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Sometimes the next big thing isn’t easy to spot. This is especially true when you have a massive legacy enterprise to protect.
Research firm CB Insights compiled some of the most outrageous times bosses laughed in the face of disruption. We’re publishing them here with permission.
Some of the predictions are old enough that they’re obviously wrong — people dismissed personal computers and streaming video. And some of those making the predictions ran companies that are now defunct because they missed the boat. With others, the jury is still out as to how off base the dismissal was.
Here are a few of our favorites. You can see the full list of 33 quotes on CB Insights blog:
Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes on streaming video
AP Photo/David Pellerin
“Neither RedBox nor Netflix are even on the radar screen in terms of competition,” Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes told the Motley Fool in 2008. “It’s more Wal-Mart and Apple.”
His video-rental chain filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Today Netflix is worth $ 61.93 billion.
Steve Ballmer on the first iPhone
Stephen Brashear / Getty Images
“Five hundred dollars? Fully subsidized? With a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world,” the former Microsoft CEO reportedly said of the first iPhone.
“And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine.”
Nintendo’s North American president on mobile games
AP Photo/Dima Gavrysh
These mobile games are “candidly disposable from a consumer standpoint,” said Nintendo North America president Reggie Fils-Aime in 2011.
Maybe 65 million monthly active Pokemon Go players changed his mind.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
