Adventurer. Engineer. Product Designer. Ideator. Spiritualist. King of “…Ness”? Great Dharma King? Yogi Theo Mann led a fascinating life. A life interrupted and ultimately cut short by a brain tumor. Before he left this world, he left us with this eclectic collection of stories inspired by his life.You probably won’t find the meaning of life after reading this book, but we bet you’ll find some ideas to ponder, while at the same time laughing along with Theo when he does something unexpected and wincing when he does something that might be a little too risky.
Author’s Description: Stories from product design, dreams, and mystical experiences. Read how Steve Jobs called me an arrogant a-hole while he simultaneously mobilized one third of his company to create my design. Hear how I became fully enlightened, but had to start over at the beginning. These are some of my favorite stories.
Adventurer. Engineer. Product Designer. Ideator. Spiritualist. King of “…Ness”? Great Dharma King? Yogi Theo Mann led a fascinating life. A life interrupted and ultimately cut short by a brain tumor. Before he left this world, he left us with this eclectic collection of stories inspired by his life.You probably won’t find the meaning of life after reading this book, but we bet you’ll find some ideas to ponder, while at the same time laughing along with Theo when he does something unexpected and wincing when he does something that might be a little too risky.
Author’s Description: Stories from product design, dreams, and mystical experiences. Read how Steve Jobs called me an arrogant a-hole while he simultaneously mobilized one third of his company to create my design. Hear how I became fully enlightened, but had to start over at the beginning. These are some of my favorite stories.
As the story goes, Steve Jobs and Jony Ive are in Steve's garden when he says, "The computer should be like a sunflower."
If I had been there, I would have said, "You mean the kind that droop?"
This would have saved them two futile years of development and two embarrassing factory builds for the display support for Apple's first LCD iMac.
Holding up the display was a series of segments connected by a metal cable. To operate it there was a big handle on the screen that not everybody was strong enough to pull on.
In desperation, they come to IDEO, the product design consulting company in the Silicon Valley where I am working in 2001. Our founder, David, actually designed the Apple I computer box himself, so they have a long history together.
The project starts at the beginning of the year as a sort of science fair with six young guys competing to develop ideas that the vice president of product design at Apple likes. Six old guys look at what they are currently doing to see if they can improve it.
We create working prototypes every two or three weeks, which only gives us two or three design days. Then we have to release parts to the shop, let them work for a week, and then put our idea together. We present our own ideas directly during visits from the vice president, who wears jean shorts and K-Swiss.
Three months go by while we try everything we can think of, but nothing is good enough. I go on a much-needed vacation to Hawaii, and come back to co-teach the senior project in product design at Stanford University. I decide I am not going to try to make things that make me look smart, but just help somebody else.
We are instructed to look at a dental arm and car's trunk lid for inspiration. Over the weekend I have a realization that the first and second arms are independent. To prove it, I do one page of trigonometry. When I am showing it on Monday morning the current manager won't read it.
He says, "Just do something."
Luckily, a senior guy named Clifford has come to the same conclusion, and he built a model out of Lego and rubber bands. We all got an email with some digital photos of it.
Helping someone else turns out to be the winning recipe. I end up managing the project when we finally create a winning design with a working prototype with a two-piece arm and a wrist. It turns out to be very much like a Steadicam used in making movies.
The first meeting at Apple is with Jonathan Ive, the vice president of industrial design. He shows me the ID space. I only see a room full of tables covered with gray sheets for my visit.
In the conference room they have the prototype I made that has chrome-moly oval tubes for the arms with plastic end caps and big bearings. It is mounted on the real computer holding up the real screen they plan to sell. Jony says that oval tubes would be a little bit cheeky to use in production.
I want to make sure there is no language difference between England and California. I say, "Cheeky bad or cheeky good? Because a little bit of cheeky is good."
He says, "Cheeky bad."
In the end he hands me a slightly soiled paper napkin with the sketch of what he wants. It is pretty much what came out the next year. The part that I add myself is that I give it nuts and make it work.
I choose Clifford as my senior advisor who will go to the meetings with me and my fat binder of every piece of paper developed during the project.
We are told that we have to keep the project secret from the rest of my consulting company, so we move to our own space down the street shared with the IT department.
A student in my class comes to me and says, "I know what you are working on."
I say, "Then keep it to yourself."
If one student knows, then probably most of them do. At least one of the students came to me and told me that my brainstorming handout for the class had done the rounds on Wall Street. So I guess in my small way I am a hero of innovation in the financial circles of the United States.
Apple will only allow two people to come to meetings, which is a little strange for the other guys working on the project. I have five other guys, making it one of our bigger projects, the budget is $650,000, but I only seem to put my own stuff in the design.
When I create the pin nuts that are iconic in the final design, it is late on a Saturday night, nobody else is there, and I have done everything else first before finishing the prototype. I hate caps over screws, so I make the nut instead.
I go outside to ride my motorcycle up San Francisco but forget to take the disc brake lock off. For only the second time in my life I crash at no speed at all by revving it up and coming to an abrupt stop that throws me from the bike.
About this time Steve says, I am told, that the diameter of the arm should be 40 mm. It is not possible to support the weight specified as a worst-case load with the strength of materials commercially available. I disregard his pronouncement.
