InfoCompanions » Dotcom Boom http://www.infocompanions.com Brain spasms of an enthusiast who loves to live at the intersection of business, innovation, process and technology Sun, 26 Sep 2010 16:37:28 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Jay Walker – Library of Human Imagination http://www.infocompanions.com/jay-walker-curator-of-the-library-of-human-imagination/ http://www.infocompanions.com/jay-walker-curator-of-the-library-of-human-imagination/#comments Mon, 29 Dec 2008 04:49:11 +0000 Himanshu Sharma http://www.infocompanions.com/?p=317 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 , 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, 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 . Check out some of the surprises from his library in this engaging TED presentation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

His library is 3,600 square feet on three mazelike levels, and showcases his vast/crazy collection including 1493 , 1535 , 1660 celestial atlas by Andrea Cellarius, 1665 Micrographia by Robert Hooke or his , real meteorites, an original Sputnik from the 7 surviving Sputniks, an American flag which was carried to the moon and bag on , 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.

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