#205 James Dyson (Invention: A Life)

What I learned from reading Invention: A Life by James Dyson. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- This is a story told through a life of creating and developing things, as well as expressing a call to arms for young people to become engineers, creating solutions to our current and future problems. I have tried to seek out those young people who can make the world a better place. I have seen what miracles they can achieve. This book is aimed at encouraging them. Some may well become heirs to my heroes—inventors, engineers, and designers—who make their appearance in these pages. Like them, they will not find it easy and they will need oodles of determination and stamina along the way. That was the last time I saw him. His brave cheerfulness chokes me every time I recall the scene. It is impossible to imagine my father's emotions as he waved goodbye knowing that he might be on his way to London to die. Sixty years have not softened these memories, nor the sadness that he missed enjoying his three children growing up. I felt the devastating loss of my dad, his love, his humor, and the things he taught me. I feared for a future without him. Running also taught me to overcome the pain barrier: when everyone else feels exhausted, that is the opportunity to accelerate, whatever the pain, and win the race. Stamina and determination, with creativity, are needed to overcome seemingly impossible difficulties. I admire Soichiro Honda greatly for his addiction to the continuous improvement of products. Craziest of all, during the first thirty years of our marriage, she agreed unselfishly to keep putting her signature to endless bank guarantee forms in front of solicitors, signing away our possessions. If we had defaulted on the bank loans, we would have been evicted from our home. At Dyson, we don't particularly value experience. Experience tells you how things should be done when we are much more interested in how things shouldn't be done. Jeremy Fry encouraged me to think for myself and to "just do it."Jeremy Fry taught me, without saying a word, that each day is a form of education. I wanted to make new things—things that might seem strange—and not things you make because you know they will sell. I was left with a burning ambition to emulate designer-engineers like Issigonis and Citroën in my own small way. I happen to find factories and production lines romantic places. They are truly exciting. Selling goes with manufacturing as wheels do with a bicycle. Products do not walk off shelves and into people's homes. And when a product is entirely new, the art of selling is needed to explain it. What it is. How it works. Why you might need and want it. He believed, most of all, in the power of enthusiasm. I still find myself putting into practice at Dyson some of the same things Jeremy said and did when I worked for him half a century ago. He believed in taking on young people with no experience because this way he employed those with curious, unsullied, and open minds. Jeremy was always looking for a better way of doing things. He loathed arrogance and experts, by which he meant those who want you to believe that they know everything about a subject when the inventive mind knows instinctively that there are always further questions to be asked and new discoveries to be made. Alec's view was that market research is bunk and that one should never copy the opposition. I was also putting into practice ideas I'd learned directly from Jeremy Fry and indirectly from Alec Issigonis: Don't copy the opposition. Don't worry about market research. Both Jeremy and Alec Issigonis might just as well have said "Follow your own star." And this is indeed what successful entrepreneurs do. I was penniless again with no job and no income. I had three adorable children, a large mortgage to pay, and nothing to show for the past five years of toil. I had also lost my inventions. This was a very low moment and deeply worrying for Deirdre and me. It was deeply upsetting, too. My confidence took a big blow, and it would take some years to regain it. Here was a field-the vacuum cleaner industry-where there had been no innovation for years, so the market ought to be ripe for something new. For the following fifteen years I lived in debt. This might not sound encouraging to young inventors with an entrepreneurial spirit, yet if you believe you can achieve something then you have to give the project 100 percent of your creative energy. You have to believe that you'll get there in the end. You need determination, patience, and willpower. Experts tend to be confident that they have all the answers and, because of this trait, they can kill new ideas. I had various degrees of perseverance underpinned by a kind of naïve intelligence, by which I mean following your own star along a path where you stop to question both yourself and expert opinion allong the way. How best could I share my enthusiasm for what I knew was a great and innovative product? We knew this was the most exciting adventure of our lives. As Buckminster Fuller said, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."En route, there are multiple failures, sleepless nights, a great deal of frustration. This was another of those products, used frequently by hundreds of millions of people, stuck in a technological time warp. The general idea was to show that Dyson was founded by Mr. Dyson and that he was responsible for Dyson products. Big, long-established multinationals, most of them public companies, would not be able to put forward an individual in the same way. Dyson has become as much an Asian as it is a British business. The fourth Industrial Revolution is not going to dissipate anytime soon. Learning by doing. Learning by trial and error. Learning by failing. These are all effective forms of education. Children love making things and yet, all too often, this innate curiosity and experimentation expressed through our hands is stamped out by educational systems that see no virtue in such natural creativity. Education should be about problem solving. Invention is a human imperative. If I wasn't getting anywhere with the education system in my quest to raise the number and quality of engineering graduates, why didn't I start a university of my own? There were to be no tuition fees. Our undergraduates would work three days a week with Dyson on real research projects alongside young Dyson engineers, earning a proper salary, and we would teach them for the remaining two days. When the first undergraduates complete their four-year course they will be debt-free. I also have an interest, verging on obsession, with the past. It is about understanding and celebrating the progress that has been achieved, learning from it, and building on it. Each artifact has its own story of against-the-odds progress and lessons on why having faith in your ideas and believing in progress is so important. It is hard for other people to understand or get excited by a new idea. This requires self-reliance and faith on the part of the inventor. Remember that there is nothing wrong with being persistently dissatisfied or even afraid. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00David Senra?

  In many ways, I have come to live what might seem to be a contradictory life, part in the future, part in the past. Most of my waking time is spent in our labs, surrounded by Dyson's engineers and scientists, exploring ideas that we hope might shape the future. Ours is a life of challenge and frustration, all of which is a fulfilling pastime. But I also have an interest verging on obsession with the past, with the stories, artifacts, and spaces that have shaped our world. Repairing the old and adding to the new has become as much an important part of my life as inventing for the future. Renovation might sound an odd enthusiasm for a modern designer and engineer, yet there

• 0:43David Senra?

  is much to learn from the past and from those who have shaped the world before us. It is about understanding and celebrating the progress that has been achieved, learning from it, and building on it. Let me give you an example. The Whittle jet engine, which we have lovingly restored to its original specification and which we fire up from time to time in the parking lot at the Dyson headquarters, is another example of restoration of the past. Though it needed love when we took it on, the Whittle engine is not some old-world object. It's the embodiment of Frank Whittle's revolutionary concept, a way of solving the problem of

• 1:23David Senra?

  how aircraft could fly at much greater height, speed, and smoothness than they could possibly do in 1930. The idea that he formulated at the age of 23 to form a new aero engine was as extraordinary as it was fragile. And who wanted to believe Whittle was right? Certainly not government experts. He had to pursue his project alone, yet in doing so, he revolutionized flight for everyone and changed the course of the Second World War. While the Widow Engine is perhaps my biggest inspiration, there are great many similar designs and engineering icons scattered around our campuses, each with its own story.

• 2:06David Senra?

  There is the English Electric Lightning jet that's hanging in one of our campus cafes, the Concorde engine in one of our office spaces, the dissected Mini parked in another, and a Harrier jump jet in the parking lot. One of these, the Mini, which I can't help but coming back to, is a good example of why you should not listen to market research. The British Motor Corporation, BMC, canceled one of the two proposed Mini production lines as a result of the feedback from market research. The corporation was told that people would refuse to buy a car with such small wheels. In the event, the BMC was never able to catch up with the demand

• 2:48David Senra?

  that followed the launch of the trend-setting Mini. There are many more examples I won't name here, yet each such artifact has its own story of against-the-odds progress and lessons on why having faith in your ideas and believing in progress is so important. What these pieces of our history demonstrate is that it is hard for other people to understand or get excited by a new idea. This requires self-reliance and faith on the part of the inventor. I can also see that it is hard for an outsider to understand the challenge and thrill of inventing new technology, designing and manufacturing the product, and then selling it to the world.

• 3:31David Senra?

  Being an entrepreneur is not necessarily about making a fast buck. It's about creating new products and new opportunities, generating rewarding employment and opportunities in the process. The entrepreneur is part of a cycle of renewal, driving progress. It is not easy. The margin between profits and loss, between success and failure, is small.

• 3:56David Senra?

  Just as you think you've understood a situation and how things work, it changes without warning. There are traps around every corner. As soon as Dyson became successful, people in Britain asked when I was going to sell the company, as if I were only lowering myself temporarily to the dim and grubby world of uncreative manufacturing. Once I made my first million, it was surely time for me to get away from the sweat, grime, and grim routine of factory life and become a reclusive landowner, building duck houses and perhaps, and cleaning the moat around my house. In any case, why would a supposedly educated person be ruddling around in factories when he could be doing something "creative",

• 4:41David Senra?

  and preferably from an office or a studio? Is it that they did not see a company as an enterprise that makes wonderful products, employs, and supports many others? Is it because they admire brilliance and easy success over the long stamina and grind of running a business for generations? Many wise friends advised me to sell in the early days when a few attractive offers came in. I suspect they feared that I might lose it all or they felt that I had achieved all that I needed to achieve. A family business has most of its wealth tied up in the business, so continuing to keep it as a family business is both a risk and a responsibility. But I like living on knife's edge,

• 5:24David Senra?

  competing and building the business. I am passionate about developing new technology and working with a wonderful and creative team around me. Those kind people totally miss the point. I didn't work on those 5,127 vacuum cleaner prototypes or even set up Dyson to make money. I did it because I had a burning desire to do so. I find inventing, researching, testing, designing, and manufacturing both creative and satisfying.

• 5:59David Senra?

  Going against established expert thinking was a huge risk. No one could confirm that what we were doing was a good idea. Everyone, in fact, confirmed the reverse. The data were all against it. If, however, we had believed the "science" and not trusted our instincts, we should have ended up following the path of dull conformity. In following a different path, obstacles will be put in the way of pioneering manufacturers. Yet the process of creativity and of solving seemingly insolvable problems is rather wonderful. It is hard to be pioneering because you don't know whether or not you're going to succeed.

• 6:39David Senra?

  You will stumble and have to pick yourself back up, believing that you will succeed. It is scary. I am scared all the time. Fear, though, can be a good thing, as it pumps the adrenaline and motivates, as athletes will confirm. A life of perpetual learning, pursuing science, engineering, and technology, has been a magical and fulfilling adventure. The quiet thrill of improving products through the application of technology and making them enjoyable and surprising to use. For an engineer, the creative impulse, the desire to improve things,

• 7:19David Senra?

  and the need to solve problems are a state of mind that cannot be switched off. It is there all the time, whether you're at work or you're at home. It is the intellectual challenge of seeing frustrations and problems and developing a product or system that solves them. Scientists and engineers combined recognize today's problems and are capable of providing new solutions. History has proved this time and time again.

• 7:53David Senra?

  That's an excerpt from the book that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is "Invention: A Life," and it was written by James Dyson. So this is an updated autobiography. If you've listened to even a few of these episodes by now, you know that I think that his original autobiography that he wrote 20 years ago, or I guess over 20 years ago by now, is a must have. It should be in every entrepreneur's library. It should be in the library of anybody that's trying to do something difficult because it's all about struggle and perseverance and overcoming that. This book is now updated. He writes it, he's 74 years old. When his last autobiography ends, he has one product. He's about to make a washing machine, but at that time, he's just made his vacuum cleaner. He's only in the, he's about to expand to the American market. He's dominating the market in Britain.

• 8:37David Senra?

  When that book ends, I think he's doing something like 300 million a year in revenue. Over the next 20 years, he builds this gigantic privately owned business. His family owns 100% of the business to this day, and now they're doing billions. It's like something like 8 to 10 billion dollars a year in revenue, a billion or 2 billion dollars a year in profit. And what was remarkable to me, because I just reread his original autobiography, what, a week ago, two weeks ago, something like that, and then read this right after, because this book was just released. So I don't normally do, you know, brand new books on the podcast. Most of the books I read for the podcast are extremely old, but James Dyson is a personal hero of mine. So of course, as soon as I even saw, I pre-ordered the book. I didn't even know it was coming out.

• 9:18David Senra?

