Slashdot Mirror
Steve Jobs And Jeff Bezos Meet The Segway
deadwood writes "Ever wanted to know what Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos really thought about the Segway the first time he saw it? At the Harvard Business School site, there's an excerpt from the new book 'Code Name Ginger', giving a recounting of the Apple and Amazon bosses' first impressions of the device. Steve Jobs' gut reaction, quoted in the article: 'I think it sucks!'"
I won't argue the above remark. Without a doubt it is the truth.
<rant>
But man can he act like an arrogant prick!
I love the products his company makes, and I respect his opinions, but the man needs some serious lessons in humility and respect for others. Servant leadership, lead by serving and showing others, not just by blasting them for being wrong.
</rant>
Okay then.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
They think something about an object, great for them. What's next? Uproar in the slashdot community because Steve Jobs farted? This is supposed to be a new site (or at least that's what I keep telling myself), not some sort of weird online tabloid for the geek culture.
Hate me!
saying "Yeah it sucks man!!!"
/. Personnaly, I am excited, but as an AC will undoubtedly tell me soon, who cares what I think.
Maybe its not the greatest thing ever (I don't know, never seen one in person), but for a brand new product that is not a ripoff I think its doing pretty well. How great was MacOs 1.0 compared to OSX? Not very good at all, but its a starting point, the initial idea is out there, and basically it works. Now its time to expand and make it better.
Everyone is always ranting on here about how nothing is innovative anymore, and that all of these laws stifle innovation, and when something that is actually innovative finally comes out, here come the naysayers. I guess I should expect this from
Great Linux Site
he didn't turn it on, that's all.
the segway without being powered on it much like standing on a log with platform stuck to it. the prez needed to step off of it. we've all fallen off bikes, tripped, etc...usually we don't have people taking our pictures.
COUGH*astroturf*COUGH
Sorry, my coffee just went down the wrong way.
Steve Jobs is right. It looks like a medical device more than a consumer product. Who wants to drive a Popemobile when they can drive a Ferrari?
IT SUCKS. Someone needs to shoot the person who made those pieces of crap. First off, they don't have anything to make them visible in the evening hours (reflectors/lights). Combine that with being totally quiet and you have an accident waiting to happen. I almost got run over by one of them on the way to the bar the other day. I went to step out from the sidewalk on to the street and one comes zooming out in front of me. It's large footprint made every car that had to pass it move into the oncoming lane of traffic (totally in the oncoming lane if the segway had to pass a parked car). I understand that it has some cool technology, but they are an annoyance to the drivers and pedestrians that have to deal with them.
when all is said and done, weren't the problems actually legitimate stumbling blocks for Ginger?
people haven't bought them, they were overpriced, and they don't look that impressive.
it's a $X,000 scooter, at least that's what it looks like.
a Viper is just another really big engine, but put it in the right body....
But remember, for Steve, design IS idea.
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
Steve Jobs is referring to the appearance of the Segway. The article summary misquotes this quite deceptively.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
Before I get modded flamebait, please realize I am serious here.
This whole story (and everything that preceeded it) smells to high heaven of: hype
The segway is a product for consumers to buy -- if they want it bad enough to pay that price for it. That's it. That's the story.
The rest of everything else, with respect to this "story" is fluff. I don't give a crap what Jobs thinks of it. I don't care what Bezos has to say about the issue. And I certainly don't give a fuck what Dean (the creator) has to say about the matter.
Why is this thing being shoved down our throats so hard? Yea, we saw it. It's a remarkable piece of engineering -- but I don't think I'll redesign my driveway around it quite yet.
> weirdly compelled to incesstantly advertise the Segway on your own
Why is everyone jumping on this guy? Wierdly compelled? In that case, stop incessantly advertising [Linux|Macs|Windows|Whatever], since you obviously have an ulterior motive.
He's entitled to his opinion and this is called word-of-mouth advertising. Guess what IT'S EVERYWHERE, but just because he's one out of maybe 10 people on here who owns one, he's a corporate lackey? WTF. I don't own one, don't want one, but I don't care if he posts suggesting people try it. Maybe, someday, I'll see one & get to try it out. If I think it's cool enough, I'll be a dork and tell everyone to get one too.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants. Anyone who owns a business not built on other people's innovations isn't likely to be selling anything of worth...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
When I read the account of the meeting, my impression of Steve Jobs was similar to that of what I have received of other effective senior executives of large companies.
