Bill Joy? George Gilder? Bill Gates? Dan Gillmor? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: Bill Joy is a top computer scientist who helped to develop the UNIX operating system and co-founded Sun Microsystems. He formulated an important insight now called “Joy’s Law” about the distribution of expertise in organizations. Here are three versions: No matter who you …
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Software Is Eating the World
Marc Andreessen? Ben Horowitz? Dear Quote Investigator: The companies Uber and Lyft are worth billions of dollars and are juggernauts in the transportation sector. Yet, neither company owns a fleet of vehicles. The multibillion dollar company Airbnb has revolutionized the hospitality sector, yet it owns no hotels or motels. These companies control pivotal software systems …
The Stone Age Did Not End Because the World Ran Out of Stones, and the Oil Age Will Not End Because We Run Out of Oil
Ahmed Zaki Yamani? Don Huberts? Nader H. Sultan? Andrew Hoskinson? Jeroen van der Veer? Thomas Friedman? William McDonough? Dear Quote Investigator: A recent presentation about advances in renewable energy emphasized the dramatic cost reductions occurring in solar and wind power. The speaker argued that reliance on fossil fuels would decrease substantially in the future. The …
Never Doubt That a Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens Can Change the World; Indeed, It’s the Only Thing That Ever Has
Margaret Mead? Donald Keys? Norman Vincent Peale? Patrick E. Haggerty? R. H. Edwin Espy? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: A popular energizing statement about small groups changing the world is usually attributed to the influential cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead. Yet, I have been unable to find a solid citation. Would you please help? Quote Investigator: Researchers …
If You Invent a Breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence So Machines Can Learn, That Is Worth 10 Microsofts
Bill Gates? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I saw an advertisement on the “USA Today” website that claimed Bill Gates once spoke about a technology that was ripe for invention and would be worth 10 Microsofts. The ad did not identify the technology. Did Bill Gates really make a remark of this type? Quote Investigator: In …
Science Makes Progress Funeral by Funeral
Paul A. Samuelson? Max Planck? Thomas S. Kuhn? Henri Poincaré? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Resistance to revolutionary scientific theories is intransigent. Progress only occurs when the prestigious detractors from a previous generation die out. Here are four versions of a maxim eloquently stating this viewpoint: Science advances funeral by funeral. Science advances one funeral at …
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We Must Expand Life Beyond Our Little Blue Mud Ball—or Go Extinct
Elon Musk? Apocryphal? Dear Quote investigator: Controversial and path-breaking entrepreneur Elon Musk started the rocket company SpaceX because he is passionate about traveling to Mars. He said something like: If mankind does not get off of this mud ball then it will go extinct. Would you please help me to find a citation? Quote investigator: …
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Thirty Years from Now the Big University Campuses Will Be Relics. Universities Won’t Survive
Peter Drucker? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The famous management guru Peter Drucker apparently made a provocative prediction about education: Universities won’t survive. Is this quotation accurate? Would you please help me to find a citation? Quote Investigator: In 1997 “Forbes” published an interview with Peter F. Drucker under the title “Seeing things as they really …
There is No Reason for Any Individual To Have a Computer in Their Home
Ken Olsen? David H. Ahl? Gordon Bell? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I was looking through a collection of woefully inaccurate pronouncements delivered by experts, and I saw a remark attributed to Ken Olsen, a prominent computer industry pioneer who founded the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) which built minicomputers. DEC was perfectly positioned to create a …
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If We’re Lucky, Robots Might Decide To Keep Us as Pets
Isaac Asimov? Marvin Minsky? Paul Saffo? Edward Fredkin? Bruce Sterling? Dear Quote Investigator: Reportedly, a top researcher in artificial intelligence once said something like: Humans will be lucky if superintelligent robots treat them as pets. At some point a grim elaboration was appended: If humans are unlucky, they will be treated as food. Would you …
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