  I was Googling, or excuse me, I was on Amazon searching for the, his previous autobiography to see if they had any more in stock. And it said, "Oh, a new book." So I immediately pre-ordered it. And what's remarkable to me is he's the same person. Like it's just now 20 years older, 20 years wider, wiser, has 20 years more experience. So there's a ton of highlights. Before I get into why he wrote the book, because he tells us explicitly, like, well, why is he doing this? He did a fantastic interview on the Tim Ferriss Podcast. I think it's Tim Ferriss number 530. And so if you want to hear James in his own words, I highly recommend listening to that podcast. I just want to pull out, I wrote down a quote or two from there. And because he talks about, he's on, you know, he's going around doing podcast interviews,

• 10:02David Senra?

  obviously promoting the book. And he said something, he tells us exactly like, what's the, what's the theme of the book, right? The theme of the book is really that you don't have to be an expert. And this is James talking. And in fact, experts are often unhelpful. You have to have enthusiasm, curiosity, a thirst for knowledge and determination. And those are the things that will solve all of the world's problems. And one big problem that he talks about is like, young kids are now, or they don't understand the nobility of, and how creative and exciting, working in technology, doing engineering, solving hard problems. I think what I wrote, this note I left myself is, James makes a full-throated

• 10:43David Senra?

  defense on the nobility of engineering, manufacturing, working with your hands, learning to sell, working in factories, and doing the slow, difficult, dirty work that others deride. And he's not, and as we'll see later, he's not just talking about this, he's actually inventing new ways to educate people. He started his, he rethought college. It's amazing how, and of course, just like he rethought vacuum cleaners and every other product, he worked from first principles, like, okay, if we could design this today, how would it be? Wait till I get that. That's towards the end of the book. But it's just remarkable. All right. So let's go into this. He says, "I wanted to share my story as the first cohort of Dyson students graduated from Dyson University. For them and all of us students dedicated

• 11:26David Senra?

  to the pursuit of curiosity, learning, and embracing the joys of making things. It is a story told through the life of creating and developing things, as well as expressing a call to arms for young people to become engineers, creating solutions to our current and future problems." And so he's saying, flat out, "I'm trying to do this to inspire you." And why is that so important? Because he talks about the importance of having heroes, that everybody has heroes that came before them, that they look to, not only for wisdom, for mistakes to avoid, but for inspiration. And this guy, wait till he's, I mean...

• 12:03David Senra?

  The amount of historical knowledge that is in this man's brain is unbelievable. And if you see, if you listen to Founder's Number 200, at the very end, I did a bonus episode. That's that whole podcast is like, I don't know, two hour, two and a half hours long, something like that. And on the end, it's 45 minutes of what I learned from reading. James wrote a book. It's called The History of Great Inventions. And he's kind of, just like the, at the introduction, or the part I read for the podcast that, that served as the introduction to this podcast, but actually towards the end of the book, where he's talking about, he's like, I feel, you know, my life is somewhat contradictory. Like, I invent for the future, but I'm obsessed with, with history. So he, this is something I think you and I have been talking about over and over again. I feel like it's been

• 12:44David Senra?

  top of mind the last few podcasts is like, combine, develop this deep historical knowledge and combine what you learned from that with the edge of technology. We're seeing that James is yet another example of that. So I'm really excited. So I gotta calm down because I really do admire, I just cannot believe what this guy was able to accomplish. It's just remarkable. All right. So it says, during my career, I have tried to seek out those young people who can make the world a better place. I have seen what miracles they can achieve. This book is aimed at encouraging them. So flat out, I'm trying to inspire the next generation. And he says that later on in the book, and it really did hit me where it's just like, one of the benefits of reading biographies is you're constantly reminded of the passage of time. And there's pictures in the book, like, there's

• 13:27David Senra?

  a picture of the day him and his wife got married. They're still married. And then a picture of him today. And 52 years separates those two pictures, an entire lifetime. And what's crazy to me is that's how long his career has been so, so far. So the idea, it's like, the founder of Shopify has this great quote. He said it the most succinctly, like, why he reads biographies, right? And that's Toby, I think his name's, last name's Luke. But I know Toby, I know how to pronounce Toby, though. So what Toby said, he's like, books are cheat codes. He's like, you can download, in a few hours, you can download the entire learnings, the accumulated learnings of someone's entire career. I don't have the quote in front of me, but that's like a paraphrase. Like, he did use the word cheat

• 14:12David Senra?

  codes. Like, you can download the best ideas they have in a few hours. And so the book I hold in my hand is like, why would you not buy this? I think I paid $25 for this book, and it contains the best and worst ideas that James had over 52 years. It's incredible. All right, so it says, "During my career, I tried to seek out those young people who can make the world a better place. I have seen what miracles they can achieve. This book is aimed at encouraging them." I never finished my thought. So what he says at the end, he's like, "Listen, I'm not one to give advice. I'm one to give encouragement." And he's like, "We can't have..." And the reason I thought about how biographies remind you of the passage of time is because... Let me fast forward to where he says that. Hold on. It was just a random sentence where he says, towards the end of the book, he's talking

• 14:57David Senra?

  about, you know, it's not about giving advice, it's about giving encouragement, getting out of their way, letting them explore and develop into their own humans. And he says, talking about, you know, politicians should be telling them what to do, all these other people. And he says, "Nor should even old people like me telling them what to do." And that really, that one random sentence hit me really hard when I thought about it. Like, you know, the time that passed in between these two autobiographies, like, he has now turned into an old man, and he knows it. He's still working, like, flat out. His wife has a postscript in the book, and that's what she says. And she's like, "James is still, you know, working flat out. He's still completely obsessed." And that's one of his things. Like, the idea that I would ever sell my company is ridiculous. He's like, "This company, I built this for my family for generations. Like, I'm obsessed. I want to work on this

• 15:41David Senra?

  till the day I die." But going back to this idea that we have the opportunity to learn from a 74-year-old James Dyson who spent five decades learning everything that he put down in the book, this book for us, it's just a remarkable book. So one of the most remarkable pieces of technology that humans are able to create. It's amazing. So it says, "This book is aimed at encouraging them. Some may well become heirs to my heroes, inventors, engineers, and designers who make their appearances in these pages." And there's got to be, I don't know, dozen, like, a dozen, maybe 20 different, you know, heroes from the history of entrepreneurship, engineering, and designing that he references. He's like, "This is what I learned from this guy, and this is what I learned from that guy. And

• 16:23David Senra?

  this is really what I'm trying to do, like, in my own tiny, tiny way, with founders." I'm willing to spend thousands and thousands of hours going through these history books and pulling these ideas and trying to push them forward to make sure they don't die, so more people can learn them than when you learn it, you tell somebody else, and that person tells somebody else. And I think everybody benefits from that. So... I don't know, I'm really inspired by what he's saying here. So he says, "They become heirs to my heroes, inventors, engineers, and designers who make their appearances in these pages. Like them, they will not find it easy. Like them, they will not find it easy. And they will need oodles, oodles of determination and stamina along the way. They will have to run and run hard," which is how my life story begins.

• 17:08David Senra?

  And the lessons he learns from running, I went into way more detail, because he goes into way more detail in his previous autobiography than this one. But in this biography, he talks in way more detail about how devastating it was for his father to die so young, and how that changed the person he was, and it changed the trajectory of his life and career. So they're on a, he's eight years old at the time, they're on a road trip, and they stop off on the highway, and they're just like walking to this little field, and then he comes across his father. He says, "So I turned around a corner, I discovered my father was being violently sick. Before I could say anything, he said, 'Don't tell Mom.'" It was typical of him not to want to cause alarm.

• 17:51David Senra?

  I felt immense love and compassion for him. Dad died the following year, in 1956, when he was only 40. He had been 30 when he came back from the war. Three years later, he was diagnosed with cancer, throat and lungs. His last days were spent in a Westminster hospital. He had said goodbye, holding a small leather suitcase as he waved from the back door. He set off to the train station and caught the train that took him to London. That was the last time I saw him. His brave cheerfulness chokes me every time I recall the scene.

• 18:30David Senra?

  It is impossible to imagine my father's emotions as he waved goodbye, knowing that he might be on his way to London to die. 60 years have not softened these memories, nor the sadness that he missed enjoying his three children growing up and marrying wonderful people. How he would have relished playing with his grandchildren, of whom there are seven." This is a difficult part to get through. "This was all the more poignant when I observed one of my own grandchildren, Mick, at the age I was when my father died."

• 19:10David Senra?

  And this is just heavy because, you know, James is a fully formed adult. He's had a lifetime of experiences by the time he's having this thought. And yet to see his grandson at the same age that he was when his father died and realized how vulnerable a child at that age still is and how much they need their parents, especially their father. Mick is loving, bright as a button and self possessed. Yet still at that age, he took his ruffled, soft toy puppy to bed with him. He was far too vulnerable to lose his father. And then James ties this all together here. Look at this. "I realized how much I missed mine as I watched Mick playing ping pong with his loving father." And this paragraph is just a great example of why I truly believe biographies are the

• 19:55David Senra?

  best thing that you could spend time reading because these are not words on a page. These are lives. These were actual people that lived and died. "I felt the devastating loss of my dad, his love, his humor, and the things he taught me. I feared for a future without him. I was suddenly alone. Ever since, a part of me has been making up for that painfully unjust separation from my father and for the years he lost. Little could be worse than my father dying when he did." So at the time that his father dies, his mom is now being a single mom. She's got to raise three kids. So he goes on in this section to talk about like just how strong his mother had to be to do that, raising three kids on her own. She wound up continuing to get an education.

• 20:40David Senra?

  I think she wound up getting maybe two different degrees and she had to work. And the story of and how their stories relate is because James's life story is at its fundamental level. It's a story of determination, determination and strength that he got from her. And when you're reading this book and you're reading his other autobiography, there's just so many times where you're just like, why is this guy not giving up? It's not, you know, it reminded me of this time around. When I read the book on Churchill, The Splendid and the Vile, a few weeks ago, and we got these notes from like all the, like these internal, sometimes they were diary entries by Nazi officers, sometimes they were letters written to, within the German Nazi,

• 21:24David Senra?

  I guess, establishment party, whatever. And they're just, they could not, like, why, what the hell, like, what is this Churchill, is this Churchill guy insane? Like, why is he not giving up? It's obvious we've already won. And, you know, they repeat that over and over again. Just the idea, and I feel James is the same way. From an outsider's perspective, it was like, why is this guy not giving up? So then he talks a little bit about getting this from his mother, and then, you know, her dying, or young as well from cancer. He's not a little boy. She outlives her husband, I think, by 20 years. But one of the most devastating parts of his previous autobiography is just him talking about the cruel twist of fate, that she didn't get to see her grandchildren, like she didn't get to be there for her grandchildren. So it says, "Through a bitter twist of fate,

• 22:07David Senra?

  in 1978, my mom was diagnosed with, and then very quickly died of liver cancer. My wife claims that I have inherited my mother's determination and warrior spirit." And then there's just two words to really wrap up the impact that his mother had on his life. "She encouraged." So I want to read you a quote, a note that I wrote to myself when I was listening to that Tim Ferriss podcast, the interview with James Dyson. And he says, this is James Dyson talking, he says, "In long distance running, there is a thing called the pain barrier. There's a point, three quarters of the way through the race, where it's really starting to hurt, and you can't see the end, and you want to give up. You go through that process with every invention, with every technological breakthrough. It

• 22:50David Senra?

  looks brilliant at the end, because from where you, because the difference from where you started and where you ended up, there's such a difference. There's such a big leap. So it looks like an act of brilliance. But it wasn't. It was just hard work." And so he's talking about, and now going back to this book, he's talking about what running taught him. And I'm going to tell you what this reminded me of, two other founders that we've talked about in the past. Running also taught me to overcome the pain barrier. When everyone else feels exhausted, that is the opportunity to accelerate, whatever the pain, and win the race. Stamina and determination with creativity are needed to overcome seemingly impossible difficulties. And I double underlined that section, that part of the sentence, rather. Whatever the pain, that is the opportunity to accelerate,

• 23:35David Senra?

  whatever the pain, and win the race. And there's a quote that I keep, and I, two quotes that I constantly remind myself of. And one first comes from Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the second comes from the founder of Four Seasons, Izzy Sharp. So this is Arnold. He says, "You experience pain and you just go on and on. That's what makes you grow. That is what divides one from becoming a champion and one from not being a champion. If you can't go through this pain barrier, forget it. That is what most people lack. Having the guts to go in and say, 'I will go through and I don't care what happens. It doesn't matter because it's all worth it.'" And then the founder of Four Seasons,

• 24:17David Senra?

  you know, both of these have had, both these people have wonderfully, and let's include James in there. All three of these people had wonderfully productive lives, had a list of great accomplishments that they can point to with satisfaction. And they all say the same thing. And so the founder of Four Seasons says, "Excellence is often just a capacity for taking pain." So the same lesson that James Dyson has learned from running, he applied to his career. Now, he's going to talk about, listen, experience is the best teacher. Wait till you see how he redoes, he rethinks college and he really, like, he's putting his money where his mouth is here. "Visceral experience is a powerful teacher. Learning by trial and error or experimentation can be exciting. The lessons that you learn are deeply ingrained.

