Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Technology: The 3 Most Visionary Sentences Ever

By Jeremy Fain, December 10, 2006

By chronological order:

- “I think there is a world market for maybe 5 computers.” Tom Watson, Chairman of International Business Machines Inc., 1943

- “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, Founder of Digital Equipment, 1977

- “You can probably build a nice little company based on web search technology, but you can’t build an empire on it.” Louis Monier, Founder of Altavista (now working for web search giant Google; also a former researcher @ DEC, see the former sentence)

I love these sentences. Not that I’m making fun of the great people who came up with these, but I wonder whether I’ll be able some day in my life to beat them.

Disclaimer: I know, I forgot Bill Gates’ supposedly “640 Kb should be enough for anyone” on purpose since he’s always claimed he never said so. I’m taking his word for it.

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  2. Study Trip to Silicon Valley / San Francisco
  3. The Euro vs. Dollar double gambetto for high tech corporations
  4. Lessons from Microsoft's acquisition of ScreenTonic
  5. Saul Klein on entrepreneurship in Europe, & myself on career starts everywhere

categories Business strategy, CIO, Clusters, Consulting, Economics, Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Europe, Google, IBM, Internet, MNC, Microsoft, Silicon Valley, Software, USA, innovation

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5 Responses to “Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Technology: The 3 Most Visionary Sentences Ever”

  1. Rupert Schiessl says:
    December 10, 2006 at 12:30

    Thanks for that, Jeremy! You seem to understand the needs of your readers! Two days ago I was looking desperately for all these sentences with friends. Can you tell us where you found them?

  2. Jeremy Fain says:
    December 10, 2006 at 12:42

    Hey Rup, I didn’t ‘find’ these anywhere. I just happened to know these quotes, and I googled it (well actually, exaleaded it) to have more details such as the exact date.

  3. Jeremy Fain says:
    December 10, 2006 at 12:43

    Rup, a 2 sec. search on Google helped me find this: http://www.anvari.org/fortune/Famous_Last_Words/

    The next time we see each other, I’ll show you how to use a search tool ;-)

  4. Rupert Schiessl says:
    December 10, 2006 at 13:02

    Thanks! But YOU are my favorite search tool! Quicker than Google!

  5. Jeremy Fain says:
    December 10, 2006 at 13:05

    Rup…By the way, I’ve just realized the quote from Marc Monier isn’t in the Anvari link I gave you just above.

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