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

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

No. The exact wording is credited to computer scientist Alan Kay, who says he coined it "in a fit of passion" around 1971 at a Xerox PARC meeting and repeated it in talks and papers through the 1980s. The underlying idea is older still — Nobel laureate Dennis Gabor wrote in his 1963 book Inventing the Future, "The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented." The line was only later, and wrongly, pinned on management writer Peter Drucker.

Who really said it

The best way to predict the future is to invent it

Not Peter Drucker — actually Alan Kay Alan Kay b. 17 May 1940 · American computer scientist, Xerox PARC

Disputed In copyright

The exact wording is credited to computer scientist Alan Kay, who says he coined it “in a fit of passion” around 1971 at a Xerox PARC meeting and repeated it in talks and papers through the 1980s. The underlying idea is older still — Nobel laureate Dennis Gabor wrote in his 1963 book Inventing the Future, “The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.” The line was only later, and wrongly, pinned on management writer Peter Drucker.

Last verified 10 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it” Alan Kay, coined c. 1971 at Xerox PARC (often misattributed to Peter Drucker). The idea traces to Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future, 1963.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Peter Drucker. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by Alan Kay). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

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Provenance

The documented trail

Popular wording: Alan Kay, coined c. 1971 at Xerox PARC
Earlier idea: Inventing the Future (1963)
Idea's author: Dennis Gabor — “The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.”
Drucker link: A later misattribution — first seen by 1986, in a “create it” variant

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Alan Kay’s reformulation of an idea he traces back to Dennis Gabor’s Inventing the Future (1963).

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

How we verified this

The most-quoted wording is credited to Alan Kay, who says he first uttered it around 1971 at Xerox PARC, per Wikiquote’s Alan Kay page.
The earliest documented version is Nobel laureate Dennis Gabor’s 1963 Inventing the Future: “The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented,” as traced by Quote Investigator.
Peter Drucker got the credit only later, and only for a “create it” variant — Quote Investigator finds that wording ascribed to him by 1986 (and again in 1991), decades after Gabor and Kay, with no basis in Drucker’s own writing.

In copyright

The exact modern wording is attributed to Alan Kay (living author), first used around 1971 and repeated in his publications and talks — well after 1931 — so it is treated as in-copyright. The older kindred sentence from Dennis Gabor’s Inventing the Future (1963) would likewise be in-copyright.

Fact-check

How Drucker got the credit

This is a favorite line in tech and management circles, and over time it drifted onto several famous names. Here is who actually said what.

Peter Drucker not supported

A “create it” variant was being ascribed to management guru Peter Drucker by 1986, and again in 1991 newspaper columns — never the exact “invent it” wording — but no source in Drucker’s own work has been found.

Alan Kay true author

Kay states he coined “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” around 1971 at Xerox PARC and used it for years afterward; it is credited to him on Wikiquote.

Dennis Gabor originator of the concept

Gabor’s 1963 book Inventing the Future contains the earliest known form: “The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented,” per Quote Investigator.

Dandridge M. Cole / Abraham Lincoln unsupported

Similar remarks are floated under other names, and a Lincoln version circulates with no supporting evidence whatsoever.

The concept is Dennis Gabor’s (1963) and the famous wording is Alan Kay’s (c. 1971) — not Peter Drucker’s, per Quote Investigator.

Context

Why it caught on

The line became a mantra of Silicon Valley precisely because it inverts the usual relationship to the future: instead of forecasting what will happen, it tells the technologist to go make it happen. Coming from Alan Kay — whose Xerox PARC group prototyped the personal computer and the graphical interface years before the industry caught up — it read as lived advice rather than a slogan.

Because the sentiment sounds like distilled management wisdom, it drifted onto Peter Drucker, the era’s most-quoted management thinker. That is a common fate for pithy, optimistic lines: they migrate to whichever famous name makes them sound most authoritative.

Don’t predict the future — build it.

Explore

Filed under

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

Creativity Change Leadership

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: We Cannot Predict the Future, But We Can Invent Itquoteinvestigator.com

The definitive origin trace: Gabor 1963, Kay c. 1971, and the later Drucker misattribution.

Wikiquote: Alan Kayen.wikiquote.org

Attributes the exact wording to Kay (1971) and notes the competing Drucker, Cole, and Gabor claims.

Wikipedia: Alan Kayen.wikipedia.org

Background on Kay and his Xerox PARC work on the personal computer and GUI.

Wikipedia: Dennis Gaboren.wikipedia.org

The Nobel physicist whose 1963 Inventing the Future holds the earliest known form of the idea.

Wikipedia: Peter Druckeren.wikipedia.org

The management writer to whom the line is popularly but wrongly attributed.

The true author

Who was Alan Kay?

Alan Kay

b. 1940 · American computer scientist · Xerox PARC pioneer

Alan Curtis Kay (born 1940) is an American computer scientist and a central figure at Xerox PARC in the 1970s, where he helped pioneer the graphical user interface, object-oriented programming, and the vision of the personal computer. He originated the maxim as a rallying cry for researchers who believed they should build the future rather than forecast it, and he has used and been credited with the line for decades.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Quote Investigator

Garson O’Toole (Quote Investigator), “We Cannot Predict the Future, But We Can Invent It,” 27 September 2012, citing Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future (London: Secker & Warburg, 1963) and Alan Kay’s c. 1971 reformulation.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The best way to predict the future is to invent it’?” Last verified 10 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-best-way-to-predict-the-future-is-to-invent-it