• 25:02David Senra?

  Learning by failure is a remarkably good way of gaining knowledge. Failure is to be welcomed rather than avoided or feared. It's part of learning. It should not be feared by the engineer or scientist or indeed by anyone else."

• 25:17David Senra?

  Okay, so I'm fast forwarding the story. He's now at art school. He's on his own. So he says, "I was, he's living in London. I was now self-reliant. I had no one to turn to." And then he talks about, and this is something he does throughout the entire book, over and over again, he talks about all the principles that he learned from previous product makers. So while he's in London, he doesn't have a lot of money, so he, to get around, he has a little Honda motorcycle that's called the Supercub. And he says, and then a lot of the things he learned about this wonderful product, he tried to apply to his own products later on. They mention this, the invention of the engineer, Soichiro, Soichiro Honda, most likely mispronouncing

• 25:58David Senra?

  his first name, "who I greatly admire for his addiction to the continuous improvement of products." So this, this is the Supercub. "The Supercub was simplicity itself to own and ride." This was an early example of an inventive manufacturer, taking an existing product, which is exactly what James does, in this case, the low-cost motorcycle, and transforming it into a much better and much more attractive proposition than anything available at that time. So I think that sentence is a description of James's MO. "Taking existing product and transforming it into a much better and more attractive proposition than anything else that's available."

• 26:38David Senra?

  Honda's genius was to think against the grain while focusing on continuous improvement. And those are two principles that James Lysvice, he says, "Difference for the sake of it. You have to go, you cannot build a product that's just like everybody else's. You have to go against the grain, not only because it's better, but because it's different, even if it wasn't better." And then the second principle that he talks about over and over again, he's like, "Listen, I'm, you always should be perpetually dissatisfied with your product because everything in the world can always be improved." And so he's talking about his life in art school. This is where he meets the love of his life, Deidra. They're still married to this day. So this is on his wife, and then just decades of struggle. It says, "Up until quite recently, Deidre, Deidra? Deidra, I think, had, has had to put up with a perpetual lack of funds.

• 27:23David Senra?

  She made clothes for herself and sometimes for our children. To save money, we grew our own vegetables. Craziest of all, during the first 30 years of our marriage, she agreed unselfishly, and so typically of her, to keep putting her signature to endless bank guarantee forms in front of solicitors, signing away all of our possessions. If we had, he's talking about multiple times in his career, he had to do personal guarantees and use his house as collateral to get money to build his products. And if his, if his company failed, his family would be homeless. If we had defaulted on the bank loans, we should have been evicted from our, we would have been evicted from our home. She has a mild manner, but is not one to give in or give up."

• 28:08David Senra?

  And that's another thing that, again, you'll see when you read biographies. The advice they give and their approach to life is vastly different than the stuff you'll hear, you know, everybody else talk about. And this idea, Arnold was the same way, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, over and over again, they don't believe in Plan B. They're like, to have a backup plan is ridiculous. We burn the boats and we either go forward or we die. And James says, he says, "Listen, I had no Plan B. It had to work. I pinned everything on it. I bet the house, literally."

• 28:41David Senra?

  And so now he's talking about, there's a bunch of teachers that he had that expanded his mind and a bunch of heroes they introduced him to, which, which was very helpful throughout his career. And then he just learns that, because the people he's studying at art school and the people he's admiring, he's about to meet his, his, the greatest mentors he's ever going to have in his life. But he just realizes that like, a lot of these people didn't have experience to do what they did, right? And so they, and so he translates that, he's like, "Well, all these great inventors, like, they didn't have experience necessarily in the field before they had this radical invention." He's like, so why am I hiring people that only have experience? And so he talks about this. And the great thing about this book is there's so many times, like each chapter has to do with a particular part in his life. And this time he's in art school.

• 29:26David Senra?

  But he goes on like these rants. And so I'll be reading for a few pages, going on rants, kind of just nodding along my head because everything he's saying, like I'm inclined to either, if I don't even agree, like empathize with. And then I'm like, oh, wait, we're, he's now going back in, in time in his life. I forgot where we were. It was just very interesting. So it says, and this is the case, like he's now, he's talking about art school, but he's fast forwarding into what, what he learned in art school and how he applies it to his business, which I thought was, you know, very useful. At Dyson, we don't particularly value experience. It tells you how things should be, it, it tells you how things should be done when, when we are much more interested in how things shouldn't be done. If you want to pioneer and invent new technology, you need to step into the unknown.

• 30:10David Senra?

  And in that realm, experience can be a hindrance. So he's got a tutor, like a teacher at, at the, the art school he's at. And he said, he made me think that anything was possible. And then now he's going to actually name this other one. One of my teachers, Tony Hunt, did more than anyone at the time to turn me on to engineering and to make the connection between design, engineering, art and science. So he was an art student. He didn't realize that, like he could apply his artistic tendencies to actually solving real problems. And the way you do that is by engineering and manufacturing a new product. Right? Tony was a passion, was as passionate about the aesthetics of structures as he was about how they worked and were made. Actually, these things all went together. So he's realizing, wait a minute, you don't have to silo this knowledge.

• 30:52David Senra?

  Like you can learn and you can learn ideas from design, engineering, art and science and combine them. It's not, this perspective is very similar. It's not at all dissimilar to what we just learned with Steve Jobs and inside Steve's brain, where he's like, I don't really view his art, technology and science as different things. I think they're the exact same thing. Tony taught us that structures was architecture, that good buildings are defined by the structure that holds them up rather than by the style. I was also really taken by the work of Buckminster Fuller, who he learned, he learned about Buckminster Fuller through Tony. And he says Buckminster Fuller had demonstrated especially with his domes that architecture and structures were indeed synonymous. Fuller himself was an eternal optimist. James describes himself as the same. His way of thinking as wonderful as it was contrary.

• 31:37David Senra?

  He aimed to turn conventional thinking concerning architecture, homes, cars, land use, and the ways we might live upside down and inside out. That's the exact same way that James approaches his products. He wants to turn them upside down and inside out. He drew heavily for inspiration from the aircraft industry that necessarily sought lightness in his machines, or in their machines. Just add lightness became Fuller's motto. And so James does something really smart here. He makes the connection by what he's learning from Buckminster Fuller. He's like, wait, those principles apply to making everyday products, too. I could see that structural engineering would come to dominate architecture. I also understood that this would be true of products, too. And it's while he's in school, he's designing this project. It's like this mushroom-shaped theater.

• 32:22David Senra?

  He tries to go raise money for it. And this is where he winds up through a project. He's actually meets his mentor. And he says, "The project did introduce me, though, to Jeremy Frye, the inventor and the engineer, who, more than anyone else, encouraged me to think for myself and to just do it." And then we see, again, he's talking about all the stuff he learned from Jeremy and then how he uses those same ideas that Jeremy did in his company, in Frye's company, that James uses in his. "Jeremy asked me to engineer a prototype and sell a glass fiber sea truck. As an art student, I was just beginning. I was offered a job as head of a new marine division for Jeremy's successful engineering company. I jumped at the opportunity."

• 33:07David Senra?

  So that's what, he talks about this later on. "Listen, I'm going to hire for intelligence and enthusiasm over experience every single time, because that's what Jeremy did. He let me run this company, and I was a young kid for five years. And the experience that I got, without him micromanaging me, was just invaluable." And he wound up being able, proving he could do it. Like, James's point is, like, young people are way more capable if we actually give them the opportunity to show us what they're capable of instead of babying them. And so he talks about this here. "I'm still amazed that Jeremy Frye entrusted me with the task of developing and selling the sea truck. How well-equipped was I as a designer and engineer? Jeremy Frye taught me," because he sees his whole point, he's like, "I didn't have any experience doing this stuff." Jeremy Fry taught me, this is such a fantastic thought, too.

• 33:52David Senra?

  He taught me without saying a word that each day is a form of education. When I set up on my own in my late twenties, I had to teach myself an awful lot about so many things before I made success with my dual cyclone vacuum cleaner. Another lesson from Jeremy. I knew nothing about selling. Jeremy Fry convinced me that I was the right person for the job. Quote from Fry here. You know the sea truck inside and out, every nut and bolt. You've made it. You were the best person to sell it. And that's another one of James's idea that he pushes really hard. He's like the person that, like, there's no better person that can sell your own product than the person that actually made it. You know everything about it. You care more about it.

• 34:36David Senra?

  You've thought longer and harder than any other person on the planet about your product. Why are you not the one selling it? Which is what I did for the best part of the next five years. And then here he goes again on the importance of having role models. I made up my mind that what I really wanted to be was a manufacturer. I wanted to make new things, things that might seem strange and not things that you make because you know they will sell. The ultimate challenge, I suppose, was to design, make, and sell inventive and wholly new products. To do this, you need to be more than a designer and engineer. You need control over the whole process, just as my heroes Honda, Andre Citron, and I looked that word up. That's how it's pronounced on YouTube, but it's not spelled that way. And Akio Morito.

• 35:21David Senra?

  It's amazing how influential, that's the founder of Sony, founder's number 102, if you haven't listened to that podcast, and then just buy the book. His book is fantastic. He's influenced James Dyson, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs. Like, I mean, that tells you everything you need to know, right? He was extremely influential and he's a, the book is hilarious because it's just, he's extremely aggressive and confident. And it comes through in his writing. It's fantastic. I had observed that designers work on what manufacturers and clients asked them to design, and this held no appeal. So he's like, I don't want clients, I want customers. And he's like, I want, I don't want you telling me what to make. Like, I want to make it, tell you why it's valuable, and then if you like it, buy it. So he says, rather grandly, I had designed, I had decided I wanted to be the one developing

• 36:03David Senra?

  the technology, engineering and design of a product and making and marketing it too. How extremely, so he wants to be an engineer, or excuse me, an entrepreneur is what he's saying there, right? How extremely fortunate I was to be able to discuss this with Jeremy and a genius of a mentor and how our heroes like Andre Citron had been able to design revolutionary new products and make a success of them. I was left with a burning ambition to emulate these designer engineers like Citron and I don't know, Isso Johnis? This is the guy that designed the Mini. So his first name's Alec. Alec Isso Johnis, I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Even if you don't know, you obviously know his design, the Mini Cooper is one of the,

• 36:48David Senra?

  or the Mini, I guess, is one of the most famous automotive designs of all time, but you've definitely heard, or you most likely have heard one of his quotes. And he's the guy that famously said, "A camel is a horse designed by committee," which I've heard many people repeat over and over again. Actually, I watched a video of Alec on YouTube and it's just remarkable, just in a few minutes, I think the video was like 10 minutes long, and the way he talks, I'm like, that's the proto-James Dyson. Cause he talks about, he's like, "No, your product should look weird. Like, it should be different for the sake of it." He talks, just a lot of the ideas that, you know, we credit, or that I learned from James Dyson, I'm like, "Oh, like, now I see where they're coming from." It's fantastic. Alright, so this is why, this is where we just get into this, and again, this is like

• 37:32David Senra?

  an autobiography, but it's really a call to arms. I love going, quoting the founder of Shopify again. He's just like, you know, like, "Oh, you're gonna compete with Amazon." He's like, "Amazon's building an empire." He's like, "I'm trying to arm the rebels." And that just gets me fired up. I feel that's what James is doing with his book. It's like, "Let's arm the rebels. Let's entice an entire new generation of people to make products, to make things." That's the best way to make a difference in the world. Cause a product makes somebody's life better. Hopefully, it solves a problem, right? And so it's a call to arms. This is like this full-throated defense. He's like, "All these people are putting us down, saying what we do is like, 'Oh, it's dirty work, or it's not creative.'" He's like, "Bullshit. That's not true at all."

• 38:13David Senra?

  And so a lot of this, he's gonna, he's focused on like, why Britain has this perspective. But, you know, there's some of this perspective in America, in the country I live in, and I think there's other places, like- So even if he uses the word Britain, I think we should, we should think about this in terms of like whatever society you happen to live in, like our community you live in, like is this thought process pervasive and how we can counteract this because we need, you know, millions and millions and millions more entrepreneurs. So he says, "I happen to find factories and production lines romantic places. They are truly exciting. I like making things. And to be a good manufacturer, you really have to."

• 38:56David Senra?

