of quotes to begin with so I think that's okay. I'm not passing off someone else's writing as my own, I'm explicitly quoting them.

[MrMcCall]

I'm pretty sure that Lord Kelvin was also in the cohort of fools that bullied Boltzmann to his suicide.