Microsoft is just the next idea; I don’t think it’s the next Standard Oil. My guess is that there will be new classes of inventions and that Microsoft’s period of dominance will be relatively short … You’ll need a driving entrepreneurial force and a pretty large amount of capital just to establish the new systems. If you delay all that with years of bureaucracy and litigation, frankly, you allow the Japanese, the Germans, and the Chinese to figure out what they’re trying to do and simply replace them.
Predictor: Gingrich, Newt
Prediction, in context:For a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Esther Dyson interviews U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at his House office about the future of the Internet. Dyson asks about the Clinton administration’s Department of Justice challenges to Microsoft’s business practices, and quotes Gingrich saying: ”Microsoft is just the next idea; I don’t think it’s the next Standard Oil. My guess is that there will be new classes of inventions and that Microsoft’s period of dominance will be relatively short … In a world market that’s in a period of radical change, the burden of proof ought to be on those who fear monopolies. The odds are at least as great that you’ll need a driving entrepreneurial force and a pretty large amount of capital just to establish the new systems. If you delay all that with years of bureaucracy and litigation, frankly, you allow the Japanese, the Germans, and the Chinese to figure out what they’re trying to do and simply replace them. To preemptively decide that a monopoly will be established in an industry that does not yet exist strikes me as a tad premature. George Gilder’s the guy who helped me understand this. What you really want to look for is a block obsolescence – meaning that this is a terrific new technology but, by the way, this is a terrific newer technology. The key to a monopoly is to get in the middle of an intersection and charge rent. If, in fact, people invent new intersections at a rate faster than a monopoly can charge rent for the old one, monopolies dramatically lose their meaning … Bill Gates is going to get very rich, and may well be the richest man in the 21st century because he’s found a good product line that pays good royalties … But it’s like saying of Tom Clancy or Stephen King, ‘It’s unfair that they make so much money from all those books.’ What would happen if we only let them print half as many as people want to buy? The question is, what is it Microsoft will stop others from doing? I mean, Standard Oil stopped its competitors and drove them out of business. And IBM, for the longest time, tried to stop the invention of the 21st century – and failed. So I would want to see predatory behavior and a capacity to maintain a monopoly before I was worried. All we see right now are theoretical worries by a lawyer and the Department of Justice about a system that doesn’t exist, which could screw up the American capacity to dominate the world market. I want jobs in America. I’m very nationalistic in the sense that I’d like the highest value of jobs in the U.S.”
Biography:Newt Gingrich was a U.S. Congressman and the Speaker of the House of Representatives who was known to be so tech-savvy that Wired magazine ran stories on his tech policy positions. He opposed Senator Exon’s controversial Communications Decency Act. (Legislator/Politician/Lawyer.)
Date of prediction: May 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Friend or Foe: Newt Gingrich Talks the Talk About Being a Revolutionary. And He Walks the Walk by Ramming Through the Most Radical Political Agenda Since the New Deal. So Why Does He Still Leave Us Feeling Uncomfortable?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.08/newt_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney