Inside Dean Kamen's Seceded Island of Geekery

mattnyc99 writes "The new issue of Esquire has a long, in-depth, intricate profile of Dean Kamen and his quest to invent a better world. Earlier this month, we discussed Kamen's Sterling-electric car, but this piece goes into much more detail about how that engine works — he got the original idea from the upmodded Henry Ford artifact in the basement of his insane island lab — and about how his inventions often go overlooked, including the Slingshot water purifier that Stephen Colbert made famous but that no one has actually bought yet. Quoting: 'To get the Slingshot to the 20 percent of the world that doesn't have electricity, Kamen came up with the idea of splitting it in half. Leaving the Stirling aside, he would try to develop a market for his distiller in parts of the developing world that have electricity but not reliable clean water. "There are five hundred thousand little stores in Mexico," he says. "If we can put one of these in 10 percent of them, that's enough to put it in production." That may be the killer app for the distiller.' So, is this guy all hype with overpriced devices, or is time for someone to take his genius (Segway aside) to the mass market?"

Comments

Or...

[Zordak]

So is this guy all hype with overpriced devices, or is time for someone to take his genius (Segway aside) to the mass market?

Or is he, as the title implies but the summary fails to make clear, a guy who has made tons of money selling stuff he's invented since the 80s, and has made enough money that he bought his own private island (with its own "navy" and "air force")and then half-jokingly seceded from the United States something like 20 years ago.

Kamen needs to invent a marketing machine

[DustyCase]

There are a lot of great R&D guys out there who have no idea how to get their product into the consumer's hands. Kamen started out making medical equipment (portable dialysis IIRC), and the Segway is the little brother of one of the best mobility devices (wheelchairs) in existence. But his track record is horrible when it comes to mass market devices. OTOH, you have the iPod, which is a very functional and stylish, yet underperforming, piece of technology, and the sell like mad. If he wants to turn the trend around he needs to spend some of that mountain of cash on a top shelf PR and Marketing firm, as opposed to the stunt publicity that "announced" the Segway.

Re:Kamen needs to invent a marketing machine

[Anonymous Coward]

There are very few inventors who have had the incredible mass market exposure that Kamen has enjoyed over the last ten years.

If his inventions during this interval have met with less than stellar success, it is certainly NOT because they were sheltered away.

They are super cool, but they just miss the market.

Genius?

[retech]

Next time you need kidney dialysis you won't need to question his genius.

And kudos to him for seceding from the union!

Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[the_macman]

...including the Slingshot water purifer that Stephen Colbert made famous but that no one has actually bought yet

Unfortunately philanthropy won't ever take off unless it's profitable. Just an inherit part of human greed. Sad but true. We have MORE than enough food to feed the entire human population, yet people still starve to death.

Case in point. For those of you who have seen Charlie Wilson's war, they end up giving millions of dollars in arms money to Afghanistan to repel the Russian invasion then when they ask for a million dollars to help rebuild the schools a US politician says, "Charlie, no one gives a shit about the schools."

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in the middle of going back to school after years of working in order to contribute something more effective than just a monetary donation to the third world. Years of making very good money, and the work I'm putting towards doing this is making me happier than the money ever did.

Posted anonymously because I'm not trying to brag - I'm just trying to make people think about what would actually make them happy.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[demonlapin]

The problem with this, of course, is that if you have enough money, you can create your own charity. Said charity can then employ your descendants to perform not-too-difficult jobs for rather-higher-than-average salaries.

If you have upwards of $10-$20M, this is a completely valid way to do things The hit in high inheritance taxes falls on those with just enough to be taxable but not enough to fund ways around it.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[canUbeleiveIT]

That's one reason why we should bring back massive (i.e. 90%) inheritance taxes. We need to force rich aging people to recognize their own finality.

I fail to see why wanting to transfer my hard-earned wealth to my children is any of the government's business.

The problem with your plan is that many of the supposed "rich" are merely people who have been prudent with their money by investing in their retirement from an early age instead of blowing it on new cars and oversized houses. Why should people who are thrifty enough to resist the consumer mentality be penalized?

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[theLOUDroom]

Rich people keep much of their money invested and keep the economy going. That is how they stay rich. That is how Americas stays strong.

Do you think having a bunch of useless Paris Hilton's is what makes out economy strong?

First off, money doesn't disappear. If there's a million dollars when someone dies and 90% of it goes to the gov't, that million dollars doesn't simply blink out of existence.

Second, labor generates wealth, not money.
People with money, make money because they own the means of production and society forces us to pay them for the use of this.