  He says, "There's been all too little of incentive to innovate during the years in which Britain had an easy time selling run-of-the-mill manufactured goods to its imperial territories." So he's saying, "Once Britain lost its empire after World War II, like we, we got fascinated with financial services, creative industries." And he's like, "Listen, we do those well. That's fantastic. But we cannot, and when we're celebrating those, we cannot denigrate making things, like in factories, making things with our hands." He said something I never even thought of. Let me go back to my notes from the, from the interview he did with Tim Ferriss, which is, this popped to my mind while I'm talking to you about this. Let me, uh, he says, he says, "Making, making, making the product with your own hands is terribly important." Let me back up.

• 39:38David Senra?

  So he's talking about, he's like, "Listen, engineers at Dyson, we don't hire, like you have to make your own prototype. You're not testers." He says, "You, you don't give it to someone else to build. You go and build it yourself." This is exactly what Frye made him do when he was young, right? He's still doing it to this day. "It's through the building of the prototype that you experience failure. You learn how you might change and improvement." And he says, "Making the product with your own hands is terribly important." We were, and this is, this is the, the, the thought that blew my mind. "We were given two hands and a brain. You should use both at the same time. Using hands, using your hands is not a lowly activity. It's useful. Man has always done it." So anyways, let's go back to what he's saying about it's like, listen, I like working

• 40:23David Senra?

  factories. You want to make products, like you should want to do this. He says, "High quality manufacturing mattered very much indeed." And this is where he goes into comparing the historical, like the historical benefit of manufacturing in Britain compared to how it's look. He's like, "How do you think we got rich? How do you think we got rich? High quality manufacturing mattered very much indeed, yet there was very little, precious little of it. Why was this? One reason, following a spate of innovation from the Industrial Revolution, is that the wealthy sons of what had been mostly artisans, or lower, or lower to, or lower middle-class first-generation industrialists, aspired to be gentry. The scions of industrial magnates were shipped off to school, immersed in classical culture,

• 41:06David Senra?

  and taught to hunt, fish, and shoot, and to look, this is so good, "and to look down on the very world that had allowed their ascendancy from makers to squires." That reminds me of that, that, that little clip from Game of Thrones I always reference, where Bronn is asking the two Lannister brothers, "Who, who was it? Who were your ancestors that made your family rich? Were they fancy lads in silk? No, they were not." And so his point is like, "The industrial magnates, the manufacturers, were the ones that made the wealth. Then when they got wealthy, they shipped their kids off to be immersed in classical culture. They come out of that environment looking down on the very world that allowed their

• 41:50David Senra?

  ascendancy from makers to squires." So then he's talking about, so listen to what we're actually, he's like, "Anything to do with politics, the military, law, established church, the arts, and making money from money with as little effort as possible was good. Making anything by hand, and far worse, by machinery in factories, was very bad form indeed." And he says, like, "This is our downfall. We cannot do this. When I was at school, one of the worst things teachers could say to you, as some did to me, about my lack of academic progress, was you'll end up working in a factory." And so he's like, okay, but is that such a bad thing? And then he pulls out more of his historical knowledge. But think of the story of Paul Magus, inventor of the self-leveling hydro pneumatic suspension.

• 42:31David Senra?

  His invention, which was developed for Citron, led to the struts for an aircraft and to gas-filled shock absorbers, which are two unsung inventions that have made our lives safer and more comfortable. And he's like, these two products that he made, and he started right at the age of 17, remained in production for over 20 years. He says, and his point here is that Paul was hardly a thico, which is, I guess, the slang for like, moron, right? No, this guy was extremely intelligent. He's working in a factory. And yet, what could be less honorable and grubbier than making nothing? We have a history of the fast buck celebrated and making the fast buck celebrated in poetry, song, films, whereas the story of what has long been portrayed as the slow, difficult,

• 43:16David Senra?

  and dirty business of making things is held up to ridicule. And then he does a great job. He's like, what has received truth and wisdom today is the exact opposite. He says, "This smug sensibility served to reinforce the idea that industry, the engineering and making of things, was uncreative. And yet, the Industrial Revolution took millions of people out of serfdom to give them homes and to create wealth for future generations. We ought to feel pride and relief that our industrial might was able to produce the technology and equipment to repel the threats of two 20th-century world wars. If manufacturing has long been seen as a lowly pursuit, then selling has surely been

• 43:59David Senra?

  seen as beyond the pale, even though bankers and others working in seemingly respectable financial services are mostly salespeople by another name." And this is such a great line. "Selling goes with manufacturing as wheels do with a bicycle. Products do not walk off shelves and into people's homes. And when a product is entirely new, the art of selling is needed to explain it, what it is, how it works, and why you might need and want it." And so we're still in the chapter on the sea truck. Do you see what I mean here? Like he's, he's giving a narrative of his life and then he goes on these rants, these extremely passionate rants, because he's like, we have this exactly backwards. He's like, making things is noble. Learning how to sell is noble.

• 44:44David Senra?

  Making products that make people's lives better is noble. It's not dirty. It's not to be looked down upon. We need more people doing this, not less. And so he says, selling can be noble and exciting. Jeremy Fry taught me, so he's talking about like now, like how to sell. Jeremy taught me not to pressure people into buying, but to ask them a lot of questions about what they did, how they worked, and what they might expect of a new product. I learned that most people don't really know exactly what they want, or if they do, it's only from what they know, what's available, what happens to be available or possible at the time. And so he's saying, you need to show them new possibilities, new ideas and new products, and explain the products as lucidly as possible. You also need to listen to your customers, aiming to improve products whenever necessary, and simply for improvement's sake.

• 45:29David Senra?

  So that's another thing. Difference for the sake of it, improvement for the sake of it. It's two main, two main messages from the life and career of James Dyson. Dyson's advertising focuses on how our products are engineered and how they work, rather than on gimmicks and snappy sales line. And that's another main thing that he talks about over and over again in the book, is that there's nothing wrong with advertising, marketing, these things are needed. If your products literally improve the lives of your customers, then you have a moral obligation to get good at that, right? And sales and marketing is just the, the art of selling more products. And he's like, but the fundamental aspect to your sales and marketing should be education. People are receptive. If you explain, here, here's the problem. You know, you've got this bag that's clogged. You've got, you're leaving dirt on the floor. You can't see it.

• 46:13David Senra?

  Here's the solution I came up with. Look, I'm vacuuming, the cyclone is much more powerful. Look at all, he has the, the, the area where the dust collects, that bin is clear. Look, you see the difference. And he's like, people will respond. My products were four times as expensive as my competitors, and yet I outsold them. I sold more than they did at four times the price because of this. So educate them. I really like that idea. I still find myself putting into practice at Dyson some of the same things Jeremy said and did when I worked for him half a century ago. He believed in taking on young people with no experience, because this way, he employed those with curious, unsullied and open minds. He believed, most of all, in the power of enthusiasm.

• 46:58David Senra?

  He was a natural teacher. And that's just another main lesson. I can tell you from reading over 200 of these biographies now, the best leaders that ever live, they think of themselves as teachers. And I think if we adapt that mentality to our work, it's like, I'm just teaching everybody around me, teaching them my philosophy, teaching what I've learned. He's teaching, in James's case, teaching them how to manufacture, how to think about engineering. And again, he's not telling you do A through Z. It's like, these are the principles, now go off and experiment and add to them. It's very fascinating. So saying Jeremy was always happier making things in the machine shop than sitting around a boardroom. He was interested in anyone enthusiastic who wanted to learn. He loathed arrogance and experts, by which he meant those who want you to believe that

• 47:41David Senra?

  they know everything about a subject, when the inventive mind knows instinctively that there's always further questions to be asked and new discoveries to be made. And he continues to expound on the importance of learning from the careers of the designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs that came before you. He's talking about what he learned from Fry. Now, he's got a bunch of people. There's like three or four people here. They all shared, and he's telling us, like, what did they do similarly? And how is that different from how most people approach their work? So the four people he's talking about here, it's Jeremy Fry, Alex, excuse me, Alec Mini. I'm just going to call him Mini, so you know the product, because I don't have to pronounce his name. Then you have Buckminster Fuller, which he mentions a bunch of times, and then Alex

• 48:26David Senra?

  Moulton, who created a new, better bicycle. So it says, "All of them shared an independence of mind, a hard work ethic, and a drive to succeed. They sought lightness in everything they made, and then they all had the desire to create a better way of an existing product." And so he's using a case of this guy, Alex Moulton. Alex wanted to create a better bicycle. It turned ideas, he turned ideas, and see, he says this over and over again, "He turned ideas about what exactly a bicycle ought to be on its head." Now back to Alec Mini. Alec Mini's view was market research is bunk and that one should never copy the opposition. Never copy the opposition, exactly what James says.

• 49:11David Senra?

  Edmund Land said the same thing, I've told you over again. He had a very personal motto, never do anything anybody else could do. The bestselling British car of all time is the Mini. If market research had ruled Alex's roost at BMC, it would never have existed. So he continues his train of thought for a while and then he's, this is really, I'm just gonna pull out for you because there, there's so many examples where there's just a market is, especially when you're creating something new and unusual, the market for that is usually larger than you can predict. And so he talks about what he learned from a Kio Merida and the Walkman. Priced at $150, the Walkman wasn't cheap. Sony thought, Sony hoped to sell 5,000 Walkmans a month. They sold 50,000 in the first two months.

• 49:51David Senra?

  By the time the production ended in 2010, they had sold more than 400 million. When the Walkman came out, the press ridiculed it, but the market responded. People saw the attractive little device and heard it in action and fell in love with it. And so as he's continuing to work on a sea truck, learning from Frye, he realizes, I, I have to go on my own. I have to become an entrepreneur. And even, he says, looking back, this was a crazy idea. I felt driven, no matter how much I respected Jeremy and enjoyed working with him, to go off on my own. In 1974, with two young children, substantial debt, and a whopping mortgage, I stepped out of an exciting job and a salary into the unknown. Against the grain, I was going to be a manufacturer.

• 50:35David Senra?

  I was also going to be something else. I was also going to be something else key to successful invention. I was going to be an entrepreneur. And so then he talks about, like, what was the opinion of entrepreneurs at this time? They're just weird people, most of which are like, kinda scammy. And so he says, to those of us coming from an art school background, entrepreneurs were these stereotypes that were milking the system for as much money as they possibly could. In our naive and inaccurate way, we thought of an entrepreneur as someone who exploits other people. This was the era of big corporations. There were very few individuals setting out to manufacture new and interesting things. Jeremy Frye, however, taught me that if you have a good idea for a new product, you engineer, prototype, manufacture, market, and then sell it.

• 51:20David Senra?

  This makes you an entrepreneur. Jeremy showed me that far from being pirates, entrepreneurs could be creators and makers of better products, however odd.

• 51:30David Senra?

  And so James becomes an entrepreneur because he has an idea for a new wheelbarrow. He calls this thing the barbarrow. And it came because he was doing a bunch of restoration work for his house. And the wheelbarrow he was using kept getting stuck. It would run into things. It wasn't very maneuverable. He's like, how the hell had people been using this all the time? And so the note I left myself is number one, passionate anger. And number two, so many things in the world are like this. So there's opportunity hidden in plain sight. The more I used it, the more I realized that nobody had really thought about these problems or bothered to fix them for a very long time. And here we see, he's going to use the same term that we just saw a bunch of his heroes use.

• 52:12David Senra?

  I wanted to change all of this, to rethink the wheelbarrow from scratch. And so now he does it for the wheelbarrow, he does it for the vacuum cleaner, he does it for his entire business, all the different products they make. But as you'll see later, he does it for college. There's such a profound idea. Just take something that's important to you and rethink it from scratch. Not what everybody else is doing with it. That's not important. What do you think it should be? In your heart of hearts, what the hell should it be? And then start from there. That is so, again, simple idea, very profound, so, so hard to do. Now, I'm just going to pull something out. The ballbarrow, he's doing, this is just, a lot can change in a lifetime.

• 52:54David Senra?

  So he's doing a photo shoot for the ballbarrow at this place called Dodington Park. It's like this massive estate. I think it was built in like the 1600s. Okay? We did a photo shoot one day at Dodington Park. His wife is pushing a ballbarrow around the grounds for a camera. We could have never guessed then that a quarter of a century later, Dodington Park would be our family home. 1974, right? He goes and shoots marketing material for the product. 1979, the company fails. 2003, he buys the place. This is like 300 acres, 52,000 square feet. It's beautiful.

• 53:37David Senra?

