--- title: It's Been 10 Years Since the BBC Interviewed Guy Goma description: In 2006, the BBC confused the Congolese job hopeful for an Internet expert and interviewed him on live TV with hilarious results. canonical: https://time.com/4325712/guy-goma-bbc-interview-wrong-guy-internet/ author: Simon Lewis article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-11T03:16:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:02:54.613Z og:title: It's Been 10 Years Since the BBC Interviewed the Wrong Guy og:description: Guy Goma turned up for a job interview, but ended up live on air og:url: https://time.com/4325712/guy-goma-bbc-interview-wrong-guy-internet/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4329a5609a6c21b1/698892aef887dcaf4ee95ccc/rtxn2pv.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2200 og:image:height: 1238 og:image:alt: A BBC logo is seen at the company's main offices, in west London, on the day the organisation announ.. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: It's Been 10 Years Since the BBC Interviewed the Wrong Guy twitter:description: Guy Goma turned up for a job interview, but ended up live on air twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4329a5609a6c21b1/698892aef887dcaf4ee95ccc/rtxn2pv.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # It's Been 10 Years Since the Wrong Guy Analyzed the Internet for the BBC > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=b84e9377-0614-43eb-96ea-b73aef19b3d8&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Apple Blows a 13-Year Streak [Watch (HLS stream): Apple Blows a 13-Year Streak](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JRTbyJjy.m3u8) (1:14)  _Published 2016-04-27. On Tuesday, Apple reported revenue of $50.6 billion -- down from $58 billion during this period last year._ by [Simon Lewis](https://time.com/author/simon-lewis/) ## Simon Lewis May 11, 2016 3:16 AM UTC  A BBC logo is seen at the company's main offices, in west London, Dec. 7, 2004 A BBC logo is seen at the company's main offices, in west London, Dec. 7, 2004 Toby Melville—Reuters by [Simon Lewis](https://time.com/author/simon-lewis/) ## Simon Lewis May 11, 2016 3:16 AM UTC In a development that’s likely to make you feel older than MySpace, what may be one of the watershed moments early in the era of the viral Internet has just passed it’s 10-year anniversary, and the Twitterverse has been [having fun remembering](https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=news&q=Guy%20Goma&src=typd). It’s now [more than a decade](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36261996) since Congolese job hopeful [Guy Goma](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4774429.stm) found himself offering his not-so-expert analysis of a legal dispute between Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and Apple Corp, The Beatles’ record label, over trademark rights. Goma, after arriving at the BBC’s West London headquarters for an interview for a job in the IT department on May 8, 2006, was mistaken for a studio guest, British technology journalist Guy Kewney, and ushered all the way into a live BBC News 24 studio. Looking baffled and nervously eying the cameras, the wrong Guy proceeded to have a go at answering presenter Karen Bowerman’s questions about the future of downloading. Ten years on, his answers seem actually quite prescient. (Remember, this was 2006, the same year Facebook became available to anyone other than college students, and the year before Netflix began streaming video into people’s homes.) “Actually, if you can go everywhere you’re gonna see a lot of people downloading through Internet and the website, everything they want,” he said, adding: “It is going to be an easy way for everyone to get something through the Internet.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4325712/guy-goma-bbc-interview-wrong-guy-internet/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4325712/guy-goma-bbc-interview-wrong-guy-internet/"},"headline":"It's Been 10 Years Since the Wrong Guy Analyzed the Internet for the BBC","datePublished":"2016-05-11T03:16:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:02:54.613Z","description":"And the Internet hasn't forgotten","url":"https://time.com/4325712/guy-goma-bbc-interview-wrong-guy-internet/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Tech","Internet","viral","BBC"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4329a5609a6c21b1/698892aef887dcaf4ee95ccc/rtxn2pv.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Simon Lewis","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/simon-lewis/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4329a5609a6c21b1/698892aef887dcaf4ee95ccc/rtxn2pv.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"A BBC logo is seen at the company's main offices, in west London, on the day the organisation announ..","caption":"A BBC logo is seen at the company's main offices, in west London, on the day the organisation announ..","creditText":"Toby Melville—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4325712/guy-goma-bbc-interview-wrong-guy-internet/","name":"It's Been 10 Years Since the Wrong Guy Analyzed the Internet for the BBC"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Apple Blows a 13-Year Streak","description":"On Tuesday, Apple reported revenue of $50.6 billion -- down from $58 billion during this period last year.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/JRTbyJjy/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-04-27T14:19:42.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JRTbyJjy.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4325712/guy-goma-bbc-interview-wrong-guy-internet/","duration":"PT1M14S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4325712/guy-goma-bbc-interview-wrong-guy-internet/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```