What Color is your CD-Rom?

This story was shared in a meeting today and I thought it was pretty funny. One of those "Microsoft Lore" myths maybe, but it came from a pretty pure source: back in 1994 when Windows Medial Player was new to the market, they were trying to establish how big of a product it would be, and therefore how much investment was warrented. Marketing gave a presentation that included the quote: "by 1995 40% of all consumer PC's will include a CD-ROM drive." The marketing VP, Rich Tong, was intrigued by this comment and asked for the source to be found. After an exhaustive search that wound its way from analyst to analyst to consultant and to another analyst, the source was revealed as none other than...Rich Tong! When word came back to him Rich just laughed and said, "that's funny, I thought that number looked familiar: I totally made it up a few years ago." Turns out the industry noticed, from PC manufacturers to CD-ROM suppliers to industry analysts and consumer magazines, and lo and behold Rich's "prediction" was transformed into reality.

So next time I have the opportunity to make a comment in a marketing meeting, I'm going to say "Jesse Todd will have a million dollars by 2015." Sound good?