Ben was still an electronics analyst at Morgan Stanley. I graduated Harvard Business School a couple of days later. It looked like Mr. Clines didn't fully understand what he was writing about, but we sure appreciated the quote. Interest in what it did, i.e., being an electronic spreadsheet, was low. VisiCalc didn't appear in a major newspaper or business magazine for many months after that first mention.
Technology often takes a while to be appreciated and catch on.
See Ben Rosen's write up in a newsletter July 11, 1979. Ben left Morgan Stanley and eventually became a venture capitalist who funded Lotus, Compaq, and others, and has been chairman of Compaq for years. His brother Harold invented the geosynchronous satellite. We've been great friends ever since. Copyright 1999-2001 by Daniel Bricklin All Rights Reserved.