H2SteveO,
You posted: <Amazing amount of money going into a motorized pogo stick.>>
If your premise is true, mere <<amazing>> just won't cut it. I'd have to instead label anybody that'd do something that ridiculous, "Nonprofessional to the edge of insanity."
Therefore your premise cannot be true as stated. There is, however, a remnant kernel of truth in what you say: Highly skilled money and superb technical talent is flowing in large amounts to something that, barring lies or insanity, must be truly amazing. An amazing something we non-insiders can only guess at. And guess we can do with the help of certain clues. Here's my guess.
Behind closed doors and inked nondisclosure agreements, addressing sharps with very deep pockets, what must be Dean Kamen's pitch? He can't be pitching a pogo stick, even a damn fine one, that's for sure. As a matter of fact it can't be any single glam product. Kamen must be pitching a clear eyed vision of an amazing future he's convinced is now within his technical reach and historical inevitability. (I'm sure it's virtually the same pitch he gave to Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Credit Suisse First Boston just over a year ago giving rise to their reactions and the big to-do in the press and public.) Kamen spins *A Field of Dreams* and apparently VCs are on their way, showing up and buying into Kamen's vision like gangbusters.
A clue: Kamen likes to *Babe Ruth* products he's painstakingly developed typically in total secrecy. He likes to step up to the plate, point to the center field fence and, with secret *Wonderboy* technology, wallop his pitch not only right out of the park but its horsehide too! (Bear in mind these are my mixed movie metaphors. Kamen is so out of the pop culture loop he once sat next to Shirley McLaine and Warren Beatty clueless as to who they were.)
Hitting homers of any stripe plays true and blue to all red-blooded Americans, especially as history has shown, 12 year old boys who like nothing more than to see dingers over bleachers fall into parking lots where they can chase them down.
Another clue: Kamen likes to name his in house projects with very relevant nomenclature. Ibot was *Fred.* Individual Transporter was *Ginger.* And, I can only imagine his glee pitching the relationship product *Segway* has with word *segue* -- a pleasingly crafted skilled transition from one kind of reality to another.
It must be a vision of a reality we should *Segway* into that Kamen's pitching, swinging and mashing right out of the VC's park. [Note: By baseball's current standards $90 mil isn't as big as some ballplayers' 10 year contracts stack out these days by a long shot.]
Another clue: He's already got lots of very high-tech batboys, in house and outsourced, fabricating more and better technology *Wonderboys.* If Kamen can produce reliable Stirling technology, mechanical efficiencies could be doubled, and anything that burns, from Hydrogen to cow pies, could be used as fuel twice as efficiently as before.
Another clue: Dean Kamen is pitching a *Field of Dreams* future not only to VCs but also to the outstanding corporations he's been working with. One of Kamen's real objectives is to be a Sci/Tech/Eng Pied Piper to any and all young geniuses, geeky or not, using things like FIRST competitions and Segway, which Kamen must hope can bring as much equalizing power to the human foot as the Colt .45 brought to the human fist.
But no matter, whatever else it is, IT is a toweringly huge technical achievement. And no matter what else, Kamen, backed by a superb team of hundreds, and first rate corporations to boot, has a solid track record of continuous technical achievement and business savvy.
Kamen and his confident crew are certain that with their *Wonderboy* advanced technology products they can *Babe Ruth* marketing homers over the fences of their *Field of Dreams* patent portfolio every time they step up to the plate.
And the crowd goes wild!
There is an inherent value in a homerun ball. This value will accrue to whichever kid chases down the ball in parking lots. Kamen's vision of short legged pudgy kids on Segways, now the full equal of bigger kids fleet of foot, grabbing that ball is a powerful one to any 12 year old.
But I'll bet the integrated vision that actually closes the deal with the Scrooge VcDucks must be the vision of those young parking lot homerun ball chasers all grown up and, like Shoeless Joe Jackson, walking onto Kamen's *Field of Dreams* through cornrow after cornrow of corporate corridors in their laboratory, research, and engineering facilities. Kamen must be promising a steady highly motivated human resource flow directly into the blue chip firms he has chosen to associate with.
Kamen correctly identifies the future in the faces of bright curious children. He sees them as engines of opportunity to be segued via education, recognition and praise into the future itself. "What is," he must say somewhere in his closing, "the alternative?"
Jerry in Omaha |