  I looked up, if you want, Dodington Park is what it's called. You can Google image search if you happen to be interested. But a lot can change in a lifetime. 1974, taking pictures here. 2003, I own the place. So it's while he's manufacturing the ball barrel. Again, I'm not going to repeat too much, but I do want to point out like there was a series of mistakes that he made and that he made and then his partners made, which is why he doesn't want partners. But this actually wind up like he had to make these mistakes because they laid the foundation for his empire. So the first mistake there at the time, interest rates, they're having to borrow a lot of money. So they have to, they're like, oh, now it's time to get a proper factory. And so like, how do we do that? We don't have any money. Okay, well, let's get a bank on. Well, the bank loans at like 25%, 22% interest. So it says, I found a new factory.

• 54:22David Senra?

  These new overhead expenses meant extra borrowing from the bank at a time when interest rates were at 22%. At the same time, we experienced a bunch of problems. So they had to dry coat the, the frames of the ball barrels, right? And so the dry powder paint is getting everywhere and it's causing, there's, there's so much material that's in the air that has to be filtered out, that they wind up having to stop production every hour. And so it says, every hour, the filter clogged, the production line had to be stopped so that the cloth could be taken down and shaken out. Well, that's a hugely expensive problem you need to fix, right? So I asked around, what did smart people use? Cyclones, they answered. And so he goes to study what a cyclone is, realizes, hey, we can use this to take out, to filter out the material that's coming from this dry coating process, right?

• 55:05David Senra?

  The cyclone collected dust all day and none of it, with none of it coming out and crucially never clogging. And so I'm skipping over massive parts of this. I just want to give you one sentence that's important, why I'm reading this section to you, the fact that mistakes were the foundation of his future empire. He just didn't know it yet. That, that, looking at the cyclone gave me the idea for a revolutionary vacuum cleaner. So he gets kicked out of this company. I just want to push, I want to pull out the ideas, right? This is very fascinating. So he's talking about the valuable lessons that he learned and he's specifically telling us, he's like, I want you to learn this. I was learning much that was to be useful when I set up on a much larger scale at Dyson, 15 years later. I was also putting into practice ideas I'd learned directly from Jeremy Fry and indirectly from Alec Mini.

• 55:51David Senra?

  Don't copy the opposition. Don't worry about market research. Alec might have just well said, "Follow your own star." And this is indeed what successful entrepreneurs do. The problem, though, was that I wasn't following my own star. And this proved to be the very reason why my first company was not a success. My very first consumer product was a failure, but one from which I learned valuable lessons. There was a lesson about assigning patents. He should have kept up. He was the one that made the invention, but he gave away the patent to the company instead of keeping it himself. Another was about not having shareholders. I learned the importance of having absolute control of my company and not undervaluing it. I knew how to make and sell, but not what it took to look after myself.

• 56:35David Senra?

  From now on, though, I was determined not to let go of my own inventions, patents, and company. Today, Dyson is a global company. I own it, and this really matters to me. It remains a private company. And so now, let me give you a summary of James Dyson's life at 32. "At the end of the ball-bearer experience, I was penniless again with no job and no income. I had three adorable children, a large mortgage to pay, and nothing to show for the past five years of toil. This was a very low moment and deeply worrying for Deidre and me. It was deeply upsetting, too. My confidence took a big blow,

• 57:18David Senra?

  and it would take some years to regain it." So he's in a bad position. He's got a lot of pressure, but he also does... Like, he's analyzing this rather intelligently. He's, one, he's looking at the bright side of things. He found a market that lacks innovation. And then he gives us a list of ingredients that you're going to need. So he says, "We had huge energy, and I knew what I wanted to do and was getting on with it. Here was a field, the vacuum cleaner industry, where there had been no innovation for years. So the market ought to be ripe for something new." For the following 15 years, I lived in debt. That's wild. This might not sound encouraging to young inventors with an entrepreneurial spirit.

• 57:59David Senra?

  Yet if you believe you can achieve something, then you have to give the project 100% of your creative energy. You have to believe that you'll get there in the end. You need determination, patience, and willpower. And so that idea, it's like, listen, this is not encouraging, this doesn't sound encouraging. Yet if you believe you can achieve something, then you have to give the project 100% of your creative energy. You have to believe that you'll get there in the end. So Henry Ford has this quote that he said a long time ago, that if he ever wanted to sabotage his competition, he would fill their staff with experts. And so James definitely echoes that philosophy in this book over and over again. And he's like, listen, like Jeremy Fry, I am cautious of experts.

• 58:44David Senra?

  And one of the reasons, of many reasons, is he goes and sees like the foremost expert on, so he says, this guy was considered the leading expert on the subject of cyclonic extraction. He was a very nice chap, but he told me that getting it down to the level, so he's talking about the level of microns that he would need for a domestic vacuum cleaner, that a cyclonic or cyclone is impossible, like it's impossible to do so. James, through his empirical testing, his love of Thomas Edison and Edison's principle of design and experimentation proves this guy wrong. But he says, listen, he was considered a leading expert on the subject of cyclonic extraction. He's a very nice chap, and he told me, getting it down that low was impossible.

• 59:25David Senra?

  Experts tend to be confident that they have all the answers, and because of this trait, they kill new ideas. This is why I have long admired engineers like Alec Mini and Andre Citron, who questioned orthodoxy, experimented, took calculated risks, stood on the edge of error, and got things right. And when they got there, they continued to ask questions. And so I think that's the best way to understand his skepticism of experts. It's like, I'm all for you accumulating a lot of knowledge, but this idea where now I can stop, I have it figured out, that you stopped asking questions is where James is like, no, that's where you're messed up. That's where you got the, that's where you actually got it wrong. And, you know, this idea is like, no, that's impossible.

• 1:00:10David Senra?

  But it wasn't. So something, another principle James learns from this is like innovation is going to come outside of an industry. The incentives are too strong to over, like if you're trying to build something new, instead of trying to improve an existing industry, just build a new solution completely. And so there's a song, you know, "Cream," "Cash rules everything around me." Something I learned from Charlie Munger is IREEM, "Incentives rule everything around me." Incentives determine behavior, because he's, at this time, he's not manufacturing a vacuum cleaner. He has this idea, he's like, "Okay, I'm just going to license it. Like, I have a working prototype, let me go to these existing vacuum manufacturers, they're going to see it superior, they're going to jump all over my license, I'm going to make a ton of money, and I can keep inventing products."

• 1:00:54David Senra?

  That was his initial plan. And he goes to one after another, and they're like, not interested at all, even though it's, he can demonstrate, it's superior to their existing product, and he realized, they're not interested in selling a bagless vacuum cleaner, because they make so much money selling bags. They don't want you to, the customer might want a solution to this problem, if you can educate them that it's a problem to begin with, but they don't want you to, the existing industry doesn't want you to fix this problem and take the money away from them. I learned that none of them was interested in doing something new and different. They were more interested in defending the vacuum cleaner bag market, which is worth more than $500 million in Europe alone at this time.

• 1:01:37David Senra?

  So I'm fast forwarding, I said, he was what, 32? I gave you an update, 32. Now he's 44. He's around 44 years old at this point. And this is another major turning point in his life. And it really goes, does speak to the importance of making sure you have the right people around you. He would not have been this successful without the support, the unyielding support of his wife. And it's just remarkable that she endured all this, right? So this is the lawsuit, it talks about Amway, he signed a, he signed a license agreement with Amway in America. They wind up, they wind up... Seeing his, like, getting his technology, then cancelling the license agreement, suing him, and then copying his technology. So there's this huge fight, and he's just like,

• 1:02:22David Senra?

  "I give up. I don't want to do this anymore. I can't do it anymore. I can't. It's over. I cannot keep going." And his wife is like, "You have to." "After five years of this bruising and bankrupting lawsuit, I was ready to pack it all in and settle the case. Deidre, however, stood firm and told me that I mustn't give up. This was well judged. Shortly after, our litigator called me. Amway have indicated that they're willing to settle. I could go home." More importantly than this, because he was having to constantly fly from Britain to America to do these depositions, I think in Michigan, and it was just like, weeks of just, every day from like nine to five for weeks, sitting in a deposition. At that

• 1:03:06David Senra?

  time, his company's bleeding money. If he's in a deposition, he's not able to sell more licenses, not able to build more products. They're literally bleeding the single lone inventor dry, right? More importantly than this, I could regain my life. The black cloud that had hung over our family life for all too many years was lifted." So he's saying, like, "They got a little bit of settlement money, but we weren't rich. In fact, the award didn't even cover my share of the legal costs, but at least the costs had stopped. Instead of worrying whether or not we were going to be bankrupt..." Remember, 44 years old. At this point, there's nothing in his life that's going to say that he's going to build one of the most successful companies in human history. Nothing. It does

• 1:03:48David Senra?

  not look good at this point. But the reason I'm bringing this up to you, and the reason I keep trying to repeat, like, some of this, he had to go through this to get to that point. I thought about, I was actually thinking this morning about what Steve Jobs said, because I had read over my highlights from inside Steve's brain. And he's talking about, this was in 1998 or 1999 when he said this. He's just like, "I'm killing myself. Like, I'm working from 6:00 AM till 10:00 at night, every day." And he's like, "I'd be lying to you if I didn't know, like, if I didn't think I might be making a mistake." And so I thought about that. I'm like, "Let's pause right there. 98. 1999, maybe."

• 1:04:32David Senra?

  Steve Jobs says, "Forget it." This pain that I'm feeling, this struggle, I'm tired, I'm stressed, I'm full of doubt. I don't know if I can save this company. I don't know what's gonna happen next. I should just go home. I can be CEO of Pixar. I'm already... That's fine. Even if you're not Steve Jobs, you could get another job where the case is, right? And what would have happened if he did that? There's no iPod, there's no iPhone, there's no iPad, there's none of that. 90% or whatever the number is of Steve Jobs' accomplishments in life were after that period.

• 1:05:15David Senra?

  That period where he's like, "This, I can't do this anymore. I have doubts." This is... That's true for James Dyson, where I'm at in the book. It's the same thing. "I wanna give up. I can't do this anymore. I'm gonna go bankrupt." And way his pulverized me. And his wife is like, "You can't. You have to... You can't settle. You gotta keep fighting." So it says, "But at least the costs had stopped. Instead of worrying whether or not we were going to be bankrupt, we could now think of the future. Almost all of our license agreements had failed and precious time was wasted. Instead of relying on other companies to make our technology, why not reverse the decision..." And, "Why not reverse the decision?" Meaning make it ourselves.

• 1:05:57David Senra?

  "We would take on these competitors that were content selling bags and their loss of suction, and we would be free to determine our own future, development and designs. Instead of feeling dread about taking on the mountainous task of becoming a manufacturer, we felt liberated. This was the moment we decided to go against market trends and to concentrate on an upright, cyclonic vacuum cleaner that we would make ourselves. There would be no more struggling with other companies." Now, there's definitely a lot more struggling, but not with other companies. "Their patents, their executives, and their lawyers. We were gonna do it our way, alone and independently."

• 1:06:41David Senra?

  And so this is where he has to go all in. At the time, he tries to raise money. No one wants it. He was willing to sell equity. And everybody says, no, no, we don't want to do that. So that's how he winds up maintaining 100% ownership at Dyson to this day. Because no one at the beginning wanted to invest money. So he's got to raise money. He's got no money, but he's got a house. And so he goes all in again. And his wife agrees again. And they wind up putting up the house. And so there, now that he's like, I have a prototype. I got to manufacture this thing and manufacture it quickly. And as soon as I have it, I got to sell the hell out of this thing. And so really, it's just, I'm going to pull out a couple of highlights from this time. The book is in way more detail. Fantastic part of the book, because it really goes into the very beginning of the company. Obviously, I'm really trying to encourage you to buy and read the book. So here we go.

• 1:07:26David Senra?

  I had no money for a factory. I couldn't buy, to buy components or to do any marketing. So all the money, almost all the money that he had to borrow came into like the tooling, the actual like what is needed for factories to manufacture, to custom manufacture his design. Okay? So he's like, I have to look for a factory. So he winds up, there's a company that is making plastics for, plastic components for his vacuum cleaner. And he realizes like they're, like you, you guys aren't at full capacity. And this is what I mean about you have to be creative and resourceful. So it says it had very little work. I suggested that, since they would be making the plastic components, perhaps we could assemble the vacuum cleaners inside half, the half of the building that they were not using. They said yes. So that solves a huge problem, right?

• 1:08:09David Senra?

  The first production quality vacuum cleaner to bear the Dyson name started rolling off the production line in January 1993. I had already shown a working model. He starts out mail catalogs, because he's a new manufacturer. He can't get into retailers. Like who, what the hell is a Dyson? Like, no, I'll just sell Hoover. But these mail order catalogs at the time were massive companies. Check this out. We'd already shown a working model to General Universal Stores. And they included it in their January 1993 catalog. It might be hard now to recognize what big deals these were for, for us. GUS, which is General Universal Stores, was owned and run by Isaac Wolfson. And he was its chairman from 1932 to 1987. That guy was able to stick with that idea, huh?