1. He is a very quick study and he came in prepared. It was a bit strange that he had notes written on his hand but he knew what he wanted to say.
2. He had an agenda. He clearly didn't like the design and had issues with the lack of an introduction plan and the idea to manufacture on their own.
3. He's been around the block and part of his questions and statements are really tests to see how well everybody is prepared. I'm sure if anybody knows how quickly something could be copied, it would be Jobs.
4. It's interesting to me to hear that people think that he is an arrogant prick - I guess I've worked with a lot of them over the years.
From my experience with this type of executive (as well as my own experiences over the years), what I walked away from this article is that Kamen and the company that he produced aren't in the league they need to be for the product to be a success. They clearly weren't prepared for businessmen of the calibre Bezos and Jobs.
This article probably explains to me why the Segway hasn't been a great success - instead of Kamen, who's a great product idea man, they needed some kind of arrogant prick like Jobs to control the project.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
" What percent of the US marketshare does BMW have? And would you call BMW a shitty company for selling so few cars"
They would be a shitty company if they had Apple like practices in the auto world. For example, if they sold cars that cost twice as much as a Chevy but were slower than the Chevy....and they made their cars so they could only go on 5% of the roads out there unless you paid extra to get a Chevy chassis put under it.
Job's comments were spot-on. He was blunt and rude so that they would listen to his points and they were really lucky to get advice from someone with Job's experience, and they should have listened instead of getting irritated and trying to get back to their meeting agenda. Agendas should be used to help start a discussion, not to stop it!
The account made the Segway people sound like amateurs who suddenly found themselves playing in the major leagues. Jobs was doing them a favor by playing the role of a grizzled old coach and being very blunt in trying to talk them out of doing some stupid things.
I wish I could get Steve Jobs to stay up all night thinking about my new product! They should've listened more to what he had to say.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Just had a SegWay rolling around the backyard a few hours ago. Turned out to be the Public Service of NH (the electric company) meter reader. Since many of the meters are wired for radio, she just glides within range of the meter, grabs the reading, and then takes off for the next building.
She absolutely loves the device. Says she gets about 2 hours from the battery depending on how much rough terrain she goes over (you should see our sidewalks) and has a spare set for up to 4 hours total travel.
The Segway itself is shared with a nearby town for their meter readings.
As amazing as it is to watch someone actually working on one of these things, it was even more amazing to see her go up to a house and step off the SegWay in order to do a manual reading. Watching the SegWay balance by itself takes you right back to all those basic feedback control experiments from college. --R
"Users can use the funky squiggly key if they want an alternate method."
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Don't give a fuck. I don't care. But, I do take issue with your troll comment. I wasn't trying to be a troll. Simply stating that this was a BS story.
My original point, if you read my post, was that this is a non-story. We might as well be asking Ken Lay what he thinks about the global energy markets and this new energy product called "trading". While he may have some expertise and thoughts on the matter, what he says is really not all that important to the success/failure of the product. The same is true here. Who cares what a couple of techo-celebs have to say about a product that has miles and miles to go before it even shows up on peoples radars....
Having interest in such matters is exactly the definition of hype.
What I love about the way brandido wrote it was:
But that isn't true. He had seen Ginger a day earlier and had time to reflect on the whole thing. He thought it was solid, but lacked a look that people would be drawn to. The quote should have had this additional thought added to it But instead he wanted to go for the shock value. Somehow this appearing on
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
Damn, Steve Jobs was on top of things here. He hit the nail on the head and could be considered be 100% right about what he said. Just some of the things he thought:I have to admit - his last point is very good, they had a very narrow market at the start, which alone let it get slammed. From the article:Think about it. Why is one of the biggest reasons that the Segway is slammed? No one has gotten on one. Hell, I would guess very few of us have seen one in person. I saw one briefly, but didn't get a good look at it. I have heard the "It sucks, it sucks", but I don't see a lot of people out there who have used one that could give a solid review of it. There is a little scooter place in the shopping center near my place that does all they can to get their scooters seen. Just from watching people ride them, I have a better feel for what those scooters can do than a Segway.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
Anyone geek would love to have a segway, even if it's just for a few days.
You just dump on this guy because he's got one, and he likes it. And YOU DON'T.
Hey, I like my Canon 1D, my Canon GL2, and a bunch of other cool stuff I have; if you were talking about that, I'd tell you in spades how great it was.
The guy is an honest gadget freak, and it's interesting to find out how he uses it.
So stop putting him down.