- Steve Jobs quoted on accomplished scientist's new device:
'If enough people see the machine you won't have to convince them to architect
cities around it. It'll just happen.' A venerable press pays $250,000 for
a book on project cloaked in unprecedented secrecy.
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- Harvard Business School Press executive editor Hollis
Heimbouch has just paid $250,000 for a book about IT -- but neither the
editor nor the agent, Dan Kois of The Sagalyn Literary Agency, knows what
IT is.
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- All they do know: IT, also code-named Ginger, is an invention
developed by 49-year-old scientist Dean Kamen, and the subject of a planned
book by journalist Steve Kemper. According to Kemper's proposal, IT will
change the world, and is so extraordinary that it has drawn the attention
of technology visionaries Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs and the investment
dollars of pre-eminent Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr, among
others.
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- Kemper -- who has been published in Smithsonian, National
Geographic and Outside among others -- has had exclusive access to Kamen
and the engineers at his New Hampshire-based research and development company,
DEKA, for the past year and a half. He tags the proposed book as Soul of
the New Machine meets The New New Thing and won over his agent and publisher
with e-mails describing the project in carefully couched language. He also
included an amusing narrative of a meeting between Bezos, Jobs, Doerr and
Kamen.
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- The invention itself is as interesting as the inventor.
Kamen is 'a true eccentric, cantankerous and opinionated, a great character,'
the proposal says, with large gaps when it comes to pop culture.
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- In the proposal, Doerr calls Kamen -- who was just awarded
the National Medal of Technology, the country's highest such award -- a
combination of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Doerr also says, a touch ominously,
that he had been sure that he wouldn't see the development of anything
in his lifetime as important as the World Wide Web -- until he saw IT.
According to the proposal, another investor, Credit Suisse First Boston,
expects Kamen's invention to make more money in its first year than any
start-up in history, predicting Kamen will be worth more in five years
than Bill Gates. Jobs told Kamen the invention would be as significant
as the PC, the proposal says.
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- And though there are no specifics in the proposal as
to what the invention is, there are some tantalizing clues. Is IT an energy
source? Some sort of environmentally friendly personal transport device?
One editor who saw the proposal went as far as to speculate -- jokingly
(perhaps) -- that IT was a type of personal hovering craft.
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- Consider the following items, culled from the proposal:
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- IT is not a medical invention.
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- In a private meeting with Bezos, Jobs and Doerr, Kamen
assembled two Gingers -- or ITs -- in 10 minutes, using a screwdriver and
hex wrenches from components that fit into a couple of large duffel bags
and some cardboard boxes. The invention has a fun element to it, because
once a Ginger was turned on, Bezos started laughing his ''loud, honking
laugh.''
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- There are possibly two Ginger models, named Metro and
Pro -- and the Metro may possibly cost less than $2,000. Bezos is quoted
as saying that IT ''is a product so revolutionary, you'll have no problem
selling it. The question is, are people going to be allowed to use it?''
-
- Jobs is quoted as saying: ''If enough people see the
machine you won't have to convince them to architect cities around it.
It'll just happen.''
-
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- Kemper says the invention will ''sweep over the world
and change lives, cities, and ways of thinking.''
-
- The ''core technology and its implementations'' will,
according to Kamen, ''have a big, broad impact not only on social institutions
but some billion-dollar old-line companies.'' And the invention will ''profoundly
affect our environment and the way people live worldwide. It will be an
alternative to products that are dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous
and often frustrating, especially for people in the cities.''
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- IT will be a mass-market consumer product ''likely to
run afoul of existing regulations and or inspire new ones,'' according
to Kemper. The invention will also likely require ''meeting with city planners,
regulators, legislators, large commercial companies and university presidents
about how cities, companies and campuses can be retro-fitted for Ginger.''
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- The invention itself is as interesting as the inventor.
Kamen -- ''a true eccentric, cantankerous and opinionated, a great character,''
according to the proposal -- dropped out of college in his 20s, then invented
the first drug infusion pump; he later created the first portable insulin
pump and dialysis machine.
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- Kamen, an avid aviator who commutes via a helicopter,
is also the founder of FIRST -- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science
and Technology -- a nonprofit organization that encourages young people
to pursue studies and careers in math and science. He's a single man obsessed
with his work and out of touch with popular culture. According to the proposal,
Kamen was seated at a White House dinner next to two people he'd never
heard of: Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty.
