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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!'"
Dean Kamen took a big chance inviting Jeff Bezos, he's lucky Bezos didn't run out and try to patent the idea.
Mike
(I agree with Jobs, btw.)
sulli
RTFJ.
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).
this week i reach 1,000 miles on the segway ht. i really like mine.
the segway ht fits my travel needs pretty well, i don't think it's for everyone-- but it's worked out okay for me. i run, walk, ride a bike, take cars but most of my travel is via a segway...i wrote it up, here's the travel log so far:
http://www.bookofseg.com/100days/
it didn't replace walking, i walk, cycle and jog. the segway replaced my car. i don't think it can do that for everyone, but it did for me.
steve jobs said "i think [the design] sucks. its shape is not innovative, it's not elegant and it doesnâ(TM)t feel anthropomorphic". it's very functional and the desgin (in my opinion) is good for version 1 of a product, i'm looking forward to the new models which are smaller, lighter with greater range.
cheers,
pt
Who, Voldemort?
☠
A close friend of Jobs overheard him say:
"This is just like a Windows PC. It moves rather slowly, and at any moment you might get dumped off"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
you probably saw this
http://www.gothamist.com/archive/002674.php
Disco Stu was talkin' to you.
'It think it sucks!'
I'm impressed. I didn't realize the thing was both sentient, and self-loathing.
You're new here, aren't you?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Mr. Jobs doesn't like it because it's not "iSegway". It needs to have nice shapely plastic bumpers that are see-through, so you can see the nice engine doing it's thing. And the gyros need to light up when they work. When the iSegway stops it also needs to play a very warm "DING" tune, something that's fuzzy and nice like "You've Got Mail", but maybe more like "You've just stopped".
It's all about looks, people.
Never noticed this happening before.. There is a typo on the article synapsis on the front page, but not on the article page itself (ie if you click Read More).
:-\
From the front page:
Steve Jobs' gut reaction, quoted in the article: 'It think it sucks!'"
From the article page:
Steve Jobs' gut reaction, quoted in the article: 'I think it sucks!'"
Is someone really manually retyping these twice?
I hope, if so, that Slashdot has at least employed a Cadre of Elite Geese to do this... Oh yea it says right here that they have.
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
After a while, Steve gets up and starts to look around. He looks at the framed dollar bill on the wall and notes that the bar opened in 1987 (long after his Macintosh computer came out.
He goes over to the windows, and verifies that they can be opened and closed, and also minimized (with the use of shades). Next, he looks behind a table and finds a mouse. It is only after he finds the trashcan behind the bar that he decides to sue the bar owner for infringment of his GUI patents.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
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.
...a skinny Marvin, the depressed andriod?
Do not read this sig.
-----
Jobs: Will it come with Firewire?
Dean: Um... Firewire? Why would it--?
Jobs: Will it come with Firewire? Will it?
Dean: I don't understand what you're--
Jobs: You really ought to license Firewire from us and slap a logo on this thing and that's all there is to it.
Dean: But what on earth would people want--?
Jobs: Why would they not want the the most reliable, insanely fast connectivity solution built in to this revolutionary device? How will they sync their Palms and iPods to this? Have you thought about that?
Dean: That's ridiculous. I don't--
Jobs: Okay. Nevermind. This sucks.
------
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Its interesting to get unfiltered Steveness like this. For those decrying his rudeness... where have you been? He has been like this from the beginning.
The important thing is he was giving them the unvarnished truth. His insightfulness was genuine- he saw directly to the heart of the issues.
The insiders were obviously much too close to things, too sure of themselves. They had insulated themselves for too long- they would have benefitted much more if they had brought outsiders like Jobs and Bezos' much earlier in the process.
His rejection of the pleasantries and Powerpoint crap was the essential "Don't waste my time" of someone who actually values their time. He has two companies to run- he doesn't need to waste time watching somneone click through a stupid time-wasting presentation.
I am not like him at all- much too polite in real life. But he sure as hell makes sure things happen and he makes real products that people will pay premium dollars for. They should have paid even closer attention to what he said than they did.
http://www.woz.org/seg/ - Steve Wozniak, the *brains* behind Apple, seems a lot more Segway enamoured.
i'm surprised by jobs' comments but i shouldn't be. his hardlined stance and staunch trenching of ideas is exactlly why he was fired in the 80s but his reaction toward the segway screams what he's doing at apple. after reading the article, doesn't it suggest that he is more of a force at Apple in pushing the UI, business strategy, product/manufacturing strategy than anyone else? Its clear that Jobs respects designers ("They'll give you stuff that will make you shit in your pants...") and it seems like Jobs hands ideas off to designers to give him something he doesn't know he wants (iMac, iPod UI, translucent plastics).
considering everything that went wrong with the Segway launch (how many people have ACTUALLY seen a ginger in person?) its possible to say that Jobs was partially right. the article talks about the ginger but it screams the way Jobs thinks and approaches a problem. the launch of ginger is interesting but give me a book about Jobs rants from the past 8 years and I'll shell out for that. Not to mention the Pixar vs Disney negotiations... (Disney is going to get ownned)
just ranting...
doesn't it make you wonder about WWDC being Apple's internal code for 'We Will Delight Crowds'?
i don't get paid anything, i don't work with or for segway in any way (read my site) i'm just someone who bought a segway and writes about my experiences with it.
it does seem i'm the only person who has a segway that reads slashot and is willing to post (and get all sorts of nasty comments and insults). have at it.