• 1:08:54David Senra?

  I drove up to their HQ to visit their buyer. He was skeptical. He then asked why he should remove a well-known brand such as Hoover from his pages, pages to put in this unknown Dyson. My response was that your catalog, your catalog is boring. He was silent and then he agreed to buy from us because well my and that's the benefit. Like, you know, your Hoover vacuum, it might sell, but look at it like, put this weird looking, almost futuristic, alien looking machine next to it and see what happens and it immediately starts selling. But this idea where he would just, Dyson had that fortitude to, you know, to like, this isn't going well, I need him, like, I need to pull out every last stop to get this guy to buy from me, right? Then what happens? Once GUS buys from him, their main competitor is like, oh, GUS has it. So like, this is important.

• 1:09:39David Senra?

  You get one to say yes and the others will follow. So Littlewoods, this is the other mail art campaign, was both the largest family owned company in Britain and Europe's biggest private company. Because GUS was buying from us, they agreed to, they agreed to buy as well. And so this is the humble beginning of this company that has made him, you know, worth 10, 20, whatever, billion dollars. All of this was achieved and had been accomplished in record time. It was a bit makeshift. There was a production line in half of a factory and the HQ of Dyson was a coach house, which is just like a garage, where we engineers, I think it was him and like two or three engineers at the time, where we engineers worked along with two salespeople and a personal assistant. We serviced our first vacuum cleaners in the coach house.

• 1:10:23David Senra?

  And he talks, you know, you have to do whatever it takes is necessary. Their factory, their makeshift factory, which isn't really a factory, didn't have heating, so it was really freezing. The building was ice cold in the winter. When we needed more space, we bought a huge tent, secondhand tent, the size of a parking lot. So I can't, I don't have money to build a building, but I have a tent and we can work out there. And he wraps this up here. This was a big uncertain moment for me. Within 18 months, we was, the vacuum cleaner was the biggest seller in the UK market. And this is where we get his first tiny, tiny bit of sense of relief. We were now selling quite well across a good spectrum of outlets and I knew we would survive.

• 1:11:08David Senra?

  Deidre and I could relax a bit. I had various degrees of perseverance underpinned by a kind of naive intelligence, by which I mean following your own star along a path where you stop to question both yourself and expert opinion along the way. A willingness, he's talking about what, what he, like, the ingredients that led to this, what he was willing to do, a willingness to keep questioning the validity of an idea or indeed a product might sound ingenious in a world of slick global business. Or ingenuous, rather, but I can say it worked for me. And I think it can continue to work for inventors, engineers, designers, and makers in the future. I have been warned, for example, that being at least three times as expensive as most

• 1:11:52David Senra?

  other vacuum cleaners, that the DCO-1, his very first vacuum cleaner, would be too expensive. But it sold really well. The sheer cost of producing it, and as a result, the high price tag, was mitigated by the fact that those choosing it recognized its technological advantage over existing designs. Fifteen years of invention, frustration, and determination were finally beginning to pay off. I was now a proper manufacturer, thrilling to the sight and sound of production line, thrilling to the sight and the sound of a production line in full swing. I found it impressive, impressive, staggering even. I still do.

• 1:12:35David Senra?

  Now, think about that, that things you work the hardest for bring the most satisfaction. Think about how good he must have felt at this point of his life after 15 years of frustration. And it's amazing that he still feels, that he still feels the same way 30 years later. And then he starts thinking about, it's like, okay, how do I find more customers? And this is just a great question for us to ask. How best could I share my enthusiasm for what I knew was a great and innovative product? The answer to that question is where you're going to find new customers, how or more customers.

• 1:13:14David Senra?

  How best could I share my enthusiasm for what I knew was a great and innovative product? So eventually, he gets it into a few retailers. And there's a couple of things happening on this page. Number one, the benefit of educating your market. And then number two, something that keeps popping up over and over again, is treat your career as an adventure. The breakthrough was with Comet, this giant retailer, who allowed us to explain what our vacuum cleaner did on stickers on the clear bin. Even if just a few words and figures, I wanted to communicate the distinct advantages of our new technology and how our vacuum cleaners performed much better. By 1995, just two years after our launch, Dyson was turning a good profit and expanding rapidly. We had paid off the enormous bank loan and we were able to tear up

• 1:13:59David Senra?

  the bank guarantee forms. Deejay and I were enormously relieved. We could keep our home and pay off the mortgage. At the same time, we knew this was the most exciting adventure of our lives. And then James quoting Buck Mr. Fuller, which is what I was trying to paraphrase earlier. "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

• 1:14:25David Senra?

  So there's a large chunk of the book, which is all about the new products he made since it lapsed in the last 20 years, since the previous book that I read. And I just want to pull out, there's just a couple of principles. It really is interesting how they go about designing products. But this section, something I learned from James is, he knows the value of your attention and how valuable, if you can stay focused, which is very hard for most people to do, you can just accomplish a lot more. You can make magical products, you can produce miracles. It's why Steve Jobs said that focus is saying no. That's like the best, shortest, max, the most succinct way to describe what's a really powerful idea. Focus is saying no.

• 1:15:09David Senra?

  He's developing all this new technology and people are like, "Hey, can we buy the technology from you?" And he's like, "Even if this business would bring me a lot more money, it's still too expensive because it takes away our focus." That demonstrates extreme level of discipline on his part. "People often ask if we would supply other companies with our motors. Although it might be profitable for us to do so, we supply no one other than ourselves because I want Dyson engineers to be 100% focused on our next exciting motor development and not on retrofitting our motors to someone else's product."

• 1:15:45David Senra?

  Another principle from this part in Dyson history, they're talking about designing new fans. And the note left myself is just look at the products he makes. This is obviously a core thesis to his business. And that's why I mentioned earlier, the opportunity just hides in plain sight. You talk about fans and like, why are they all crappy? Why are all vacuum cleaners crappy? Why are we satisfied with the status quo? So he says, "This was another one of those products that are used frequently by hundreds of millions of people, yet stuck in a technological time warp." Another one of his principles, that you increase sales by teaching. "I didn't want anyone to buy our vacuum cleaner through slick advertising. I wanted them to buy it because it performed.

• 1:16:31David Senra?

  We could be straightforward in what we said, explaining things simply and clearly." And a lot of this he does himself, because people buy from people. And it's interesting that he, like even though he's not really an extroverted person, he says, "I didn't say how brilliant my product was. I simply explained the technology." Because he has a fundamental understanding of the technology, even if his delivery, you know, like it doesn't have to be all polished. It's like, "I know what I'm talking about. Let me just explain what the benefit is." And what I realize is why he's doing this. He's, at the same time, he's doing something that his competitors can't. And he says, "The general idea was to show that Dyson was founded by Mr. Dyson and that he was responsible for Dyson products." He's writing this, but he's talking about like, why he's doing this as opposed to just hiring a spokesman, right?

• 1:17:16David Senra?

  "Big, long-established multinationals, most of them public companies, would not be able to put forward an individual in the same way." I want to skip way ahead, because he has a large part of this book. It's the fact that, like, he says, let me read the note. "He says, 'The West is moving too slow and is growing hostile to business. If it keeps up, Asia is going to kick our ass.'" Or going to kick ass, rather. So he's talking about, you know, now Dyson is headquartered in Singapore. He was gonna build the car. He talks about that a little, there's a whole chapter on the car in the book. He winds up blowing like 700 million and realizing he can't do it. But he just talks about the difference in the attitude for getting help for business.

• 1:17:58David Senra?

  He says, "We came across politicians who themselves in Singapore were often industrialists with a knowledge of manufacturing. In Westminster, the politicians in Westminster have no experience of industry and little or no interest in making things. Asia is growing at three times the rate of Western economies. Whereas the EU share of world trade is declining from 5 to 9%, Asia's share is rising from 16 to 25%." So I want to say, I can't remember the exact number. He said some crazy thing like, I think Dyson was still growing at like 50% a year or something like that. Don't quote me that. It was, I just remember thinking, wow, that's a very large number for such a, for a company that's been around for 30 years.

• 1:18:40David Senra?

  And he's saying this is all coming from Asian markets. And so it's a little bit about that here. "Being in Singapore provides a different take on the world. If you place Singapore at the center of an atlas, you immediately understand how well it connects not just to China, Korea, and Japan, or to Indonesia and the Philippines, but also to India, Australia, and New Zealand, and to countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh, which are growing and developing rapidly. On Singapore's doorstep is the fastest-growing market area in the world. The more we became an..." So he's talking about the more, now they're putting a lot of investment there, they're moving things there, they're buying parts there. So it says, "The more, essentially, we became an Asian company that just happened to be owned by British people." And so I'm gonna pull out, he continues on this theme for quite a while.

• 1:19:23David Senra?

  Gonna pull out a couple of highlights for you over this, but next page is, "In January 2019, we announced our decision to establish Dyson's global headquarters in Singapore, reflecting the fact that Asia is the center of our operations and that this has been the case for many years. While in Singapore, it has been relatively easy to find bright new graduate engineers and highly skilled workers, the same is not true in Britain." And this is why he starts Dyson University, which I'll go into in a little bit. Because he says like, I could hire thousands of more engineers in Britain overnight, and I can't find them. And he goes on to like, you know, we are worshiping the wrong things, worshiping being famous, worshiping being rich. We need to worship making things. Very similar to what Steve Jobs said in 1984, Interview in Playboy with Edwin Land.

• 1:20:08David Senra?

  He's like, this is, this guy, one of the greatest inventors of all time, one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, is who we should aspire to be. This is the role model. And he says, not a football player, not, I forgot the list of other things. He's like, why can't this be the role model? This is James echoing that exact same idea. Uh, let's see, what, 40 years later? Uh, so he keeps going. There's a whole new market in India of young professionals. Dyson has become as much an Asian as it is a British business. Having started and consistently grown in Britain, we now sell over 95% of our products in other, in our other global markets. And so that's the difference between the first book I read and this book. In that 20 years, he went from almost, I think 100% of his, nearly 100% of his sales were in Britain, to now it's 5%. So then he talks

• 1:20:53David Senra?

  about like, we're, we're, we're being dumb on every level and nobody's doing anything about it. He talks about 60% of the people that go to, that get degrees in engineering in British universities are from outside the EU. And he says, after their studies, what does Britain do with them? We chuck them out. Why on earth would you send engineering graduates, researchers and doctorates packing when they have valuable technology at their fingertips that they take back to countries like China and use to compete against us? His point is like, why are we not employing them? Why are we not letting them stay here? What the hell is wrong with you? So then he talks about the process of like, okay, well, I try to make things in Britain, and this is the reaction I get. So we needed government's help. I went to see Greg Clark,

• 1:21:38David Senra?

  the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. When we asked during the meeting if he could help us in any way, he refused. I pointed out that he had just given Jaguar Land Rover $350 million for a new diesel engine plant, yet he was adamant that he could not support us. So at this time, he was trying to think of, he's like, why don't I try to make this electric car here? Eventually, he's gonna have to move it to Singapore before he obviously closed the project. So he says for a new, he was adamant he would not support us. The following week, I was in Singapore. I was invited to meet with the Prime Minister, who could not have been more helpful. He introduced me to key members of his team, who immediately set out about finding land and development grants for building a factory. So this is a very helpful part of the book, goes into way more detail than I'm gonna go in here, about the difference in attitude between governments.

• 1:22:23David Senra?

  In one case, he's like, he wants to build a new factory. They say, okay, it's gonna be four years in Britain, four years of planning and two years of construction. He winds up building the factory in Singapore. Within four days, I think it's four days, they found, like, they, within four days, they found like the site. So and his point is like, you, if, if, if something is gonna take you six years, or four years in their case, and they're doing it in four days, you are going to lose. So he goes, and this is another example, that's, okay, I'm meeting with you, you say, no, I'm not gonna help you at all. I get to meet, and I'm not meeting with the Secretary, I'm meeting with the Prime Minister, who could not have been more helpful. He introduced me to members of his team, who immediately set out finding land and development grants for building a factory.

• 1:23:08David Senra?

  I came back from the trip, and then I asked for a meeting with Theresa May. She refused to see me. Given the attitude of the British government and the fact that the main market for electric cars in China, it seemed a bit silly to think of trying to make cars in England. And so this brings me to the one thing I really am impressed by what he did, and it's really on learning and how to rethink education today. And I'm, this is gonna go over like 10, there's a bunch of highlights here, probably about 10 pages. Let me see if I can put this together in some kind of cohesive narrative for you. So he says, "I was also going through the process," he's talking about learning by doing, like when he was building the 5,127 prototypes.

