Dyson holds over 1,200 patents for 250 inventions. Why keep researching if you have so much work in the can?

Nowadays you can apply for a patent application when you create the technology, rather than when you launch a product, because of all the global patent activity. Many patent applications cover one product, so there are fewer items to be made than that number might suggest; we also have products coming along in new areas that you haven’t seen.

Does the company do its research with theoretical products in mind or is the approach more freeform?

The latter. We don’t follow a business or marketing plan of any sort. What we are interested in is finding a technology that makes a product perform better than what’s on the market. When we find it, we jump on it. It doesn’t matter if it’s something for the lavatory, like the Dyson Airblade hand dryer (left), or a fan or vacuum. In fact, take the Airblade: It was not a logical business decision, but more opportunistic. We had a product that worked better.

Considering the number of products you’re working on, how did you settle on the Air Multiplier?

It’s one of the ones that came through first. But more important, it solved a big problem—the discomfort of buffeting. Then it also addressed the danger and cleaning issues, as well as the weight factor. And I have always hated that clamp that adjusts that fan’s angle. It’s clumsy.

I saw these things that annoyed me, and I knew that (a) we could make a better fan and (b) if fans were better, people would be more likely to use them. That’s nice: we’ll sell more fans. But more seriously, they’ll be using fans rather than air conditioning. Fans are kinder to the environment: They use one fiftieth or one one-hundredth of the electricity that air conditioners use, and they don’t emit any HFCs—hydroflourocarbons. Heat actually comes off air conditioners. It’s something we don’t want.

Was the opportunity to create a safer appliance a big factor in the decision to bring the Air Multiplier to market?

It’s hard to say, as different things are important to different people. If you have a child of two or three, safety is important, or if you have long hair—people with long hair are really worried about getting their hair caught in fans. I never thought about that, but someone mentioned it yesterday, and I can see the concern.

Is the environment an important consideration for you when you create new products?

Yes, very. One doesn’t want to use it as a marketing ploy, but it is exciting to find ways to get better performance using less manufacturing energy and fewer materials. All these qualities can now be added to a product. They weren’t there in the past. It isn’t just being the biggest, fastest, or loudest now. It’s the opposite.

Is there any technology the Air Multiplier shared with your vacuum cleaners or the Airblade? If so, what?

The Airblade was the trigger point. If you notice, its very thin blade—or jet—of air produces large volumes of air around it. The phenomenon of trying to create movement, moving a very large amount of air, is essentially what the Air Multiplier is. So there is that similarity. We also developed a mixed-flow impeller, which is not dissimilar in concept to the impeller we use in our hand-held vacuum cleaner and hand dryer.

Do you ever lease your technology for products you don’t make?

No. If we think it is a worthwhile product, we’ll make it ourselves. I’ve tried licensing in the past, but it just doesn’t work.

You are a trained engineer, and launched Dyson with a product you invented. Do you ever have time to do any engineering anymore?

I spend more time with my engineers in my company than I have at any time. I love doing it. The more engineering I get to do, the better.