Steve Ballmer famously slammed the iPhone - here are 12 other times bosses got it wrong on new tech

Sometimes the next big thing isn't easy to spot-even when its the iPhone, which celebrated its 10th anniversary today.

Steve Ballmer, founder of Microsoft, infamously said that Apple's new invention was a waste of money.

"Five hundred dollars? Fully subsidized? With a plan? I said that is the most expensive phone in the world," Ballmer reportedly said of the first iPhone.

"And it doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard. Which makes it not a very good email machine."

Here are a few of our favorite times bosses laughed in the face of disruption, courtesy of research firm CB Insights. We're publishing them here with permission.

Some of the predictions are old enough that they're obviously wrong - people dismissed personal computers and streaming video. And some of those making the predictions ran companies that are now defunct because they missed the boat. With others, the jury is still out as to how off base the dismissal was.

You can see the full list of 33 quotes on CB Insights blog: