In the early 1980s, McKinsey & Company created a forecast for AT&T of how many cellular phones would be in use in the world in 2000. It estimated this number to be 900,000. The actual number was greater than 100 million. In June 2007, then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told USA Today there was “no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item.” The iPhone currently has 42% market share in the U.S. Silicon Valley’s most respected venture capitalists can’t see even the near future. Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers produces a yearly report, Internet Trends, which is the tech industry’s bible. Its May 2013 report analyzed the leading players in social media and made predictions on the future of mobile technologies. It did not even mention WhatsApp—which Facebook acquired for $19 billion in February 2014. This was the largest acquisition in history of a venture-backed company and was not even on Meeker’s radar. washingtonpost/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/07/31/why-we-should-believe-the-dreamers-and-not-the-experts/
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 23:52:08 +0000