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Roy Amara, a Stanford computer scientist, began making the point that we suck at forecasting innovation. In the beginning, there’s a period of wild excitement. Only to be met with disappointment. Amara’s Law came about saying, people tend to overestimate the impact of new technology in the short run, but underestimate it in the long run. Sometime after the disappointment, we get it right. Matt Ridley says in How Innovation Works: “I reckon these days it is fifteen years down the lane. We expect too much of an innovation in the first ten years and too little in the first twenty, but get it about right looking fifteen years ahead.”
Why We're Terrible at Predicting the Future (And How to Fix It)
So what exactly did Paul Saffo say and when did he say it?
Don’t write off the next big thing too soon