-
- Kamen's most recent invention is the iBot, an off-road
wheelchair that can climb stairs, cover sand and gravel and rise to balance
on two wheels. A prototype iBot was showcased by wheelchair-bound journalist
John Hockenberry at last year's TED conference in Monterrey, Calif.; the
demonstration was greeted by wild applause.
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- IT/Ginger won't be revealed until 2002, the proposal
says. No one has seen the project except Kamen, Kemper, the engineers and
the investors -- which include Doerr, a partner in the venture capital
firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which helped launch Netscape,
Amazon, Juniper Networks, Excite, and @Home, among others; and Michael
Schmertzler, managing director of Credit Suisse First Boston. Others who
have seen the invention and signed confidentiality agreements include minor
investors Paul Allaire, CEO of Xerox; and Vern Loucks, recently retired
CEO of Baxter. Bezos, Jobs and writer/venture capitalist Randy Komisar
sit on the advisory board. Kamen retains 85 percent of his new company,
according to the proposal.
-
- Why the secrecy? Kamen fears, as he states in a letter
to Kemper that is included in the proposal, that ''huge corporations''
might catch wind of the invention and ''use their massive resources to
erect obstacles against us or, worse, simply appropriate the technology
by assigning hundreds of engineers to catch up to us, and thousands of
employees to produce it in their plants.''
-
- But such secrecy may have been enough to turn publishers
away. ''The Internet changed the world, too'' said one editor who considered
the project, ''but books about it don't really sell.'' As for the quarter-million-dollar
price tag for North American rights: on the one hand, it doesn't seem to
be a lot for a book about an invention which has mesmerized such well-known
technology moguls. On the other, $250,000 is a lot to pay for a story about
a product that hasn't been seen, defined or named.
-
- ''We were well aware of Kamen,'' says book editor Heimbouch,
who says she's been publishing in this technology circle for a long time.''
(The bestselling The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley
Entrepreneur by Komisar is hers.) So jumping on board for the book wasn't
such a dilemma. Besides, says Heimbouch, Harvard Business School Press
had intended to approach Kamen about doing a book anyway. ''He's an inventor
of great technologies that make people's lives better,'' she says.
-
- Harvard Business School Press, a division of Harvard
Business School Publishing, is a wholly owned, nonprofit subsidiary of
Harvard University. The Sagalyn Agency retains all but North American rights
to the book.
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- What Do You Think 'IT' Is?
-
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- From Paul Moeller
1-9-01
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- Did you see the post on Drudge about "It"?
Wow. Sounds like a mass marketed levitation vehicle. Kind of goes hand
in hand with those big oil experts talking about how the world won't be
using internal combustion engines much anymore after about five years from
now... but this is a bit more than I would have exptected, if indeed levitation
devices are what he is talking about.
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-
- From James
1-9-01
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- I know Nostradamus predicted "the end of the great
machine" around this time, and the introduction of an unlimited power
source - but as soon as that new power source revolutionized the world,
it is somehow used by the Third Antichrist (the blue turban wearing Asian
or Assyrian) to conquer much of the world in a 45-year war.
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- From William Walter
1-9-01
Dear Jeff,
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- I seem to remember something in the book 'The Day After
Roswell' where Col. Corso said something about a device that had as much
power as a whole city blok of computers hooked together and it was the
size of a wallter or radar detector. I wonder if this is IT? I guess
we will see, won't we...we will in the most interesting times. I couldn't
ask for more intrigue on a daily basis. Great Day to you, my friend.
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- From name on file
- 1-9-01
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- Hi Jeff ..... I saw this story earlier. Ginger's code
meaning may be its imagery beyond a spice .... Think perhaps, to animate
or animation .... To bring to life.... Energy source or devices that Moves
Something/person/? ..... Jobs talked to today about the PC being a HUB
and the era moving from the Internet age to the digital age and also WSJ
talking about Apple stressing more software than hardware....... hmmmmmm.
And the other meaning pointing to spice up? I will ask my Greek friend
about the Greek meanings for Ginger (zingiberis)...... And what has this
book author that got the exclusive written about before .... Lots of fun
..... If I learn of something concrete or instructive I will E-mail you
on it.
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