• 1:23:48David Senra?

  And this is going to be the story of how he winds up starting his own university because he's sick of trying to work within the bounds of what, like these existing structure. And he's like, "You guys, you're killing yourselves and you don't even know because the suicide that you're embarking on is slow-moving and you don't realize you're getting your ass kicked by these other innovative, hungrier companies, cultures, countries." It's remarkable what he does here. And again, what he does here is like, when you think of like the importance of his main point to you and I, right? He's telling us, "Rethink what you're doing. Rethink the product you're making. Rethink it. Don't just copy what everybody else is doing. There is innovations and improvements that can always be made, but you gotta start with asking why.

• 1:24:33David Senra?

  Asking why something is done that way is what stops you in your tracks, right? We don't need," he's like, "we don't need more regurgitation of facts. We need people who are like, 'Well, that's strange. Like, why is a vacuum cleaner like that? Why is a bicycle like that? Why can't I design a small car? Why can't I design a new university?'" Whatever the case is. So he says, "He's talking about like, this is where you're actually learning." And this is something I feel like, especially when you're reading about like 1800, history in 1800s, early 1900s, this idea like, "We put so much more emphasis on giving young people the ability to learn by doing. And now we just have them sitting in there, listening to rote instruction and, you know, wasting the primes of their life when they could be out and actually making a difference earlier."

• 1:25:18David Senra?

  So he says, "I was also going through a process of self-education and learning. Each failure taught me something and was a step forward and was a step forward towards a working model. I have been questioning things and learning every day since." So, what, 25, 30 years have passed since then. "Learning by doing, learning by trial and error, learning by failing. These are all effective forms of education." That is so, I'm so glad he tied that all together. Like, everybody knows, like, learning by doing, learning by trial and error, we understand that. But it's just a form of education. "Children love making things, and yet all too often, this innate curiosity and experimentation expressed through our hands is stamped out by the educational system that sees no virtue in such natural creativity."

• 1:26:00David Senra?

  Because of this attitude, design and technology are not adequately covered in the school curriculum. Schools tended to be poorly equipped and qualified teachers are few and far between. The result, aside from a woeful lack of engineers, is a commonly held view in England that engineers and technicians are somehow lower down the professional and social pecking order than bankers, YouTube influencers, and brand managers. He's gonna reference, remember that, because he references like, like, the fact that this is what kids want to be. They don't want to be, like, we, the same thing with Steve Jobs, like, why isn't this what we aspire to be? And his whole point, I'm gonna pull out one sentence for you, it's fantastic, you know, like, what happens if we keep on with this attitude?

• 1:26:44David Senra?

  And he's focused on Britain. I see some of this where I live, it's probably where you live as well. I don't think it's just contained to Britain, but listen what he says. Okay, let's go down this path. What's gonna happen? The Fourth Industrial Revolution is not gonna dissipate anytime soon. And the only way to win in this Fourth Industrial Revolution, which, you know, the information age, whatever you want to call it, whatever the term you want to use, is you gotta turn your, whatever you're doing into a technology company. And he's like, Dyson is not a vacuum cleaner company, it's a technology company. We have patents, we have scientists, we have engineers, we have software, we have programmers, we have all of this, and then we just figure out ways to use a new, basically, their thesis is, how do we apply the latest technology and the best engineering to the improvement of everyday products?

• 1:27:29David Senra?

  The same process that Apple uses to build some of the great, you know, the devices that we all happen to love, or whatever the case may be. James is just doing that same application to, you know, a hairdryer, a vacuum cleaner, a fan, a light, that kind of stuff. So, I'm still in the education section, though, because he has this, I don't want to call it a rant, because that's not what it is. He's just laying out the case, it's like, we're killing ourselves, we cannot do this. Let's inspire the next generation to make things, because by making things, we help solve problems. People who do well on exams in schools are not necessarily those who do well at work. Students are rewarded for following the train of thought set in textbooks. If they can think for themselves or question textbook knowledge, examiners can't give

• 1:28:10David Senra?

  them marks that their original minds may well deserve. Things teachers and examiners might well disapprove of might just lead some young people towards some of the greatest designs of all time. Children appear to be born with the desire and ability to make things, to experiment and play. This is a gift lost by all too many adults. Frank Whittle is a good example of how you don't need to be good at exams in school to change the world. Having left school at 15, he became a test pilot. He was a, his was a life of learning and tenaciousness. And he went on to, uh, he went on to invent the jet, the jet engine, changing the course of aviation and our lives with it.

• 1:28:48David Senra?

  Education should be about problem solving, rather than retaining knowledge simply to pass exams. And we get to the climax of what he's saying here. Invention is a human imperative. And while the story of invention is littered with failures, the determination to make a success of something new, whether the printing press, the steam railway locomotive, the telephone, the television, the jet engine, the world wide web, and even the bagless cyclonic vacuum cleaner is not only its reward. It also brings previously unknown benefits to potentially billions of people. That is his point. We are mythologizing, we are lusting after the prestige of people that don't make anything.

• 1:29:32David Senra?

  It is a giant distraction. The people that we need to, we need to encourage the young people to become engineers, entrepreneurs, invent, invent, innovators, inventors, manufacturers. And his whole point is like, it doesn't have to be on a gigantic scale like Dyson where they sell like 25 million products a year. It could be an individual, but it's a human imperative to make things. So then he starts putting his money where his mouth is. So what he does is they start wind up, uh, they're like, first they donate money and, and, and, and knowledge to teach like existing classes, right? Then, then the method, like they didn't like the teaching methods, these are in existing schools in Britain. So they start teaching the classes at school themselves. And this is, this is still going to reach a dead end. This is where he's going to start his university.

• 1:30:14David Senra?

  And this is why, I know this is a longer section, and this is why I'm tying this all together and why I'm so excited about it. So he says, they start teaching classes at school to get kids excited about engineering invention. I just said that. At the same time, we began introducing schoolchildren to the world of ingenious inventors, engineers, and inventions. And so he's listing, not only, he's introducing you to the products that you might take for granted, that somebody had to literally come invent, but also the people, the people behind those. This is so powerful. So it says, we started introducing to all this. So he talks about the cat's eyes, which I'd never heard of, but it's the headlight, the ones headlight, the ones that headlights catch in the dark to help us keep, keep us safe as we drive at night.

• 1:30:56David Senra?

  The small wheeled molten bicycle, Kevlar, the Tesla coil, geodesic domes, computer programs, memory foam, Thomas Edison, windshield wipers, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who I just did a podcast on and is one of James's heroes, I think it's Founder's 201, Velcro, zippers, and the smart 42 car. And this sentence is so fantastic, because I think this is, I wonder if the vast majority of jobs that like our kids might have in the future, or have not yet been to be invented. But he's talking, he's like, we're getting like, you can't just force people to do them. You have to get excited so they take it on their own, right? So he says, the success of the curriculum lay partly in the fact that students were

• 1:31:41David Senra?

  excited about the idea that the jobs they might take up in the future had yet to be invented. So this, this Dyson University, which starts out as the Dyson Institute of Engineering Technology, that eventually actually becomes a university started with a challenge. James is still trying to get cooperation of government. He goes to meet with them. He just like complains, is just like, bitches at how ineffective they are. And so it starts with a challenge. So he's meeting with the Minister of State for Universities and Science, and it's this guy named Johnson. And so he's just complaining. And so Johnson threw down a challenge on, on the shortage of engineers. If I wasn't getting anywhere with the education system in my quest to raise the number of quality engineering graduates, why don't I start a university of my own?

• 1:32:23David Senra?

  And it was actually funny because he talks about, he's like, listen, the meeting I had with this guy started badly because I went to the bathroom beforehand. I go to dry my hands and he had a foreign hand dryer. This is a government, a Britain, a Brit, a government, a British government building. Geez, I don't know why I'm studying. A British government building and it has a foreign hand dryer. He's like, why aren't you using a Dyson? And so he just starts bitching and complaining and everything else. And then that's when he just got thrown down this challenge. And James is like, I didn't even know I could do that. It was just funny because this guy rethinks everything. And so this is absolutely remarkable. He rethought college. And so he puts up a ton of money.

• 1:33:03David Senra?

  It's like $50 million to start, which would eventually is going to turn into the Dyson, um, the Dyson University. And there's a lot more detail. I want to give you some highlights. They're just fantastic. And so he says, okay, first thing, there's no tuition. I'm paying for it. There's no tuition fees. Our undergraduates, and check this out, and you're not, you're going to sit in class for five days a week? Absolutely not. No, you will not. You're learning engineering and technology. You learn that by doing. Our undergraduates would work three days a week with Dyson on real research projects alongside young Dyson engineers. And check this out. So there's no tuition. They're working three out of the five days a week and they're earning a proper salary. Think about how we do everything backwards, right?

• 1:33:46David Senra?

  These kids are just in hundreds of thousands of debt forever. I saw something the other day where this woman, she originally, nine years ago, she graduates high school, or graduates, graduates college. This is in the United States, by the way. This is just how stupid we are. Graduates $80,000 in student loan debt. She's been paying it for nine years. She has paid so far, over those nine years, she's paid $120,000. She still owes $76,000. And so James sees this and he's like, this is ridiculous. This is stupid. Why are we doing this? He's like, I'm putting up my own money. There's no tuition fees. Three days a week, you're coming to work for my company. You're going to work on real projects and I'm going to pay you a salary. And then we teach them for the two remaining days.

• 1:34:30David Senra?

  When the first undergraduates complete their four-year course, which is this year, they actually graduate, they will be debt-free. And why is this important? He says, I find it extraordinary and sad that most college graduates are saddled with huge debts from the moment they go out into the world. Our graduates would have studied intensely, worked for a living, and gained immense experience. That's what he was doing. He was working for Jeremy Fry. He got the opportunity to do that while he was still in college. So he's already rethought the whole thing. We are going to train them. They don't have to work on Dyson. The program's, I think, I forgot how many people. But you don't have to work on Dyson. But he's hoping that he's, basically, he's saying,

• 1:35:13David Senra?

  hey, these colleges and universities are ineffective at training my people. I'm going to do this myself. But so you can come here. Tuition's paid for. You can work for Dyson after, but you don't have to. So he says, our graduates have studied. At the end, they would have studied intensely, worked for a living, and gained immense experience. And he's like, but we have to understand, this is a very high bar. Like, he feels that normal universities are a little lazy. He goes, what's more, there was not going to be any easy ride. Undergraduates at Dyson University work 47 weeks a year, much longer than 22 weeks at other universities. So James's point here is like, what the hell? They're young, aggressive, tons of energy. Why are we not pushing them? They can accomplish a lot more. So he says, and he's like, I'm taking this extremely serious.

• 1:35:58David Senra?

  We are being trusted with a vital ingredient of a young person's future. And then he talks about, like, why is he doing this? I believe that Dyson University represents a modern, this is so important, modern, forward-thinking, 21st century education, relevant to the world of work. The undergraduates have a unique education at Dyson. They are working with the best engineers and scientists in the world, real practitioners. They learn and invent alongside them. They experience a wide range of disciplines on products and research that go into production quickly. It is not for the faint-hearted. James has no desire to hang around mediocre people. As well as having a 47-week year, they are here for four years rather than three.

• 1:36:43David Senra?

  I estimate that this represents two and a half times the teaching offered by traditional universities. So I saw a post on this, it's called simonsaris.substack.com. And this jumped out on me because what he's saying, what James is doing here is like pushing young people, right? Let me just give you this post. And this guy reads a lot of biographies. And what he writes here, I feel like I've noticed the same thing. So he says, "When I read biographies, early lives leap out the most. Leonardo da Vinci was an apprentice, was sent to be an apprentice at 14. Walt Disney took on a number of jobs, chiefly delivering papers when he was 11 years old. This other guy published poems at 16.

• 1:37:25David Senra?

