2:01

Plus, Tom Cruise could probably run, maybe

2:03

even walk, faster

2:05

than one of those clumsy things. Despite

2:08

ten years of development, hype that ignited

2:10

the Internet, and claims that

2:13

they would change the world, Segway never

2:15

took off. Dean

2:19

Kamen wanted Tom Cruise. Instead,

2:22

he got... Paul

2:24

Blart? You may

2:26

be familiar with the Segway. It

2:31

sort of looks like an electric scooter. We

2:33

think the Segway HT is the first real

2:36

improvement on walking since the invention of the

2:38

sandal. But because of the no brake situation,

2:40

I couldn't just stop, so I thought it

2:42

best that I jump off. He

2:45

was found dead at the bottom of a cliff.

2:47

The company is stopping the production with less than

2:49

two decades under its belt. We

2:53

are on

2:55

a sinking ship.

2:58

From Wondery and at Will Media, this

3:00

is The Big Flop, where

3:03

we chronicle the greatest flubs,

3:06

fails, and blunders of all

3:08

time. I'm your host,

3:10

Misha Brown, social media superstar who

3:12

you won't catch riding dirty at

3:15

Don't Cross a Gay Man. And

3:17

today, we're talking about the greatest

3:19

invention since the wheel, because

3:22

it has two wheels. The

3:25

Segway. Hey, Dave.

3:39

Yeah, Randy? Since we

3:41

founded Bombas, we've always said our

3:43

socks, underwear, and t-shirts are super

3:45

soft. Any new ideas? Maybe sublimely

3:48

soft. Or disgustingly cozy. Wait, what?

3:51

I got it. Bombas. Absurdly

3:53

comfortable essentials for yourself and

3:55

for those facing homelessness. Because one purchased equals

3:57

one donated. Wow, did we get that? We

4:00

just write an ad. Yes. Bombas,

4:02

big comfort for everyone. Go to

4:04

bombas.com/Wondery and use code Wondery for

4:06

20% off your first purchase. This

4:09

summer, let your imagination soar

4:11

by listening on Audible. Whether

4:13

you listen to stories, motivation,

4:16

expert advice, any genre you

4:18

love, you can be inspired

4:20

to imagine new worlds, new

4:22

possibilities, new ways of thinking.

4:24

With Audible, there's more to imagine when

4:26

you listen. And speaking of listening, you

4:29

can listen to the best-selling fantasy

4:31

romance, A Court of Thorns

4:33

and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, right

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now on the Audible app. Transport yourself

4:38

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4:40

all from the comfort of your living

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their entire catalog. New members can try

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audible.com/WonderyPod or text WonderyPod

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to 500-500. That's

4:58

audible.com/WonderyPod or text

5:00

WonderyPod to 500-500. On

5:04

our show today, we have a

5:06

comedian. I'm

5:09

so excited. You wanna talk about social media

5:12

superstar, everyone, Adam Rose,

5:14

hi. Hey, thanks, Misha. How

5:16

are you? I'm so good. I'm so excited

5:18

to have you on the show. Before

5:21

we start, if you could invent

5:23

anything, what would be your ideal

5:25

creation? Oh,

5:27

I have a lot of inventions that I've thought of.

5:30

They should make cupboards

5:32

in kitchens dishwashers. Why

5:35

wouldn't the cupboards themselves be

5:37

the dishwashers? What are

5:39

we doing bringing one thing? It makes no

5:41

sense. So that's the one invention

5:43

that I would get cracking on. Wow, you would

5:45

make coins. You'd make a lot of money with

5:48

that invention. I think so, right? I think it's

5:50

great. By the way, if anybody out there decides

5:52

to start making it, let's go halvesies, all right?

5:54

We can do this together. Well,

5:57

today we're going to learn about the

5:59

rise and. fall of the segue,

6:01

the futuristic scooter with a complicated

6:04

reputation that ended up stalling

6:06

out. Now, have you ever

6:08

ridden a segue? Never, and I

6:10

do not plan to. Same.

