Steve Jobs And Jeff Bezos Meet The Segway

from the not-so-impressed dept

Most people seem to have forgotten this now, but the whole reason that the Segway first caused a huge mysterious stir, was an announcement from a publisher that a writer was going to write a "behind the scenes" look at how a "revolutionary" product nicknamed "Ginger" or "IT" was created. The announcement of that book, back in early 2001 generated all the hype that surrounded the Segway until it eventually launched to a collective "that's it?". Those associated with the project were ticked off about the leak of the book project and kicked the writer off the project, denying him inside access to the players soon after. Of course, he still came out with the book, entitled, Code Name Ginger: The Story Behind Segway and Dean Kamen's Quest to Invent a New World and Harvard Business School is running an excerpt about a meeting where Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos absolutely trash some of the plans for the Segway, challenging the team on a number of their decisions. Bezos thinks that getting regulatory approval is going to be a problem (which, in some cases, it has been) while Steve Jobs seems to think the thing looks terrible, that they should outsource the design and manufacturing of the product, and they'll have a big problem with copycat devices.

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