I haven’t heard or read too many predictions for 2020 even though it’s that time of year when pundits of various stripes stare into their crystal ball and give us their insights. Alas, in these days of the internet, failed prediction retrieval is often only a click or two away.

The last several years have defied the predictions and wrecked the confidence of the pollsters, soothsayers and prognosticators. How many times over the last 3-4 years have we shook our heads at election results, referenda, political developments etc and thought, “Who saw that coming?”?

I’ve just finished reading a book on a family divided between East and West Germany, and the book finishes with the dramatic fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall in 1989—who saw that coming?

I haven’t heard or read too many predictions for 2020 even though it’s that time of year when pundits of various stripes stare into their crystal ball and give us their insights. Alas, in these days of the internet, failed prediction retrieval is often only a click or two away. Witness these examples from such notable worthies as Bill Gates and others:

1. There is no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance – Steve Balmer, CEO of Microsoft, 2007
2. No need for a computer in the home – Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corp in 1977
3. Nobody would ever need more than 640KB of memory on their personal computer– Bill Gates in 1981, (allegedly).
4. Spam will be solved – Bill Gates, 2004.
5. You don’t need a 2Gb hard-drive – Mark Loughridge, 1999 (currently I have somewhere in the region of 10TB, that’s around 5000 times as much, sitting on my desk…what do I know!)

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