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!'"

Comments

Jobs is a good businessman

[numbski]

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.

Re:Jobs is a good businessman

[thatguywhoiam]

But man can he act like an arrogant prick!

I think he can be an arrogant prick, but I actually agree with pretty much everything he said in the exerpt.

Look at the questions: Why does the design does not excite in any revolutionary way? Why are you building your own factory? These are issues that plague the Segway today. Also his suggestion for Stanford was a good one, it would have possibly forestalled some of the knee-jerk reaction seen in places like San Francisco.

Also, comments like the grocery store example were pretty insightful. That is exactly the kidn of thing that the Segway was supposed to help with.

There is a difference between 'servant leadership' as you put it, and demanding excellence and accountability from people. I've dealt with people like Jobs before - maybe not to his extent - but they only want people to be on the ball. Frankly I kind of admire that quality a bit; too many people are afraid to just confront and ask when necessary.

Re:Jobs is a good businessman

[dasmegabyte]

Jobs seems to be doing pretty well as an insistant prick. Why should he go all Ghandi just to appease a few Apple fans?

Dude, it's Apple's "insistant prick" features that have made such good:
"We're going all GUI."
"We're going PowerPC."
"No clones."
"We're making colorful PCs."
"If you want to add a peripheral, you're going to have to plug it in. No opening the case!"
"Now we're making ONE color of PCs. And we're making it damn pretty."
"People can rip CDs. They can burn their own."
"No new development for OS 9."
"$.99 per song."

Apple alone has the courage to combine market research with the newest technology and announce with pride that their way is the best way. And they're right a lot more than they're wrong. If Jobs was a wishy washy guy, Apple would just be Micron, or worse, IBM.

Re:Jobs is a good businessman

[dasmegabyte]

What percent of the US marketshare does BMW have? And would you call BMW a shitty company for selling so few cars?

I think it's quite telling despite having 3.5% of the market, Apple has billions in the bank and amazing pull in the industry.

Apple doesn't NEED to sell a lot of machines as long as they sellquality ones at a decent margin. There will always be a demand for it. The only time you need to sell a lot of machines is when you're in cutthroat competetion, like Dell/Micron/Gateway/HPCOMPAQ. That 3.5% market share doesn't look so small when you make 3x as much per machine -- and you don't even sell a PC under ~$800.

Why they suck, first hand account.

[ianjk]

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.

Arrogant Pricks in Successful Businesses

[mykepredko]

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

Jobs was doing them a favor

[EccentricAnomaly]

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.