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0 pointsmbreese1y ago0 comments

The hype cycle for Segway was insane. Ginger (code name) wasn’t just going to change the world, it was going to cause us to rethink how cities were laid out and designed. No one would get around the world in the same way.

The engineering behind it was really quite nice, but the hype set it up to fail. If it hasn’t been talked up so much in the media, the launch wouldn’t have felt so flat. There was no way for them to live up to the hype.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

tim3331y ago· 1 in thread

I guess it depends on what media you follow. As a Brit my recollection was hearing it was a novelty gadget that about a dozen American eccentrics were using, and then there was the story that a guy called Jimi Heselden bought the company and killed himself by driving one off a cliff and then that was about it. Not the same category as AI at all.

qingcharles1y ago

I was in the tech space in the UK at the time and the hype behind this was off the charts. I seem to remember a meeting with Bezos where he was super hyped about it, and we had no idea what "it" was still. The speculation was crazy.

pinewurst1y ago

The "Code Name: Ginger" book, by a writer embedded with the team, is excellent btw.

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