		Famous Last Words

 "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --
 Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 
 1949

 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- 
 Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

 "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

 "But what ... is it good for?" --Engineer at the Advanced 
 Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the 
 microchip.

 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." 
 --Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment 
 Corp., 1977

 "640k ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981 

 "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.

 "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who 
 would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" --David
 Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment i 
 the radio in the 1920s

 "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn 
 better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." --A Yale University 
 management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing 
 reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal 
 Express Corp.)

 "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner, Warner 
 Brothers, 1927.

 "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." 

 "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." --Response to Debbi Fields' idea of 
 starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

 "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." 
 --Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

 "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." --Lord Kelvin, 
 president, Royal Society, 1895.

 "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. 
 The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." 
 --Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 
 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

 "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 H-P 
 interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.

 "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and 
 reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum
 against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge 
 ladled out daily in high schools." --1921 New York Times
 editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work. 

 "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.

 "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find
 oil? You're crazy." --Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist 
 to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

 "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." 
 --Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

 "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." --
 Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure 
 de Guerre.

 "Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H. 
 Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

 "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". --Pierre 
 Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

 "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.
