Did Peter Drucker say "The best way to predict the future is to create it"?

Q: Did Peter Drucker say "The best way to predict the future is to create it"?

No. There is no primary source in which Peter Drucker wrote or said this. The memorable sentence — "The best way to predict the future is to invent it" — belongs to computer scientist Alan Kay, who dates it to a 1971 Xerox PARC meeting; its earliest documented ancestor is Dennis Gabor's 1963 book Inventing the Future ("The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented"). The "create it" variant is a later swap, and Drucker was only retro-credited beginning in 1986.

Who really said it

The best way to predict the future is to create it

Not Peter Drucker — a maxim from Gabor & Alan Kay Alan Kay b. 1940 · American computer scientist, Xerox PARC pioneer & Turing Award laureate

Disputed Rights unconfirmed

There is no primary source in which Peter Drucker wrote or said this. The memorable sentence — “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” — belongs to computer scientist Alan Kay, who dates it to a 1971 Xerox PARC meeting; its earliest documented ancestor is Dennis Gabor’s 1963 book Inventing the Future (“The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented”). The “create it” variant is a later swap, and Drucker was only retro-credited beginning in 1986.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed — copy with the correction

“The best way to predict the future is to create it” Often credited to Peter Drucker, but unsourced. The maxim is Alan Kay's (“The best way to predict the future is to invent it,” 1971), rooted in Dennis Gabor's 1963 Inventing the Future. — via Quotle.info

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Alan Kay — American computer scientist · Xerox PARC, Smalltalk & the personal computer · 2003 Turing Award. Theme: "The best way to predict the future is to create it". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The best way to predict the future is to create it". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the maxim actually comes from

Popular (wrong) credit: Peter Drucker, with “create it”
Earliest documented idea: Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future, 1963
Popular sentence form: Alan Kay, “…is to invent it” (1971 claimed)
“Create it” wording: Documented from 1982; pinned on Drucker from 1986

The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented. — Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future (1963)

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. — Alan Kay, attributed to a 1971 Xerox PARC meeting

The version handed to Drucker simply swaps “invent” for “create.” Neither the idea nor the sentence originates with him.

Quote Investigator: We Cannot Predict the Future, But We Can Invent It

The paper trail

1963: Physicist Dennis Gabor writes in Inventing the Future, “The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented” — the earliest attestation Quote Investigator found.
1971–82: Alan Kay dates his sentence “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” to a 1971 PARC meeting; Wikiquote records it as his, with documented print use by the early 1980s.
1986: A “create it” version starts being ascribed to management guru Peter Drucker, spreading through newspapers by 1991 — with no primary Drucker source ever cited.
Today: Quote databases such as Goodreads still print it as Drucker’s, cementing the error.

The exact wording — “The best way to predict the future is to create it” — is a floating paraphrase with no single identifiable authored source: it is a “create it” swap on Alan Kay’s 1971 “invent it” sentence, itself descended from Dennis Gabor’s differently-worded 1963 line. Because this precise phrasing cannot be tied to one specific published work, no copyright status is asserted; the underlying maxim family (Gabor 1963, Kay 1971) is in any case post-1931 and not public domain.

Fact-check

How Drucker got the credit

This is a genuine feel-good, clever line — exactly the kind that drifts onto a famous management name. Peter Drucker is a magnet for it, but the trail runs through a physicist and a computer scientist, not him.

Peter Drucker Unsourced

No book, essay, lecture or interview by Drucker has ever been shown to contain this line. Quote Investigator finds the “create it” version ascribed to Drucker only from 1986, decades after the maxim was already circulating — and databases like Goodreads repeat it without any citation.

Alan Kay Best-supported

Kay says the sentence came out of a 1971 Xerox PARC meeting, and Wikiquote’s sourced entry assigns it to him; it appears in his print work by the early 1980s.

Dennis Gabor Earliest documented

The oldest form Quote Investigator located is in Gabor’s 1963 book Inventing the Future: “The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.”

Abraham Lincoln Fabricated

A “predict your future…create it” version circulates under Lincoln’s name; Lincoln scholars find no evidence he ever said it.

Bottom line: the memorable sentence is Alan Kay’s (“invent it,” 1971), the idea is Dennis Gabor’s (1963), and the “create it” wording pinned on Peter Drucker has no primary source at all.

Context

Why it sticks to Drucker

Peter Drucker genuinely argued that organizations should shape what comes next rather than merely forecast it — so a crisp aphorism about ‘creating the future’ feels like something he would have said. That resonance, not any documented quotation, is why the line migrated onto his name.

The reality is a relay: Dennis Gabor supplied the thought in 1963, Alan Kay minted the memorable sentence around 1971, and an anonymous ‘create it’ edit later got attached to Drucker in the mid-1980s.

The idea is Gabor’s, the sentence is Kay’s, and the Drucker credit has no source.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Purpose Power

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator — full investigationquoteinvestigator.com

The authoritative trace: Gabor 1963, Kay 1971, and the Drucker attribution appearing only in 1986.

Alan Kay — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced entry attributing “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” to Kay, with the 1971 PARC context and the Gabor 1963 root.

Goodreads — the Drucker misattributiongoodreads.com

Example of the widespread but unsourced crediting of the “create it” wording to Peter Drucker.

Alan Kay — BrainyQuotebrainyquote.com

Records the original “invent it” form under Alan Kay's name.

Peter Drucker — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Background on the management writer to whom the line is popularly (and wrongly) credited.

Dennis Gabor — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

The Nobel physicist whose 1963 Inventing the Future carries the earliest documented form of the idea.

The actual source

So who really said it?

Alan Kay

b. 1940 · American computer scientist · Xerox PARC, Smalltalk & the personal computer · 2003 Turing Award

Alan Kay is an American computer scientist central to the invention of the modern personal computer, object-oriented programming (Smalltalk) and the graphical user interface during his years at Xerox PARC. He dates the maxim “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” to a 1971 PARC planning meeting, and it became a rallying cry for building the future rather than forecasting it. The idea’s earliest documented voice, however, is physicist Dennis Gabor, who wrote in 1963 that “the future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.”

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary chronology

Garson O’Toole (Quote Investigator), “We Cannot Predict the Future, But We Can Invent It,” September 27, 2012, tracing Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future (London: Secker & Warburg; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963) and Alan Kay’s 1971-dated maxim; Drucker attribution first documented 1986.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The best way to predict the future is to create it’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-best-way-to-predict-the-future-is-to-create-it