“Radio has no future.”
Lord Kelvin, Victorian physicist – 1897
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Chairman of IBM, Thomas J. Watson – 1943
“I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.”
Sony Pictures CEO, Michael Lynton – 2009
I think we can forgive Lord Kelvin and IBM for not seeing the future coming. But someone should tell Sony: that Internet thing? It’s kind-of happened.
Year founded: 1995 Website launched: 1995 NASDAQ: AMZN |
Year founded: 1917 Website launched: 1997 NYSE: BKS |
Which pretty much says it all.
For the full story, read this interview of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder.
In Part I we looked at how the Internet changes everything. This is how you can take advantage of it.
I meet a lot of big, established companies who don’t ‘get’ the Internet.
“We’ve got a guy looking at that.”
“None of our customers use the Internet anyway.”
“We’ve already got a website. I haven’t really used it, but it looks really nice.”
Many businesspeople dismiss the Internet as a place for their website and email. That’s equivalent to seeing the PC as a nicer looking typewriter, and about as dangerous. History is littered with the carcasses of once great companies that failed to embrace revolutions: from the combustion engine to the microchip. Just like these, the Internet changes the whole game.
