Flutterby™! : Code Name Ginger

Over at Sacred Cow Tipping, Mike linked to an extract from a book called Code Name Ginger (alternate link) about a meeting between facilitated by John Doerr between Dean Kamen, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos wherein Steve Jobs gives a lot of interesting feedback on the marketing and design of the Segway. There are lots of good bits, enough that I think this book just went on my "must read" list, but here's a paragraph about Jobs taking on the notion of doing their own manufacturing:

Partly, explained Tim, because giving our code to someone else would be a great risk. Not a good reason, in Jobs's view, because the code could easily be reverse-engineered. No it couldn't, said Tim. Could, said Jobs. He added that Tim should be spending money and management time on other things, especially since there was no way he could convince any world-class manufacturing and procurement people to move to New Hampshire, for God's sake, his tone implying that only slow-witted rubes could bear such a place. Dean lifted an eyebrow.

Now New Hampshire has its appeals, but if we look at the history of the Segway there are a bunch of lessons, and most of them are about marketing and brand more than technology, although some of the styling issues are addressed in Trevor Blackwell's description of his Balancing Scooter Version 2:

However, I think something can be done about the "homo" part (not that there's anything wrong with that.) It reflects the not-so-masculine soft plastic styling of the Segway. I'd like to see if I can tweak the styling of mine so I don't get yelled at as much. At least mine is metal, but it still looks spindly. I'd like to give it a muscular look with lots of chrome tubing and polished metal surfaces.

(And the fact that Trevor has built a faster lighter version from off-the-shelf parts says something about owning the manufacturing process).

Anyway, the book looks interesting even if the Amazon reviews of it aren't entirely complimentary.