>>> "Heh. Yeah, and Apple has what percent of market share?"
You can't visit a popular technology-oriented discussion board these days without hearing the oft-misconceived phrase, "Apple has 5% of the market and Windows has 95%.
There are two things wrong with this statement, the first being that if Apple has five, Windows must have 95. We as users of alternative operating systems know this not to be the case. Of course, a considerable number of desktop PCs do not bear the Windows logo.
The second problem is the implication that "market-share" can be used interchangeably with "installed-base." When most people use the word "market-share", what they really mean is "installed-base."
For example, while Apple's Macintosh market-share may be 3 percent, its installed-base is approximately 10 to 12 percent of the computing industry, a figure that's roughly similar to that of Linux based PCs.
When these figures are coupled with the remaining alternative operating systems on the market, Windows installed-base works out to be somewhere in the way of 80 percent -- a far cry from the 95 figure that is often touted.
So how does market-share play into the picture you ask?
Market-share is determined by quarterly or annual sales figures. The problem with market-share statistics is that it implies that all computers retain the same level of usability over time. It assumes that once a computer is sold, it will retain its productivity status for as long as its parts continue to function.
Unfortunately, usability statistics and replacement purchasing habits of consumers vary significantly between platforms thus causing the market-share figure to look skewed.
Linux users (for example) are known to keep aging computer hardware useful long after it was left for dead by its former Windows using owner. The open source community consistently manages to squeeze every last ounce of processing power from even the most aged hardware available.
Similarly, Mac users are known to keep their computers as primary productivity tools until the gears fall off. This is really a testament to the quality that Apple incorporated into its hardware and software over the years.
Unfortunately, the incorporation of quality into these platform's coding efforts will only fuel the notion that they are far less popular as what they are as long as market-share is the most commonly used gauge to determine platform popularity.
Because the Linux operating system's distribution model isn't tied directly to sales, it will never get a truly accurate gauge as long as market-share is touted over installed-base.
Apple on the other hand, may be in a better situation for the foreseeable future.
As we all know, the troubled economy has caused desktop PC purchases to fall to an all time low. This fact may actually work to Apple's advantage.
Everything Apple has been working toward pivots on the release of OS X running on next generation hardware.
Apple is scheduled to release next generation professional hardware in the coming weeks. The release of this hardware, when coupled with Apple's Panther operating system starts the completion of Steve Jobs' rebuilding of Apple.
It's this combination, which the computer using populace has been waiting for, many of which have said that they've been holding back their computer purchases for Apple to get the time table right.
This sudden sales windfall will occur in parallel with the PC industry's slow sales rate, which means that as long as the semi-misleading market-share statistic continues to be touted; Apple's percentage will likely jump from its current 3 percent status to double-digit growth, (somewhere in the 12 percent range) in as few as 6-9 months.
Remember, marketshare for any given company is calculated in relation to the sales of its competators. This will cause Apple's market share to make an even larger spike considering the fact that each individual PC manufacturer's sales wont be there to counter Apple's.
Of course, if the technology spinmeisters try to turn the table and tout installed-base (as they should have all along), Apple's current 12 percent status is covered there too.
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
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.
..someone, tell me what I can do on a Segway that I cannot do on a bicycle.
Shit your pants.
The following was related to me by my co-worker Eric, who was the first American employed at Apple Japan:
Shortly after Eric arrived in Japan in the early 80's, he accompanied Steve Jobs on a visit to Canon. Cannon recently introduced a desktop copier which intrigued Steve Jobs. At the meeting Steve Jobs challenged the Canon execs and engineers to design a smaller laser printer the same way they were able to shrink the size of a copier.
In those days a laser printer was about the size of a washing machine or a large business copy machine. The only laser printers available were floor models only; nothing you could put on a desktop.
One year later Steve Jobs was invited back to Canon in Japan to see the results of his challenge. Eric went with Steve, a female translator who worked for Apple Japan, and a Japanese manager working for Apple. Steve Jobs and Eric were the only Americans there at the meeting, and only the Apple employees spoke English; none of the Canon people did. All communication from Steve Jobs to the Canon people were done via the translator.
When they got to Canon, a roomful of proud, beaming Canon engineers and managers presented Steve Jobs with their 'minaturized' laser printer - no longer the size of an American washing machine, just perhaps the size of a Japanese washing machine. Just the same it was not the desktop model that Steve Jobs envisioned.
When the interpreter relayed the question from the Canon folks asking what he thought of the their new laser printer, she really squirmed when Jobs said "Tell them it is a piece of shit!"