Failure Doesn't Suck - Part 2

FC: Tell me about a problem you noticed this week.

Dyson: I can’t [laughing]. I’d give away ideas for new products.

FC: Your new creation, the Airblade, is a hand drier. How did you decide it was a product worth tackling?

Dyson: Hand driers have always revolted me. There’s no filter on it, and the air blowing at you is filthy and contaminated. When you flush in a lavatory, a spray of feces goes out about two meters in an aerosol. That part I thought was utterly disgusting.

Then there’s the irritation of waiting 40 seconds or so for your hands to dry, knowing that evaporation is incredibly inefficient. And your hands feel awful after. You end up wiping them on your trousers anyway. I got angrier and angrier.

FC: Then anger’s a key ingredient to invention?

Dyson: Anger is a great motivational force. Anger and frustration are both great starting points.

FC: How did your experience creating the vacuum influence how you develop other products?

Dyson: I started out working alone in my house alone with an electric drill, and now we’ve got 400 to 450 people working in R&D labs, about a third of our employees. It doesn’t matter how big you are. The research needed to come up with a revolutionary product and develop new technology takes a long time. You have to do a huge amount of testing and proving before you can launch. In the old days, you could rush things out on the market, but you can’t do that now.

FC: How much of a perfectionist are you?

Dyson: I am quite exacting. I learned that from the Japanese company I did a licensing agreement with. They would make hundreds of changes to products after they launched them, often at enormous costs. I asked them, “Why do that?” They said, “Oh, we’re not worried if we don’t make money for ten years. We want to get a perfect product.” They have this wonderful expression, “You’ve got to suffer before you succeed.”

FC: Sounds like something an engineer would appreciate.

Dyson: There’s a famous Honda quote. I’ll get it slightly wrong, but in essence what it says is, “You’ve got to fail and then have the courage to overcome failure in order to succeed.”

FC: How do you balance perfectionism with the pragmatism of getting products to market?

Dyson: We choose to spend an enormous amount of time and money on R&D—about 10 to 12 percent of our sales. That’s expensive, so we have to charge a higher price. But in a way, it’s a good thing, because it demands that our products are that much better.

I’m a private company. I don’t have shareholders breathing down my neck. I can take my time over things. Our vacuum-cleaner motor took ten years. Our washing machine took seven years. I’m not in a desperate hurry to get big. I’m much more interested in making interesting products that solve problems. That’s what gives me a thrill. Getting big is the happy, or some might argue unhappy, result of making successful products.