Big Problem, Neat Solution

Realistically, when do you see them on the ground in multiple sites?
In low volumes, testing soon. In slightly higher volumes, but still in beta sites, next year. If things go really well, I think high volume in two years.

You're also inventing a new robotic arm for amputees . How's that going?
That project is just astounding. We have a kid, a military guy, who had both of his arms blown off in Iraq. They brought him back, and after six months in rehab they had to open the door for him to bring him and say hello because he's wearing two plastic rods and a pair of hooks. By the following day, after a little bit of training with our arm, he literally could field strip an M-16, put it back together and aim it. It was amazing.

Where is that on the production spectrum?
We're not looking for a way to put them into high-volume production. Instead what we're looking to do is mass-customization, because the quantities are low enough. There'll be hundreds or maybe a few thousand of them. We're hoping we will be able to custom-manufacture individual pieces for the size and shape of each of these kids that all use the same electronics, the same controls, the same software.

Are you disappointed with how the Segway has done?
I'm disappointed with every project I ever do. Because you work on something for years that you think should take hours. You finally get it done and you think, "Now the world's going to be a better place." Then you find out that as fast as technology moves, people move at the same slow, cautious pace they always did. If anything, people have gotten more cautious, more afraid of change, more skeptical, more cynical.

Yet you have this irrepressible energy and aura of optimism about you.
If you said to me, "Do you really believe that by tomorrow you'll have a water machine for these people and electricity"—I suppose I have to say I have enough experience, enough scars on me to know probably not. But if I had to get up every morning and look at the realistic rate at which people adopt new ideas and the realistic rate at which you can turn technologies into products, I'm not sure I could get out of bed every day. If I'm awake I'm working, and I'm working hard, and I'm working as fast as I can. But I got to believe we can win some of these. It's what keeps me going.

And your Wikipedia page says you commute to work in a helicopter.
Yeah, well, I build helicopters. I love helicopters. They are very cool. It's just a way to cheat gravity.

© 2008