LEADERSHIP
I was a 30-something-year-old man with three children, no income and a shed full of 5,000 things that didn’ t work
James Dyson Founder
Dyson and Asia is the home of consumer electronics. Dyson is a manufacturing company, and it too needed to be close to its suppliers. Furthermore, our big growth markets are in Asia too. It would be arrogant to think that Dyson could be successful without being there.”
‘ Wrong thinking’ The company’ s shift to global scale required a unique approach to talent. Dyson prefers recent graduates over industry veterans.“ Experience means that you’ ve seen how something’ s worked in the past or you’ ve seen solutions to problems,” he told The Wall Street Journal.“ But the world is changing so rapidly, and we’ re trying to innovate and pioneer anyway. So, actually, experience doesn’ t help us very much and, in fact, it can get in the way.” This philosophy resulted in the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology, launched in 2017. Dyson’ s undergraduate engineers pay no tuition fees and earn a full salary working on projects alongside world-experts in Dyson’ s global engineering, research and technology teams. By having students work on live projects while earning their degrees, Dyson created a pipeline of engineers who aren’ t afraid of doing the wrong thing. This culture helps the company to survive highprofile failures that might sink other firms. The first cohort graduated in 2021 and all chose to remain at Dyson. This culture of“ wrong thinking” allows the company to absorb highstakes gambles that could sink a publicly traded firm. Not every venture has succeeded: the ContraRotator washing machine failed commercially and a £ 500m( US $ 680m) investment in an electric vehicle was abandoned in 2019. Yet, Dyson treats these as expensive research phases. The EV project alone yielded advances in solidstate battery technology and robotics that informed a £ 2.75bn( US £ 3.74bn) five-year investment plan. Nearly half of Dyson’ s engineers now work in software and connectivity, managing a fleet of four million connected purifiers. On the unveiling of new products in 2025, Dyson said:“ Over the years we have re-imagined the format of products through design, technology and stateof-the-art research. Developing new technology motors, heaters, separation systems and aerodynamics has enabled us to radically change the format yet make high-performing products.”
56 March 2026