6:13

My parents, I told them I was doing

6:15

an episode on the segue and they said,

6:17

we know three people who have broken their

6:19

legs. Oh, good. Good. So,

6:24

unlike a lot of our recent

6:26

tech-related flops, this story takes place

6:29

outside of usual startup hubs

6:31

like New York or Silicon Valley. It

6:34

mostly happens in a set of

6:36

riverside warehouses in New Hampshire belonging

6:38

to the wealthy and whimsical

6:40

inventor Dean Kamen. Now,

6:43

Dean, he's an interesting guy, a

6:45

quirky, well-intentioned genius

6:48

engineer. So, as

6:50

a teenager, Dean instituted what he

6:52

called a wardrobe freeze. For efficiency's

6:54

sake, he decided he was going

6:57

to wear one outfit every single

6:59

day. And in his case, he

7:01

chose jeans and a blue work

7:03

shirt. And by the way,

7:06

it's all my listeners, if this sounds

7:08

familiar, you may have listened to our

7:10

episode on another unfashionable entrepreneur, Elizabeth Holmes

7:12

of Theranos, who always wore

7:14

the same black turtleneck. And if

7:17

you haven't, what are you waiting

7:19

for? Please go listen. Anybody who's

7:21

wearing the same thing every day

7:23

is just insane. And if anybody

7:26

who doesn't know who I am is probably very

7:28

confused with why I'm saying that. But I wear

7:30

the same thing in all my videos. I

7:33

went with the cartoon look, where you wear the

7:35

same thing every single time. And now I never

7:37

have to think about what I need to wear

7:39

for a video or anything. The problem fixes itself.

7:42

Yeah. The blue cardigan's almost as famous as Adam

7:44

Rose himself. Probably more,

7:46

if we're being honest. If we're being honest. So

7:50

Dean's first claim to fame

7:52

is creating the drug infusion

7:54

pump, which helps deliver regular

7:56

doses of medicine like insulin

7:58

accurately and consistently. It's a

8:00

huge deal and has helped countless

8:02

patients live fuller lives, so that's

8:04

really incredible. So nice work,

8:06

Dean. Way to go, Dean. By the way,

8:08

he built that in his parents' basement using

8:11

parts from Radio Shack. Wow, okay, so this

8:13

guy is a genius. Oh yeah, he's so

8:15

interesting. He's a pretty cool guy. Well,

8:18

Dean made some serious money selling

8:20

the drug infusion pump and other

8:22

inventions, and with his fortune, he

8:24

purchased a private island off the

8:26

coast of New York State called

8:28

North Dumpling. There's no way that's a

8:30

real place. North Dumpling? I'm

8:32

from New York State. I've never heard

8:35

of North Dumpling. I

8:37

grew up in New York. I've never heard

8:39

of North Dumpling because if I had, I'd

8:42

be there right now. Well,

8:44

Dean is very creative and quirky.

8:47

For example, he declared North Dumpling

8:49

to be a sovereign nation and

8:51

himself to be Lord Dumpling. It

8:54

has a national anthem and its own currency.

8:57

Can you guess what the citizens of North

9:00

Dumpling are called? Oh man, pot

9:03

stickers? That would be

9:05

so good. No, they're dumplonians.

9:08

That's pretty good also. I would

9:10

not have come up with that. That's pretty good. So

9:14

going out on a limb here, but

9:17

people who declare themselves sovereigns tend to

9:19

be a teensy bit controlling,

9:22

and years working as an inventor

9:24

make Dean a little paranoid. If

9:27

a document or conversation about an invention in

9:29

progress gets out to the wrong person, it

9:31

could wipe out years of work. So Dean

9:34

decides to open a secretive

9:36

development firm in New Hampshire

9:39

called DECA, which is the first letters

9:41

of his first and last name, Dean

9:43

Cayman. Now Dean's penchant

9:45

for long production timelines is

9:47

one of his specialties. Quote,

9:50

anything that's worth doing takes at

9:52

least a decade, he always said.

9:55

But the segue, the invention we're discussing today is

9:57

not something that takes Dean for a long time.

