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Didn t. good. couple years ago in san franciscos, i met a guy named mark hatch. mark told me he was going to change the world. we were in a bar at the time so i took his claim with a grain of salt. turns out, though, mark is the ceo of something called techshop. when i asked him what it was, he suggested i visit a maker fair to get a sense of who his customers actually were. so i did. brought a camera with me as well just in case something interesting happened. glad i did. the maker fair draws artists, craftspeople, tech geeks, and, well, people who just like to make stuff. like a fully function iing funcr that jet pack we ve all been promised or whatever the heck this is. ....
Geeks. as it happened, i ran the computer services section at kinko s across the united states. what did you do before that? i was a green beret before that. i got a geek on my right and a green beret on my left. i hear it s kinko s for geeks. it s like i got to find out who this guy is. i cornered him. he described what he was doing. i was like, i was incredulous, like, really? open access to power tools. serious power tools. and i went and saw the place and the thing that hooked me was these were real projects produced by real people that had significant economic impact. forgetting about the business for a second, why do you why do you care? i don t know, i just want to change the world. if i had a nickel for every time somebody told me they were going to change the world, i d have a roll of quarters. but mark hatch, he just might pull it off because fundamentally, techshop is like the garage thomas edison would have if he were still around ....
techshop is also perfect for bloody do-gooders. let s say, for instance, you re horrified by the infant mortally rate in third-world countries brought about by the fact most premature babies die because they can t get to an incubator fast enough. you decide to build a portable incubator that doesn t need electricity. where are you doing to do that? techshop. there s a polymer pouch, you boil it, stick it in here and it keeps the baby warm for a number of hours. this is on track to save 100,000 babies. but techshop is not all about nobel-prize-winning ideas or billion-dollar businesses. sometimes it s just about taking an older product and dragging it into the 21st century. we call it a last mode vehicle because it s perfect for when you re on the bus or train and getting to your final destination, and a lot of people have been using it, like, in place of their car really. like, they it s a lot easier to get around the city. you don t have to worry about parking. all you hav ....
the only person who loves techshop more than these people is the guy i want you to meet. mark hatch. this is fundamental to what it means to be human. this is celebrating creativity. this is who we are as americans. anyway, that was me and mark three years ago. and i told him, if i ever got another show on the air, i d check back on the progress of this fundamentally human and truly american mission. first step, naturally, hitting a bar and having a sit-down with mark and techshop founder, jim. you described yourself, you said i m somewhat of a geek but i m very passionate about what i do. why do you why do you give a crap about all of this? i ve always loved to make things. getting to know the materials and tools and lose myself. was there no place like this in wrr world? i couldn t find any place like this at all. you know, the things i want to do are, like, robots or weird inventions, things like that. who wouldn t like to make their rif living from their hobby, ....
this is called a colossus, it s a huge spinning thing. i don t know what it does. what they all had in common was they were all looking for a way to manufacture and market their brilliant ideas right here in america. you make bags? yeah, they re ipad bags. using recycled bike intertube, recycled seat belts. awesome. once upon a time it was a chalkboard, now it s a t-rex? it s godzilla. it s godzilla. jet packs have actually been around for 50 years. this is what i m using techshop for. the other thing they had in common was that game-changing bismarck hatch was telling me about. you raised $80,000 in 15 days. right. based on the prototype that you made at techshop. exactly. if it weren t for techshop and you had to invest in whatever the tools are that you use to do all this, would you have been able to do it? no. not even close. we love the techshop. ....