james dyson: ‘the public wants to buy strange things’ - car air purifier

James Dyson is British.
Products of English boarding school system, Sir
Dyson found his mission as an industrial designer and built one of Britain's most successful private companies by selling his unique vacuum cleaner.
In 2007, he was awarded a Jazz title and served as provost of the Royal College of Art in London, one of the richest men in Britain.
In a globalized economy, however,
Dyson remains focused on what he considers Britain to be a special place in the world.
He refers to the British Empire, unlike most people in the business world, who is in favor of Britain's exit from the EU and believes that Brexit will make Britain more economically and culturally powerful.
In this interview
Dyson expressed outdated and sometimes offensive views on "racial differences" and Japanese culture.
He also called Asia's growth market "Far East ".
When asked to clarify his remarks,
Dyson declined to comment further. (
Read some of his comments on Japan below. )Mr.
Dyson discovered his passion for design at a very young age, and finally began to develop his signature product, a bag-free vacuum cleaner.
It took him a few years to bring the product to the market and founded Dyson Co. , Ltd. in 1991.
Soon Dyson began to expand in the world to develop new products such as washing machines, fans, heaters, air purifiers, clothes dryers and hair dryers.
It is now developing an electric vehicle.
Regardless of the outcome of Brexit
Dyson's company looks like it will last.
The company's sales rose sharply last year, thanks in large part to strong sales in Asia.
For clarity, the interview was conducted in New York.
What is your childhood like?
My father died when I was very young.
He is a teacher at a boarding school but he does not have life insurance so the school allows me and my brother to continue going to school there.
Boarding is a very demanding thing.
You have been sent away for 14 weeks and your parents can come to see you every Saturday of the semester, that's it.
"Feelings" is a word I only know when I am about 50 years old.
How are you interested in design?
I do art at boarding school and I really like it.
So I decided to go to the art school in London.
That's where I found the design, and I thought, "That's what I want to do.
I want to design and create something.
"I started with architecture, and then I found the great American inventor, entrepreneur Buckminster Fuller.
All of a sudden, the thing that interests me most is what I always think is very boring, that is engineering.
What is your first job?
When I was in college, I found an industrialist in an engineering company.
"I will give you some design work," he said.
"He's high on this.
"Why don't you design this ? "
"I don't dare to say it, but I don't know anything about the ship, but it sounds interesting.
So we made a model and then the chairman of the company said, "you 'd better start selling it.
I looked at him a bit blankly and said, "Well, don't I need to do some market research ? "?
"No trouble," he said . "
This is a good product.
Anyway, you're an engineer and you know every nut and bolt for this thing.
Did you sell them?
I don't look like a businessman or anything.
I'm wearing flowing trousers, long hair and a floral shirt.
But I built the company and the manufacturing industry and I sold it for five years.
We sold them to troops, oil companies, construction companies, smugglers who smuggled American cigarettes to Italy all over the world. Smugglers?
He paid cash in a leather jacket.
I asked him what he was going to do. I didn't think smuggling cigarettes was particularly naughty.
The point is, this is an art student studying in middle school.
In his 60 s, he was asked to design something he knew nothing about.
He was then told to set up a company and he knew nothing about it.
That's what I did with my people today.
I want to recruit everyone because they have no baggage and they are passionate and curious.
I think in some cases, in some companies, experience is OK.
But when you do something very different, it's usually best done by someone who hasn't done anything before.
How did you come up with the idea of a vacuum?
I decided to choose a generic product and make a completely different version to see what happened.
But retailers are not interested because they say it's too different and they say they don't have the space to do a different thing that no one does.
So I decided to advertise in the newspaper.
What I learned is that the public wants to buy strange things for a purpose.
As long as they can see what new and different it is, they will buy them.
What's the difference with your vacuum cleaner?
I saw the problem and I saw a possible solution that was the huge cyclone outside the cement plant and the lumber plant collecting dust all day long.
So I started building technologies for various versions.
It doesn't work, as it happens.
In order for different types of cyclone separation devices to work, I had to spend year 45 designing them.
This requires a lot of experience.
I have to make one or two prototypes a day, which sounds tedious, but it's actually appealing.
I'm still doing it today.
This is always a wonderful adventure of excitement and disappointment.
Before you succeed, almost all you do is fail.
How do you pay for all R & D expenses before you have a product for sale?
I borrowed it from the bank.
Deeper and deeper debt.
When I launched the vacuum cleaner, I owed a debt of 2 million.
I think the bank is a bit deeper than they expected, but I have an interesting bank manager.
I asked him why he lent me the money and he said, "I went home and said to my wife, what do you think about vacuum bags and vacuum cleaners?
She said: "It's terrible. it's terrible.
Once you get traction in AmericaK.
How did you enter the United States?
One of Best Buy's junior buyers took our vacuum cleaner home and used it for three weeks and came back to the boss and said, "it's actually a very good vacuum.
It won't make a mess.
He said, "Well, let's give it a try in 50 stores.
It sells well and then everyone else wants it.
It was just a brave junior buyer who convinced her manager.
When we met earlier this year, you told me something about Japan.
We did a lot of product launches in Tokyo.
They are technical experts.
They like artifacts. In this P. C.
In the world, we don't like to say anything interesting to people who are different from us.
But when I went there, the Japanese were very, very different.
They told me my nose was the same as the Eiffel Tower.
The girls want to make their noses more Western in their teens.
I think the racial differences are interesting.
They are sometimes interesting and are the source of entertainment between us.
But, of course, this is not a very P. C. thing to say.
Whenever we go there, we think you have to learn to bow like Japanese.
I quickly understood that it was not what they wanted at all.
They want us to be weird and different.
So, I continue to be British.
What are you doing now?
I have been doing electric cars.
We bought an old World War II airport so we had a place to do it.
Tesla proved that people want electric cars, although I don't think the government is aware of that yet.
People try to ignore the damage caused by pollution and pollution.
On top of that, electric cars are a better and easier car to own.
You don't have to go to the gas station. it's not very good there.
A LinkedIn reader, Talia Kennedy, asked what prompted the shift from a vacuum cleaner to a hairdryer.
How do you determine which markets to chase?
I don't look at the market at all.
Otherwise, I will never be in a hurry.
When we have technology, we think we can do something interesting.
It's technology. and product-led.
This is not the result of market size.
The clothes dryer is not a sexy industry, but we have better technology, which happens to be a very reasonable industry.
It's not like a computer or a mobile phone, but we want to do it and we like it.
We enjoyed it.
I choose unpopular areas because they are more interesting.
Please play me the bassoon tube.
Playing the guitar is much more sexy, but it's more fun.
Why do you support Brexit?
I think we should be independent.
Europe is becoming more and more a unified society, and all laws are enacted in Brussels.
I don't believe this is right for the UK.
Britain has always been a global-oriented country, and our empire covers half of the world, if I dare say.
We have a pioneering spirit and a global vision.
We have no space in Europe.
What is the prospect of the British economy being damaged? All cars entering the UK from the United States have 10% tariffs, most of which go to Brussels.
Europe is a protectionist agency designed to shut out its competitors.
It's not a good thing to go in.
We believe in free trade.
If a banker leaves London, it has nothing to do with Brexit.
This is the right decision for the UK.