Smart People Can Ask The Darndest Things

Someone with an acute sense of humour and perhaps scientific training once said that the two most common elements in the world are hydrogen and stupidity.

Here's a great story about stupidity from famous Beatles record producer Sir George Martin. It comes from the bonus material on the DVD documentary "Produced by George Martin."

Sometime early in his career as a young record producer at the famous Abbey Road Studios, following a board meeting, the directors of EMI came to the studio to see what was done there. Martin tells the story.

You had all these directors and non-exec directors wandering around saying "Well tell us about this now."

And of course, I being the  young Martin, was given the job of escorting them around. And I showed them all the studios and told them what we did. And one bloke said, "Look Martin, I want to get something from you because I'm puzzled by this."

I said, "Yes?"

"Well, last year, as a group, we issued six hundred and sixty singles."

"Yes," I said, "that's about right."

He said, "And only twenty-five of them made the charts."

"Yes."

And he said, "And those twenty-five were responsible for ninety percent of our profits." 

 "Yes," I said. "That sounds reasonable."

He said, "Why did you make the other six hundred and thirty-five?"

I was floored. I thought, "What a stupid thing to say." This was a man who earned about a hundred times more than I did and he had no concept of what we did in the studios."