Tinker your way to scale: James Dyson

Masters of Scale

WaitWhat

Entrepreneurship, Business, Management, Reid Hoffman, Mindset, Diversity & Inclusion, Jeff Berman, Bob Safian, Startups

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

James Dyson's journey to building a global invention enterprise began with a simple goal: to build a better vacuum. After 5,000+ prototypes and years of precise tinkering, his innovative bagless vacuum was ready. But none of the big brand names wanted it. So he started the Dyson company, betting that customers would be swayed by new technology, better performance, and distinctive design. Today the Dyson Corporation commands $9 billion in annual revenue, and — driven by engineering curiosity — develops products from air purifiers to hair dryers, even making a big bet on an electric car (that never hit the market). James Dyson’s inspiring story of scale involves challenging experts at every turn, relentless iteration, and a resilient view of failure as a stepping stone to the next breakthrough.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	How does the brain process memories?
0:02.8	Why is AI a solution and a problem for our climate?
0:07.1	What is leadership in 2025 and beyond?
0:11.0	The TED Radio Hour explores the biggest questions and the most complicated ideas of our
0:17.0	time with the world's greatest thinkers.
0:20.6	Listen now to the Ted Radio Hour from NPR.
0:24.0	The very first person to stock up Vacuum Cleaner
0:28.0	was a mail order catalog.
0:30.0	I was trying to sell to the buyer from this catalogue and I was able to demonstrate it.
0:35.0	We sell a dry powder carpet shampoo that you can use with it as opposed to wet shampooing carpets.
0:41.0	He said that won't work. So I went off to the local petrol
0:45.9	station, gas feeling station and got some Ribena. Do you have Ribena? There's black
0:50.6	current juice, concentrated black current juice drink.
0:53.7	I came back and threw it on his carpet and then put the powder down and vacuumed it up and it worked.
1:02.0	He said, why should I chuck out a well-known brand out of my
1:05.8	catalog and put in your thing? Very expensive. Maybe he understands it and who are you
1:10.0	anyway? And I said well because your catalog is boring. And he sort looked to me for five
1:18.0	minutes and said, okay, I'll give it a try.
1:31.0	That's engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur James Dyson, who founded the Dyson company over 20 years ago. He's probably best known for his breakout product, the Dyson vacuum cleaner.
1:35.2	With its bright colors, sleek design, and clear body, it looked like nothing else,
1:39.6	and it worked like nothing else. It used patented dual cyclone technology, separating dust from air at a speed of
1:47.4	924 miles per hour.
	...

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