I'm definitely a dreamer. I encourage everyone to be. The older I get, the more I realize that most people who aren't successful, aren't victims of circumstance or just bad luck. They either didn't do the right things, or were doing the right things and gave up. They say things are the darkest right before dawn, and I think that's true. Its easy to get discouraged, but if you really stick to it, I believe you will persevere. Its hard when people more established or successful tell you its not going to happen though. So I have a list of quotes here that proves otherwise. Prominent successful businessmen of their time, making bold predictions, and in retrospect, looking quite foolish....
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” – Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Patent Office, 1899 - I'm pretty sure someone has invented something in the last 111 years.
“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on its way out.” – Decca Recording Company, rejecting The Beatles, 1962 - In the unlikely event you're not familiar with the Beatles, they put out 19 albums in 7 years, and have sold over 132 million albums. They easily could have given up or broken up here. Good thing Yoko wasn't around yet.
“So we went to Atari and said, “Hey we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, 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 even got through college yet.” – Apple Computer Co–Founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in he and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer. - If you don't already own something Apple I don't know you, so just stop reading.
“I’m just glad it will be Clark Gable falling on his face and not Gary Cooper” – Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in “Gone With the Wind” - If you adjust for inflation "Gone with the Wind" is the highest grossing movie of all time. Movie tickets were $0.25 in 1939, and GWTW sold 202 million tickets, with a US population. Avatar commanded as much as $16 per ticket, only selling 76 million, to a population of over 300 million. Further evidence that Avatar sucked.
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 - I have five computers in my office right now. If you count my iPad.
“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 telephone is already on its way out so this is beyond dated at this point.
“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 FedEx. - Mr. Smith is worth over $2.1 billion now. Good thing he didn't listen to his professor.
“Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try to find oil? You’re crazy.” – Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859 - I kinda wish they had listened to the drillers here. I mean, Drake was obviously right, but we would have avoided this BP disaster.
