Segway: Ridin' Nerdy with Adam Rose | 41

The Big Flop

Wondery

Society & Culture, Comedy, Business

4.6 • 884 Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Before it became the butt of countless jokes and the preferred transportation for mall cops, the Segway had grand ambitions. Its inventor, Dean Kamen, believed his self-balancing, two-wheeled electric scooter would change the way we get around, and ultimately eliminate the need for cars all together. But when the rubber met the road and consumers met Segway’s slow speed, short battery life, and general uselessness, sales fell off a cliff... and so did the CEO of the company while driving one.

Adam Rose (Merry Happy Whatever, L.A.’s Finest) joins Misha to chat about Segway’s crash and burn.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wonderie Plus subscribers can listen to the Big Flop early and ad-free.
0:05.3	Join Wonderly Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:19.7	Dean Kamman, an inventor, is brimming with excitement.
0:24.6	He's been developing a super secret project, and it's about to hit the big time.
0:31.1	He's booked a meeting with the world's most decorated movie director, Stephen Spielberg.
0:36.7	The master of cinema is developing a new movie.
0:41.1	The $100 million futuristic thriller Minority Report starring Tom Cruise, the original short
0:49.4	king.
0:50.6	The film is set decades into the future, so he's asked the world's most forward-thinking visionaries to pitch him on likely future technology to include in his movie.
1:04.0	How about domesticated zebras? No, color-changing eye drops, paparazzi bots.
1:11.8	Cayman gives Spielberg the hard sell.
1:15.2	There's a top secret device he's actually making in real life.
1:19.7	It's called the Segway.
1:22.8	A two-wheeled, gyroscopic self-balancing transporter?
1:31.8	It's the perfect mode of transportation for the futuristic cops and minority report. Hmm, Spielberg considers it. When Minority Report premieres in June of
1:41.6	2002, it has a ton of impressive-looking gadgets, ones we're actually using
1:48.8	today, like touch screens and self-driving cars. One thing it definitely doesn't have,
1:56.2	segways. Nope, Spielberg thought, they didn't look cool. Plus, Tom Cruise could probably run, maybe even walk faster than one of those clumsy things.
2:08.7	Despite 10 years of development, hype that ignited the Internet and claims that they would change the world, Segway never took off. Dean Kamen wanted Tom Cruise.
2:22.1	Instead, he got Paul Blart? You may be familiar with the Segway. It sort of looks like an electric
2:32.7	scooter. We think Segway H.T is the first
2:36.0	real improvement on walking since the invention
	...

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