James Dyson: How the vacuum cleaner inventor became a billionaire

James Dyson is known for reinventing things. Bagless vacuum cleaners, fans without rotor blades or faucets with integrated hand dryers are now part of his company’s portfolio and have made the 75-year-old a billionaire. The trained furniture designer has always been driven by frustration, as he did a few years ago “Mirror” portrayed: “There are things that get you really upset. When the vacuum cleaner bag is almost full, the suction power decreases and you cannot find the right replacement bag in the supermarket among hundreds of others. That makes you angry.”

In fact, Dyson’s career had begun in the 1980s with this same frustration with the status quo of vacuum cleaner development. The then mid-30-year-old identified vacuum cleaner bags as the reason for reduced suction power and began to tinker with a bagless vacuum cleaner. According to Dyson, they built more than 5,000 prototypes before one finally worked. By then, however, the father of two was broke. Instead of founding a company with his findings, he initially sold the patent for his invention to Japan. He then used the money to finance his own company – and also manufactured the bagless vacuum cleaners himself.

Today, the trained furniture designer, who comes from a family of teachers, is one of the three richest Britons. „Forbes“ estimates his net worth at $9.5 billion. And James Dyson is also a well-known personality in Great Britain.

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“Do the opposite of what you are told”

Dyson is considered one of the pioneers of the country and was even knighted by Queen Elizabeth. The 75-year-old is known, among other things, for his innovative and at the same time pragmatic corporate approaches. He wants to do things differently, he emphasizes again and again, as well in an interview with the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)” from 2012. “If I had to advise entrepreneurs to do something, I would advise them to do the opposite of what you’re being advised to do,” Dyson said. For his own company, for example, he always relies on career changers or inexperienced employees. “We want to do things differently, so experience is worthless to us. People who are inexperienced, on the other hand, have to think constantly because they don’t have a comfortable fallback position,” Dyson told the “FAZ”.

Brexit supporters and home office opponents

In addition, Dyson repeatedly makes public statements about the government’s economic policy decisions and ideas – and does not just make friends with it. At the end of last year, for example, the CEO published a comment in the British daily newspaper „The Times“, in which he criticized a new law. At the beginning of December 2022, the British government granted many employees the right to flexible working hours and locations. Commenting on this, Dyson wrote, among other things, that the new law is “amazingly self-destructive” and will discourage companies from investing in the UK.

Additionally, in his text, Dyson shot at officials who had supported the law, accusing them of laziness. Dyson, among others, said these officers would enjoy working from home “despite the appallingly poor public service they often perform and their terrible track record.”

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Even before that, Dyson had publicly taken controversial positions. Among other things, the entrepreneur was a strong supporter of Brexit. If the British had had their way, Great Britain should have left the international community without warning. The rest of Europe would follow, according to the entrepreneur at the time. Dyson also believed, among other things, that Germany had too much power in the EU and that Britain would be better off without the community.

Move to Singapore

However, Dyson received a real shitstorm shortly after Brexit when he announced in early 2019 that he would be moving his company’s headquarters to Singapore. While critics accused him of leaving the sinking ship “like a rat” after he himself pushed the Brexit, Dyson justified his decision with the potential of Asia. The “star” he said among other things: “Europe is losing more and more influence. That’s a fact. It contributes just twelve percent to world trade, in three years that will have fallen to nine percent.” The future is in Asia, where his company generates most of its profits.

In the meantime, James Dyson has at least moved his own place of residence back to Great Britain. The 75-year-old is still the chairman of his company and closely involved in the development of new products. One of the company’s most recent successes is a hair styler that curls long hair with jets of air – instead of heat. The device, which costs around 600 euros, is sometimes celebrated in the influencer scene because it is intended to style the hair more gently and easily than the curling irons previously used. However, many also criticize that the high price of the device is not justified.

“You have to make mistakes,” says Dyson

In the meantime, the entrepreneur had also got it into his head to bring “a radically different” electric car onto the market. In 2017, Dyson announced that it wanted to invest 3.2 billion euros in the project. In his opinion, up until now, too few car manufacturers had dealt with the harmful effects of car exhaust fumes. So Dyson planned to revolutionize the market.

Almost two years later – by this time the prototype of the stylish electric car was more or less complete – Dyson stamped the project: They came to the conclusion that series production was not economical for a company like Dyson, it says on the company’s website.

Incidentally, James Dyson likes to describe himself as a philanthropist – i.e. a philanthropist. The term crops up among other things in the bio on the Dyson corporate website. For example, he repeatedly emphasizes the open error culture in his company, how much he likes to make mistakes himself and how often he has already failed. He also keeps telling the story of his 5000 failed attempts to the bagless vacuum cleaner. “You have to make mistakes, they take you further,” says the inventor.

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