By now most of you have heard Doug Field, Segway's CTO, is moving over to Apple. Well, here's a pretty funny (if somewhat cringe-worthy) record of the first time Steve Jobs saw the Segway, at a private meeting arranged by Dean Kamen in 2001.

"I think it's coming along," said Tim, "though we expect--"

"I think it sucks!" said Jobs.

His vehemence made Tim pause. "Why?" he asked, a bit stiffly.

"It just does."

"In what sense?" said Tim, getting his feet back under him. "Give me a clue."

"Its shape is not innovative, it's not elegant, it doesn't feel anthropomorphic," said Jobs, ticking off three of his design mantras.

"You have this incredibly innovative machine but it looks very traditional." The last word delivered like a stab. Doug Field and Scott Waters would have felt the wound; they admired Apple's design sense. Dean's intuition not to bring Doug had been right. "There are design firms out there that could come up with things we've never thought of," Jobs continued, "things that would make you shit in your pants."

The above is excerpted from Code Name Ginger: The Story Behind Segway and Dean Kamen's Quest to Invent a New World, by Steve Kemper. The rest of the excerpt is up at the Harvard Business Review.

via fortune