I was chatting about Wilhelm recently with a fellow photo enthusiast
who has a few more years under his belt than I do; he made the
following statement, and I'd like to confirm it. Not because I
disagree with him, but because I am curious as to the history of
Wilhelm, this info is pretty important to me, and I want to make sure
that none of it is exaggerated or misremembered.

What he said was this:

"Wilhelm got his reputation in the seventies by predicting accurately
that contary to their claims, Kodak's most popular new papers would
last less than a decade."

Is that all true regarding 'predicting', 'most popular', 'Kodak's
claims', 'less than a decade', etc.? If not, how did Wilhelm build his
reputation exactly? Also, any historical sources you've got would be
very helpful.

Thanks for any insight.

DB.