Well it is speculated that Satoshi had posted on an internet forum about the concept of bitcoin in the early 2000's, around the time that paypal first came out.
Wowa, you just hit something home to me. PayPal, and eBay also for that matter, have only really been around since 2000, but today we consider them indispensable. Theoretically that is where Bitcoin will be in 15 years.