  Andrew Carnegie finished his school at 12, and at 13, he began his second job as a telegraph office boy, where he convinced his superiors to teach him the telegraph machine itself. By 16, he was the family's mainstay of income." He says, "Readers, and often biographers, tend to fixate around the celebrity itself when people became famous or fortunate. We do the opposite here, right? But the early lives, long before success, contain something more revealing. Before you grasp, you have to reach. How did they learn how to reach? In my examples, the individuals," he's talking about the examples he just referenced, the ones I read to you. "In my example, the individuals were all doing," he italicized that word, "from a young age, as opposed to merely schooling. And while they may not have wanted to work, the work was nonetheless something that

• 1:38:10David Senra?

  both they and society felt was useful, something purposeful and appreciated. In a sense, they had useful childhoods." He asks the question, "Do children today have useful childhoods? I find it striking just how early and how varied the avenues were that allowed one to pivot off script to do something differently than everyone else." He says, "For a 13-year-old today, what is the equivalent of being a telegraph office boy? Where he can learn technology while contributing?" Remember, what his point is here is like, the telegraph at that point in Carnegie's life was the leading technology of its day. In a sense, so, oops, let me go back down. I just skipped over something. What is the equivalent? Okay. What about for a 16-year-old?

• 1:38:55David Senra?

  What about for a 21-year-old? What is today's equivalent to being an apprentice of a, I don't, the guy that Da Vinci was apprenticed under, I can't pronounce his last name? I'm going to answer the question. Whatever Simon is writing about in his post, like, what is the version of that today? It sounds a hell of a lot like what James Dyson is designing here.

• 1:39:19David Senra?

  And just a few more things for you. He has a family charity motto, and I just love this idea of having a personal motto, a family motto. I told you, right now, my lock screen on my phone is Ernest Shackleton. His motto was, "By endurance we conquer." So I'm seeing his face covered in, his beard's covered in snow. He looks half-dead, just a reminder to myself, like, he's just gotta keep pushing. So he's got two mottos. Well, the main motto here is, "Never give up trying." And he's got the Latin version of that, but he says another good one would be, "Keep on running." And then he closes with just a paragraph, and it's really like, how do we avoid? He calls, I had to look this up, "A duffer." I figured from the context, it's probably like, an idiot.

• 1:40:03David Senra?

  So a duffer is an incompetent or stupid person. And this is how he closes. It's kind of funny, that's how he closes this book. He says, "Above all, how can we avoid being duffers? It comes from working away, single-mindedly, at solving a problem, however many setbacks befall us, even if that means 5,127 prototypes, and retaining an open mind. Remember, there is nothing wrong with being persistently dissatisfied or even afraid. We should follow our interests and instincts, mistrusting experts, knowing that life is one long journey of learning, often from mistakes.

• 1:40:44David Senra?

  We must keep on running, and we really can do better." And that is where I'll leave it. I highly, highly, highly recommend reading this book, buying this book. I would buy both. I would, against his original autobiography, Against the Odds, and this book. I think you read them in that order. It actually will help enhance what James is trying to tell us, and hopefully you find ideas in there that are beneficial to your work. If you want to buy the book, if you want to support the podcast and buy the book at the same time, I'll leave a link in the show notes. And when you buy it using that link, Amazon sends me a small percentage of sale at no additional cost to you. If you want to support the podcast and a friend at the same time, I'll leave a link in there. If you buy a one-year gift subscription, I will extend it for your friends so they

• 1:41:28David Senra?

  have access for life. That is 205 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.

• 1:41:44David Senra?

  So it's impossible to not keep reading these stories and see how you see people constantly question all the assumptions about the way people approach life or their approach to work. It's in every biography. James Dyson just went on and on about it for, you know, 350 pages or whatever it is. Not only does he do that, all his heroes do that. And so of course, like it's natural for us to do that, right? And so when I think about like podcasting, I want to question assumptions. So this has to do with the fact that I got a message from a longtime subscriber named Joseph. And he's like, hey, I've heard you mention this lifetime option. Like what's, what's the story behind there? You know, like what's, what's the thinking behind it? And so before I, I'm going to tell you what

• 1:42:29David Senra?

  I said. But before I do that, in case, just in case you don't know what I'm talking about, I've mentioned on a few podcasts, but I've been experimenting with this idea. It's like, okay, this is obviously podcast founders doesn't have any ads. It's a subscription based podcast. Like, is it possible to do a one time lifetime payment? Right? And from a consumer's perspective, they seem to really, really like that. But it's, it's not at all clear if it's a sustainable business model. And I was like, well, there's only way, only one way I can do that is by testing that. And so you don't have to do this. I've talked to a lot of people. People have sent me messages and are like, hey, I'm keeping my subscription because I'll pay more over the long term and I want to. There's been

• 1:43:12David Senra?

  people that are paying subscribers and they buy the, um, the lifetime payment and they refuse to cancel their subscription. So they have both just because they're, they want to support even more. Some people said, you know, the one time payment is better for me. So they buy the one time payment and then they cancel the subscription. I'm giving this option to new people. So of course I would, it's like an obligation. Like it's unethical if I don't offer it to you. So if you, I'll leave a link in there. You don't have to change at all, but it is the option. I am doing this most, I think maybe on a limited time. I'm not entirely sure on that point. And I guess I'll talk to you more about that in a minute. So there's a link there. There's no way, if you do upgrade to a lifetime, though, you, you got to upgrade to a lifetime and then cancel your subscription. There's all separate systems.

• 1:43:55David Senra?

  This private podcasting whole phenomenon is extremely new. I mean, the entire phenomenon of podcasting is still in the early, early days, right? But this generating unique private RSS feeds, which is what, you know, the entire basis of founders is still relatively new. So it's like, it's amazing how there's a bunch of different providers, but they don't all have everything I need. So I think I actually found one that might, but that's why it's kind of a big headache. Not a headache, but I mean, I would like it if you could just upgrade to lifetime if you want to do it and automatically cancels, but it doesn't. So I'm just letting you know that option's there for you. I don't, it's up to you. You gotta do whatever you want to do. You know, I'm happy, I'm just happy you listen and happy that you hopefully tell other people.

• 1:44:38David Senra?

  But I'm just going to tell you like the story here, the thought. And this is not something I planned. I just wrote this off the top of my head, but it gives you an idea into like why I'm doing this and while I think I will always continue to experiment because I love podcasting. I think it's an amazing medium and I'm just, I don't, I just see a lot of people doing what James said, like everybody just does the same things. And it's like, they don't, we don't have to recreate radio here, guys. Like this is just a medium. A podcast can be whatever you want it to be, and I want founders to be unique and weird and a little eccentric. Like I don't want to do what everybody else does and I'm not putting down other podcasts. Like if they love what they're doing, go and do that.

• 1:45:21David Senra?

  I just, I have that instinct, like I want difference for the sake of it, right? So it says, "One thing I'm learning from the reading biographies is the importance of questioning assumptions and creating experiments to see if other people's assumptions are accurate. We are still in the early days of podcasting. So far, there are two ways, ads and subscriptions. I haven't seen anyone just try a pay once and listen forever option. If I was on the other side, I would like that. It would seem to me to be an amazing value and it's pretty simple or and it's simple. One less recurring payment, one less thing to think about. The question from the podcast perspective is, from the podcast perspective, is it a sustainable business model? Everyone assumes, no, it's not. That is the assumption I'm testing. My own hypothesis is that podcasts are durable only, durable, that's an important word here.

• 1:46:05David Senra?

  My own hypothesis is that podcasts are durable only if they are good enough to be spread by word of mouth." And I'll pause when I'm reading here. And this is why like, I don't even know if any marketing stuff I do works at all because almost everybody that sends me a message about, hey, I like the podcast, whatever the case is, it's always. A friend told me about it. A friend bought me a gift subscription. This person said it was great. Like, I don't, I really do think that that is the only thing that's gonna make this durable, is if people get enough value, because it's also natural, right? If you read a great book, listen to a good podcast, watch a good movie, eat a good restaurant. It's natural for us to share these things. And so I think like, almost all my time should just be going into making it better, right?

• 1:46:48David Senra?

  And so as my own hypothesis is that podcasts are durable only if they're good enough to be spread by word of mouth. And as long as people keep telling other people, then there's no reason a lifetime option wouldn't work, because that kind of functions as a reoccurring there, right? Like, somebody finds out about podcasts today, they buy a lifetime subscription, they listen for a while, they tell one or two or three other people, and that same process continues on over and over again, right? I may be wrong, and I'm very, I could, if you're listening to this in the future, like, I could have just gone back to subscriptions, maybe. And, and there is a chance that I just have, and I found a provider that can actually do this, and that's why I had to do either or, because I didn't find somebody that could do both. Because maybe some people would just rather pay a small monthly fee than one time, whatever, you know?

• 1:47:33David Senra?

  But you might be listening to this future, and it's like, might not be, like, what is this guy talking about? There's no lifetime option. Well, then that's how you know I was wrong. But I have to be willing to experiment, because it's just, it's in the early days of podcasting. We have no idea what this medium is gonna be capable of, and what I'm extremely interested in. And it's almost scary to admit it, is like, I, this is a, I would love to do this for decades. I have, reading's the only hobby I've ever had in my life that I've had for multiple decades. Like, I've been reading for 30 years. I read all the time now. It apparently is not, it's apparently just part of me, right? There's nothing, never been a time in my life like, ah, I'm not really interested in books anymore. That's just never happened, right?

• 1:48:18David Senra?

  So my whole thing is like, I've found something I love to do. I'm become strangely addicted to making podcasts. I'm sad if many days go in between me making a new podcast.

• 1:48:32David Senra?

  And so it's just like, really what I'm searching for here, right, is like, what is the most durable method that I can do this forever? And I don't know that answer. Maybe it's subscription. You know, maybe people will pay subscriptions for years. I don't know.

• 1:48:45David Senra?

  But I do know, like, it's really simple. It's like, okay, I'll do a lifetime option. You pay once. Listening forever. Hopefully you listen for a decade. Over that decade, how many freaking people are you gonna tell? Like, a lot, right? So that's the thinking behind it. So it says, I may be wrong, but the only way to find out is by testing. Maybe I stumble upon something other podcasts have missed. People that have bought the lifetime access really seem to love it. And that's the also, and this is still early. I've only been testing it for a short, short amount of time. I don't have any definitive data. It does seem to accelerate the rate of people that sign up, right? There is something, I've heard other people describe other products that have lifetime options as like irresistible. I think is the word I'm looking for. I think that's the word they use.

• 1:49:29David Senra?

  Like, oh, it's simple. Okay, you sign up, you get 200 episodes I've already done, or whatever the number is. And then every future episode, like, it's really simple, too, right?

• 1:49:39David Senra?

  But I also might be losing people that only want to pay, you know, 15 bucks a month, or whatever the number's gonna be. So, I don't know. But let me go back to this. Maybe I stumble upon something other podcasts have missed. People have bought the lifetime access seem to really love it. Worst case, I end the experiment and I go back just to subscriptions. And says, I hope I answer questions. I should probably explain my thinking and my guess on the podcast. Others might be interested. That's why I'm recording this now, in case you find it useful. I do, again, I don't think about this like I'm making a show. I have to use terminology that people use in the podcast industry, like, episodes, but I don't, I feel like this is just one giant conversation that we're having. And that's why, like, I don't silo. Like, when I'm learning about James Dyson, I'm telling you how his ideas relate to,

• 1:50:25David Senra?

  you know, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison, all these other people that I've studied before. Like, I, because I just fundamentally don't think of this as, I think of it as a one giant conversation. And so far, we're at a couple hundred hours, and if we're lucky, we'll get to a couple thousand hours. And I think one benefit of that approach is like, I can just talk directly to you. And a lot of the stuff I'm gonna say is probably wrong. Like, because you're gonna, I'm gonna run down

• 1:50:52David Senra?

  dead ends. And I'm gonna be wrong because that's exactly what is expected when you're trying to figure things out. And one thing that I think helps is like, I listened to podcasts for years before I started one. And that allows me to like, think, okay, what would I like if I was on the other side of this? And one of that is why it's set up the way it is. You know, a lot of people say there's no fluff in this podcast. It's all substance, which is like the greatest compliment I can ever get. But also it's like, I would like to know what they're thinking. Like, I like the inside baseball, is that the metaphor? Inside baseball of like, yeah, what goes into making these things? And so if you listen this long, thank you very much. Thank you very much for supporting the podcast. The best thing you could possibly do is something you're probably already doing.

• 1:51:35David Senra?

  And that's telling as many people as possible. And if you have the means to do so, buying subscriptions. For now, if you buy a gift subscription, like I said before, I'll go back. And I have to do this manually, hopefully one day I don't. But I will extend it to be a lifetime. So that was my thinking. I just wanted to let you know what's up, what I think about. Because I'm obsessed with founders. I think about it all the time. I work on it every day. And I also know that I don't have it all figured out yet. So that's just, it's exciting. I want to treat this like an adventure. And with that, I should go start reading another book. I'll talk to you soon.