A random list of hilariously wrong future predictions:
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“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” - Decca Recording Company on not signing The Beatles (1962)
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“If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.” - W.C. Heuper, the director of the National Cancer Institute’s Environmental Cancer Section (1954)
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“Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” - Darryl Zanuck, a 20th Century Fox movie producer (1946)
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“How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under deck?” - Napoleon Bonaparte when told of Robert Fulton’s steamboat (1800s)
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“There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable.” - Phillip Franklin, vice president of the White Star Line, which had produced the Titanic (1912)
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“X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” - Lord Kelvin, British physicist (1883)
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“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication.” - William Orton, President of Western Union (1876)
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“Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” - Dr. Dionysius Lardner, Irish writer (1830)
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“Stick to your day job. You’re never going to make it as a singer.” - Eddie Bond, a radio host who didn’t think Elvis Presley would make it as a singer (1954)
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“I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.” – HG Wells, English writer (1901)
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“Stock prices have reached a permanently high plateau.” - Irving Fisher, Yale economist, after the Dow Jones reached 381.17 points (1929)
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“Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” - Lord Kelvin, British physicist (1895)
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“A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” - New York Times (1936)
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“The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.” - President of the Michigan Savings Bank (1903)
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“Cinema is little more than a passing fad.” - Charlie Chaplin (1916)
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“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” - Thomas Watson, president of IBM (1943)
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“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop, because women like to get out of the house, like to handle the merchandise, like to be able to change their minds.” - Time Magazine (1966)
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“I predict the internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.” - Robert Metcalfe, Founder of 3 Com (1995)
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“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.” - Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO (2007)
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“Everything that can be invented, has been invented.” - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of US patent office (1899)
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“Hillary Clinton will win by a landslide against Donald Trump. I expect her to win 46 states. I try to minimize election predictions—especially long before the voting on election day – but I consider this prediction one of the easiest I have ever made.” - Brent Budowsky, Observer.com (2016)
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“Fooling around with alternating current (AC) is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever.” - Thomas Edison (1889)
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“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” - William Preece, British Post Office (1876)
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“There’s just not that many videos I want to watch.” - Steve Chen, CTO and co-founder of YouTube expressing concerns about his company’s long term viability (2005)
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“Everyone’s always asking me when Apple will come out with a cell phone. My answer is, ‘Probably never.’” - David Pogue, The New York Times (2006)