Take your idea to the extreme. Imagine I personally owned every square inch of land on the planet. All I do is sit on my ass and collect rent checks. I inherited this land from my parents and my children with inherit it from me.
Do you really think that helps society?
All it really does is suck money out of the economy. I do nothing. I get checks anyways.

This simple thought example proves how fundamentally flawed your reasoning is. If you admit that it would be bad for me to own every square inch of land on the planet, then you must then open the discussion regarding "How much is too much?" and "What do we do when some hits that limit?"

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[theLOUDroom]

So all of this money you collect, you just sit there with it?

You don't get it.
Yes I have money I can spend on a 100 foot mega-yach that otherwise could have paid for 1,000 people's college educations. Yes that will "create jobs".

The thing you just don't comprehend is that I never created any wealth to get that money. Someone else did all the work. I never even managed anything, I just collect checks.

This is money that someone else had to earn, but that goes to me. If it didn't go to me, it could go to the gov't or to the guy who created the wealth in the first place. The money going to me is a de-motivator for the people who actually drive the economy.

The thing you haven't shown is that I would do something that is any better for the economy than any or person or the gov't. Your theorizing is all trickle-down economics. Rich people aren't rich because the give their money away in order to stimulate the economy. Rich people horde their money and use it as a tool to get more money. As more and more money is sucked out of the working class, the reward for actually doing work becomes less and less. Everyone then suffers. While college educations for 1000 people would have employed as least as many people as building my mega-yacht, it has far reaching positive impacts into the future as opposted to my yacht which is just a rich man's toy.

Re:Sadly philanthropy isn't profitable.

[The_Wilschon]

Right, and when 30-year old Mom and Dad are killed by a drunk driver while coming home from the annual Christmas party, of course the government should take 90% of the money that they have, instead of it going to fund their two kids' housing, care, food, education etc, just because they didn't have the foresight to know exactly when they would die so that they could give all their money away first. Dumkopf.

Re:Way to go Dean

[Abreu]

Well, I am in Mexico and I can tell you that a lot of small businesses here consist on buying some midsized reverse osmosis/filtration/UV equipment and make money distributing 20 liter bottles of water in a given neighborhood.

So yeah, a lot of those small stores are already "crushing our feeble electricity distribution infrastructure", so there wouldn't be too much of a difference there. Not to mention that it is a way-too-powerful union what's crushing the electricity distribution here, but I disgress...

Re:Something completely different..

[Mr. Slippery]

it's like someone at Slashdot figured out CSS a few weeks ago and keeps messing with everything since then.

The problem seem to be that they haven't figured out CSS...if they had figured it out, these pages would be usable and non-ugly.

Re:But is his water-maker better? Cheaper?

[sagneta]

You hit the problem I've always had with him. In fact, I could add to the list a device that extracts water right out of the air with very little power. That could be powered by electricity and solves the issue of actually getting water at all which the other devices do not. Did he ask "Is the issue lack of technology or lack of access to technology?" He never asks that question. So everything is a technological solution which is not really what the world wants nor needs.

Re:Dean Kamen should stick to medical devices

[TellarHK]

Thinking like that is exactly _why_ the world needs people like Dean Kamen.

Irrational engineering has led either directly or indirectly to many, many of the world's great advances. Guys like Kamen are out there on the "crazy edge" of bleeding edge, for a good reason.

Cult of the Armchair Zeroes

[copponex]

Please, don't take this personally. I know you're just making a post on Slashdot. But why can't you even read one article about this before you make useless guesses?

After two minutes of Googling, I found this diamond in the rough, a patent application secretively titled "STIRLING ENGINE THERMAL SYSTEM IMPROVEMENTS", submitted by Dean Kamen. Though you may dislike the Segway, and I can't blame you for it, the technology came from his iBot wheel chair, which is the closest thing I've seen to offering someone who doesn't have use of their legs a chance at full mobility. This has improved the lives of thousands of people. Unless you're an aid worker or another genius inventor, your comparable contributions to society are far less, without even touching his more traditional medical inventions.

So, with all due respect, before you pat yourself on the back for shooting down an idea you are totally ignorant of, stop typing and read about the idea first. Then, if you have something useful to say, the world will be glad to read about your idea, and then reply.

Re:not impressed

[That's Unpossible!]

What have you invented for humanity? At any price?

Kamen has invented the portable dialysis pump, the iBot and related technologies (segway), a water filtration system ($1500 to purify 1000 liters a day), this slingshot device, and apparantly some stirling tech for developing nations.

Should the man give everything he makes away for free, or might it be OK to continue giving him another incentive to build some of these awesome devices?

You really know how to take the fun out of things, I'll bet.