#400 The Stubborn Genius of James Dyson

Founders

David Senra

Steve Jobs, Founders, James Dyson, Company Builders, Technology, Henry Ford, Elon Musk, Business Professional Biography, How I Built This, The History Of Entrepreneurship, Jim Clark, Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurs, History, Founder, Business Autobiography, Jeff Bezos, Entrepreneur, Biography, Biographies Of Entrepreneurs, Biographies, Business, Business Biography

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode covers the extreme perseverance and the stubborn genius of James Dyson. Dyson has a business philosophy which is very different from anything you might have encountered before. A philosophy which demands difference from what exists and retention of total control. For almost four decades, James Dyson has been building one of the most valuable privately-held companies in the world. A company he owns without shareholders — and one that is centered around an obsession with the quality of the product above all. I spent well over 70 hours reading (and rereading) both Against the Odds and Invention: A Life of Learning Through Failure. These books tell the story of the vision of a single man, pursued with dogged determination, that was nothing less than obsession. Episode sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ gives you everything you need to control spend, watch your costs, and optimize your financial operations —all on a single platform. Make history's greatest entrepreneurs proud ⁠⁠⁠by going to Ramp and learning how they can help your business control your costs and save time and money.⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠⁠ Automate compliance, security, and trust with Vanta. ⁠⁠⁠Vanta helps you win trust, close deals, and stay secure—faster and with less effort⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠Find out how increased security leads to more customers by going to Vanta⁠⁠⁠. Tell them David from Founders sent you and you'll get $1000 off. ⁠⁠https://www.vanta.com/founders⁠⁠ Collateral⁠ transforms your complex ideas into compelling narratives. Collateral crafts institutional grade marketing collateral for private equity, private credit, real estate, venture capital, family offices, hedge funds, oil & gas companies, and all kinds of corporations. Storytelling is one of the highest forms of leverage and you should invest heavily in it. You can do that by going to ⁠https://collateral.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	So it took me nine years to get to episode 400.
0:02.3	That means over the last nine years, I've read and reread 400 biographies and autobiographies
0:07.9	of history's greatest entrepreneurs.
0:09.5	My number one recommendation has been for many years and still is to this day James Dyson's
0:15.4	first autobiography called Against the Oats.
0:18.5	I covered James Dyson's first autobiography on episode 25,
0:22.0	episode 200, episode 200, and on episode 400, what I've done is spent the last two weeks
0:26.9	reading and rereading both his first autobiography and his second autobiography. Dyson wrote his
0:33.0	second autobiography about 20 years after his first. So I want to read two sections from his first
0:37.6	autobiography and then I'll tell you how this episode would be different from the other Dyson
0:40.4	episodes. First thing he says, I am led to the belief that for vision, one might equally well read
0:46.1	stubbornness. At any stage in my story when I talk of vision and arrogance seems to have gotten
0:52.1	the better of me, remember that I am celebrating only my stubbornness.
0:56.4	I am claiming nothing but the virtues of a mule.
1:00.0	I think that is one of the most important sentences in his first autobiography,
1:02.6	and is why I'm naming this episode,
1:04.3	The Stubborn Genius of James Dyson.
1:06.0	The second thing I want to read to you.
1:07.7	He says, this is a business philosophy,
1:09.7	which is very different from anything
1:11.4	you might have encountered before. This is not even a business book. It is, if anything, a book
1:16.4	against business, against the principles that have filled the world with ugly, useless objects
	...

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