Jay Walker – Library of Human Imagination
Many of you know Jay Walker as the founder of Priceline.com, who made (and lost) billions during the dotcom boom era. Born 1956, Jay is an American entrepreneur who also founded Walker Digital, a private R&D laboratory based in Stamford, CT. He founded the lab in 1994 with the guiding vision that new consumer applications for large-scale networks represent the key growth opportunity for many industries. In total, Walker Digital has invented about 1,000 applications for the Internet, cell phones, credit-card networks, and casino networks, as well as vending machines and lottery and retail networks. At one point Mr. Walker’s net worth topped USD $4 billion, which was almost entirely Priceline.com stock.
A lesser known fact – Jay Walker is also the curator of the Library of Human Imagination. Check out some of the surprises from his library in this engaging TED presentation.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7683720469649827459
His library is 3,600 square feet on three mazelike levels, and showcases his vast/crazy collection including 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle, 1535 Coverdale Bible, 1660 celestial atlas by Andrea Cellarius, 1665 Micrographia by Robert Hooke or his Kelmscott Chaucer, real meteorites, an original Sputnik from the 7 surviving Sputniks, an American flag which was carried to the moon and bag on Apollo 11, the original chandelier from the James Bond flick Die Another Day… and many more such brain numbing “stuff” like an Enigma code machine and complete dinosaur skeleton.
Check out some of the pics of his library here: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-10/ff_walker?currentPage=all
The question is – what use is a library if its doors are closed to the “knowledge seeker” – the public? Schoolchildren, executives, politicians and scholars can visit the library by invitation only.
Tags: American Entrepreneur, Apollo 11, Celestial Atlas, Coverdale Bible, Crazy Collection, Credit Card Networks, Dinosaur Skeleton, Dotcom Boom, Enigma Code Machine, Featured, Googlevideo, Guiding Vision, Human Imagination, Inspiring, James Bond Flick, Jay Walker, Kelmscott Chaucer, Knowledge Seeker, Nuremberg Chronicle, People Magazine, Retail Networks, Robert Hooke, Walker Digital, Walker LibraryRelated posts
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