42:00

manufactures the annoying rental scooters that people

42:02

leave toppled over in the middle of

42:04

traffic. They

42:07

discontinued the classic Segway PT back

42:09

in 2020, but they do still

42:12

sell some specialized ones for law

42:14

enforcement and corporate use, as well

42:17

as some 9-bot branded lookalikes. Dean

42:20

Kamen is doing just fine. He

42:23

throws big parties for rich people, and

42:25

he still invents but he

42:27

leaves behind a frustrated legacy. Many

42:30

of his inventions had enormous potential

42:32

to help people who really needed

42:34

it, like the stabilized wheelchair Fred

42:36

or a portable water purification device

42:39

he developed later, but he never

42:41

saw widespread acclaim with those. Fred,

42:43

for instance, was just too expensive

42:46

to be practical. But

42:48

don't worry, he still makes things

42:50

that will earn money too. Most

42:52

notably, he's the brain behind the

42:54

Coca-Cola Freestyle machines that let you

42:56

mix flavors into your Coke. What?

42:59

Yeah. This guy is pretty incredible.

43:01

Yeah. What a large array of

43:04

things that he's worked on. That is so wild.

43:07

I know. And I would just

43:09

like to say, Dean, if you're listening to this

43:11

episode, thank you so much. I love that machine.

43:13

Well, it makes total sense because what did everybody

43:15

do back in the day? You would go up

43:17

to the soda machines and you just like get

43:19

the whole mixture going and experiment and try new

43:22

things. And he's like, well, let's just make the

43:24

machine that does it for you. Genius. Now

43:27

here on the Big Flop, we do like to

43:29

end on a high and be positive people. So

43:31

are there any silver linings you can think of

43:34

that came from the segue? It's

43:36

always nice to get excited about something.

43:39

And when you hear that there's

43:41

something that could be bigger than the internet

43:43

or could change the world forever, even

43:45

if it doesn't turn out to be

43:47

true, probably does get like your brain

43:49

thinking like, oh, what could change the

43:51

world? What could be bigger than the

43:54

internet? So if nothing else, maybe for

43:56

some inspiration. I don't know. Love that.

43:58

Yeah. Now that you. about

44:00

the Segway, would you consider this a

44:02

baby flop, a big flop, or a

44:05

mega flop? No, this

44:07

is a mega flop, right? This

44:10

was a worldwide story.

44:13

This was 100 million dollars. This

44:15

was Time Magazine. This, I mean,

44:17

this is a mega, it

44:19

doesn't get much floppier than this flop. That's

44:21

true. It was pretty bad. I mean, Osama

44:23

bin Laden. Osama, I don't, I still don't

44:26

get that part, but... Well, thanks so much

44:28

to our guest, Adam Rose, for

44:31

joining us here on The Big Flop, and thanks

44:33

to you for listening. If

44:35

you're enjoying the show, please leave us a

44:37

rating and review. Next week, we're

44:39

booting up the Big Flop Time Machine for

44:43

a month of episodes about the most spectacular

44:45

failures in history, starting

44:49

with Watergate. Bye.

44:53

I can't wait for that one. Thanks, Matt. Bye.

44:55

I can't wait for that one. Thanks, Misha.

45:24

The Big Flop is a production of

45:26

Wondery and Atwill Media, hosted by me,

45:28

Misha Brown, produced

45:32

by Sequoia Thomas, Harry Huggins, and Tina Turner, written

45:34

by Anna Rubinova, engineered by Andrew Holtzberger,

45:38

with support from Zach Grappone. Our story

45:40

editor is Drew Beebe. Our

45:42

main story is based on a true story, and

45:45

we're going to be sharing it with you. We're

45:47

going to be talking about the story of a

45:49

man who was a victim of a terrorist attack,

45:51

and we're going to be talking about the story

45:54

Our managing producer is Molly Gettman.

45:56

Our executive producers are Kate Walsh

45:59

and Will Malnati. for At Will

46:01

Media, legal support by Carolyn Levin

46:03

of Miller, Korzenik, Summers, and Raymond.

46:05

Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle

46:08

and Grant Rutter, story editing by

46:10

Brian Taylor White. Coordinating producer is

46:12

Mariah Gossett, music supervisor is Scott

46:15

Velasquez for Free Song Sync. Our

46:17

theme song is Sinking Ship by

46:20

Cake, and executive producers are Lizzie

46:22

Bassett, Morgan Jones, and Marshall Louis

46:24

for Wondery. We are

46:28

on a sinking

46:30

ship. We

46:36

are on a

46:38

sinking ship.