British inventor James Dyson says getting angry motivates him to create
Getting angry when something doesn't work properly has driven British inventor James Dyson to devise some of his best products, he tells James King
What connects hirsute comedian Billy Connolly and knight of the realm, inventor and entrepreneur James Dyson?
"We're both keen welders," says Dyson, instantly warming to yet another fascinating diversion to add to a list that already includes the appallingly thought-out seating arrangements at the BBC's new second home in Salford, Britain, and cyclones on top of sawmills.
"I was sitting next to Billy at a film premiere, and the film started late," he says, "so we had a long discussion about welding - he worked as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards. And we talked about anger: anger stimulates him. He doesn't know what he's going to talk about before he goes on stage, he just thinks about what makes him angry and that's it."
But why would anger exercise an interlocutor as civil and engaging as Dyson?
"When something doesn't work properly, it's anger that really gets you going," he says.
Anger would prove to be the genesis of a multibillion-dollar company now recognised as the begetter of household and office appliances of hitherto unimagined shape, flamboyant colours, and formidable functionality.