We release the prototype parts to be built with my favorite materials for my last job, in special effects: 7075 aluminum for the shells and 17-4 stainless steel for the hubs. Around the Apple conference table somebody says they aren't really production materials.
I say, "Aren't they?" We are left sitting in the conference room for about an hour while they check on it.
The shells come back from the Apple shop polished up, and the hubs arrive from Texas.
Ed the machinist says, "I suppose you want me to stay up all night and polish the hubs, don't you?"
The result is beautiful. When Jony sees it, he backs up and walks toward it a few times to take a good look at it, crosses his arms, and repeatedly puts away a smile. It goes into a meeting that we are not invited to where everyone from industrial design has made a competing model – something like 50 of them.
It wins against every competitor. If I had a nickel for every piece of machined aluminum that Apple sells after that, I would be a rich man. Years later, Jony makes a tribute video to machined aluminum posted on the Apple website.
David comes in one Saturday when it is just me and my best assistant, Opher, who made our every report in this, his first project at our company.
David says, "It's not about the quality of the work."
He points out that Steve Jobs could sue us on a whim if we release the production design, and it could cost him the whole company he worked hard to found. We are forbidden from making the final design.
I travel alone to Apple on a Saturday to meet with the board of Apple before they greenlight the project and tell the rest of the company. We meet in a darkened second floor near Steve's office so that no one knows we are there.
Because of cost concerns they have reduced the design to only one arm instead of two arms and a wrist.
I say, "You want to know what I think?"
"Yes," the gentleman chorus together.
"It'll suck," I say, but it is good enough for professional product design.
There are two brothers at Apple who used to work at Bell Helicopter who work as consultants. One of them tells me, "You are the best engineer we have ever seen, but...." He never finishes his sentence.
Part of my design cannot be replaced by anything. They are the amazing IGUS T-500 bearings. I found them while working the special effects job. They are truly a black plastic wonder bearing. The wear on them is very low and the load they can handle is very high. Like you would want.
One of the brothers says to me in his thick Texas drawl, "I gus those are some pretty good bearings."
I reply, "I gus they are."
After the project is over, I walk in on a Monday for my annual performance review just a few days before September 11th.
I am told that Steve called the Friday before and said, "I'll never work with IDEO again because of that arrogant a-hole Theo."
I just laugh and say, "He is the avatar of Buddha."
My dreams of finally getting some cred in the company are shattered. Listen to me about being kind to the wrong kind of people. I go to Thailand and India to learn to meditate.
Later, Apple tells us that they mobilized one third of their worldwide force to have the display support ready for the January 2002 Macworld presentation. At that time, it is 18,000 people. It is a pretty good ratio when I had five people working for me.
They said that they opened four factories to make my design and three competitors from inside their engineering group. The factories producing the competing designs were closed and only my idea made it to production.
The single arm was about $65 cost-of-goods, so about four times that out of the purchase price of the computer. It is a good thing that the original design with the two joint arm plus wrist was not used.
It is expensive enough. Somebody at Apple had asked me if a bent piece of metal didn't make more sense for future display supports. I agreed that it did, although that wasn't the problem statement that we were given. Sure enough, all future Mac computers sit on a bent piece of metal.
John Lassiter directs the advertisement for the computer himself. It jumps like the lamp does for Pixar movies.
To show their love for me, Apple put my name last on a long list of names on the patent. Many people tell me that they have kept the computer long after it was replaced because they just love it. It is a good thing that they didn't try to sell the droopy sunflower.
"Yogi Theo Mann's posthumous collection of stories offers a glimpse into a life marked by a rich tapestry of roles – adventurer, engineer, product designer, ideator, spiritualist, and even a self-styled king of “…Ness.” The narrative is both a celebration of diversity and a contemplation of mortality, as Mann's life is prematurely curtailed by a brain tumor.
The storytelling traverses realms from product design to dreams and mystical experiences, creating a mosaic that defies conventional categorization. The author invites readers into encounters with luminaries like Steve Jobs, revealing both admiration and friction. The portrayal of Jobs labeling Mann as an "arrogant a-hole" adds a touch of authenticity, showcasing the complex interplay between creative minds in the world of design.
Mann's journey towards enlightenment, though cut short, introduces a poignant element, emphasizing the impermanence of life and the need for continuous self-discovery. The juxtaposition of laughter and wincing moments reflects the duality inherent in the human experience – moments of unexpected joy interwoven with the discomfort of risk-taking.
The eclectic nature of the stories challenges readers to contemplate the broader significance of life, though the author acknowledges that a definitive answer may elude them. Instead, the collection prompts reflection, encouraging readers to ponder the profound ideas embedded within the anecdotes.
In essence, Yogi Theo Mann's posthumous offering serves as a testament to the complexity of human existence, exploring the intersections of creativity, spirituality, and mortality. The book provides a unique lens through which readers can engage with life's multifaceted journey, finding resonance in the shared laughter and vulnerability that define the human experience.
The book seems to be a great treasure of knowledge, findings, and the answer to the much anticipated questions that were difficult to attain before. Reading the book was a wonderful experience, I hope the readers will love to read it too."