Back to the Future
“Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public … has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company …”
A U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913
The quote above is from this list of equally amusing failures to predict the success of new technology.
Aside from the slightly frightening confirmation that simply being too forward-thinking can land you in trouble with the law (Galileo had similar problems), the list also highlights another uncomfortable truth.
Some of the quotes come from leading experts. Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, two Royal Society presidents…
If these luminaries have so spectacularly demonstrated their inability to accurately predict technological advancement, then what chance have the rest of us got?
And yes, let’s address the elephant in the room, why would you engage a technical due diligence consultant to help you decide whether the technology company you’re about to invest in is going to be a success?
Well, let’s firstly clear up that we’re not purely in the business of future gazing. Technical due diligence mostly consists of expert investigation to test the viability of a technology, and verify performance claims made by its creators.
When it comes to predicting functionality and commercial success, we should only make informed projections, qualified with a known degree of risk.
It might be argued that we’re actually in a stronger position today than many of the quoted experts. We can call on the knowledge of many specialists and access any relevant academic literature in an instant.
But part of technical due diligence is knowing the limitations of what you can be sure of and maintaining an awareness of the element of risk that remains.
No doubt leading experts will continue to make wild predictions that turn out to be false, but as technical due diligence practitioners it’s important to separate technical certainty from conjecture when communicating with clients.
Oh, and don’t be too concerned for before-his-time innovator Lee DeForest; he had a fair few wildly inaccurate predictions of his own:
“To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances.” – Lee DeForest, 1926
“While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.” – Lee DeForest, 1926
“I do not foresee ’spaceships’ to the moon or Mars. Mortals must live and die on Earth or within its atmosphere!” – Lee DeForest, 1952