Big Names On Spotlight: Geekily Juicy Trivia On Andy Rubin
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Previously, we gave you an intro on the stellar career history of the man behind the Android. Today, we'll give you bits and pieces of what makes the guy who dreamed about a world-changing mobile device platform from the Cayman Islands, tick.
How about robots and tech?
Not so surprising, given his career history, and even what the Android stands for.
But here are a few tidbits about how deeply geeky Andy Rubin is:
- His home is equipped with a biometric retinal scanner for the residents and a robotic arm that strikes a gong, as a doorbell. Andy claims the retinal scanner "Makes it easier to deal with former girlfriends."
- Rubin's fascination with tech started early: his father was in the direct marketing business, and part of his dad's marketing strategy was to offer electronic devices with credit card bills. Because of that, the young Andy Rubin got the latest and greatest devices of his time.
- Andy Rubin always seemed way ahead of his time. In his stint with MSN TV (between 1997 to 1999), he created a robot equipped with a webcam and a microphone and let it loose to move around Microsoft. Hackers managed to break into the robot, but hadn't realized that it was a mobile device with the capacity to record video. While the hackers didn't realize the potential havoc they could have wreaked and the breach to data security was minimal, Andy Rubin was ordered to sequester the robot where it won't do much damage.
- Such was his fascination of robots that Danger, Inc., the company he founded, was actually named after the Sci-Fi TV Show "Lost In Space" robot who would usually warn the cast by sounding "Danger, Danger!"
- Two major life-changing events happened to Andy Rubin in the Cayman Islands: the first was when he played Good Samaritan to love-embattled Apple Inc. engineer Bill Caswell. When Caswell was kicked out of the beach cottage he shared with his girlfriend thanks to a fight, Andy Rubin gave him a place to stay. In exchange, Bill Caswell gave him a job at Apple. His job at Apple Inc. eventually led him to join a team of engineers who were hell-bent on creating a platform for the next-generation smartphone. It was a brilliant idea, and the software was amazingly advanced for its time. The big catch, however, was exactly that: the platform was too advanced for its time, the big companies weren't interested. The second defining moment in the Cayman Islands is what led him to where he is, today. After he left Danger Inc. as CEO, he retreated back there and started writing code for software and developing a digital camera. But the camera had no takers, so he went back to an old idea of creating a next-generation mobile device platform. This time, after some twist of fate, it clicked. The Android was born, from the shores of the Cayman Islands and brought back to the heart of Silicon Valley.
These are the things that make up the man named Andy Rubin. Good to see that a quintessential tech guy has some quirky, even endearing, spots as well.
Resource:
The New York Times -- I, Robot: The Man Behind the Google Phone
