Phil Simon: I’m An Expert. Don’t Trust Me. – SXSW V2V 2014

Phil Simon: I’m An Expert. Don’t Trust Me. – SXSW V2V 2014

March 15, 2016



“Apple is already dead.”

So said Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s chief technology officer, in June of 1997.
How’d that prediction work out?

Not so well. Today, Apple is worth more than its Redmond-based counterpart.

Now, Myhrvold was no idiot. Yet his prediction was completely and famously incorrect. It turns out that he’s far from alone. In 1998, Yahoo! management passed on a little company called Google–for a paltry $1.5M.

Whoops.

Outside of business, “experts” dismissed bestselling franchises like the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series, not to mention books from John Grisham and Steven King. TV shows like Seinfeld and Breaking Bad and bands like Rush and the Beatles never should have become über-successful. After all, the experts all knew better.

Except they didn’t.

In this expansion of a similar TechCocktail talk I gave in 2013, I’ll discuss how business and life are inherently unpredictable. I’ll draw upon myriad examples and academic research.

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