Oct
24
“One day [in a high school electronics class] Jobs needed a part that was not available, so he made a collect call to the manufacturer, Burroughs in Detroit, and said he was designing new products and wanted to test out the part. It arrived by air freight a few days later. When [Jobs’s teacher] McCollum asked how he gotten it, Jobs described - with defiant pride - the collect call and the tale he had told. ‘I was furious,’ McCollum said. ‘That was not the way I wanted my students to behave.’ Jobs’s response was, ‘I don’t have the money for the phone call. They’ve got plenty of money.’”
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (via maxistentialist)
Collect call aside, that’s exactly what to do when you need a part for a prototype.
“Hi, my name is $blah with $designcodotcom, and I’m working on a product that’s slated for an initial run of about 500,000 a year in 2012-2013. I’m evaluating contact switches. Do you have a couple of $partnum and $partnum2 I can test?”
They’ll probably suggest a couple others, and Fed-Ex you a sample pack.
You just have to ask.
