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Dyson Will Spend $1.4 Billion, Enlist 3,000 Engineers To Build a Better Battery (digitaltrends.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: Among the 100 new products the company founder James Dyson wants to invent by 2020, the greatest investment in people and money is to improve rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, as reported by Forbes (Warning: paywalled). And Dyson is not planning incremental improvements. His opinion is that current Li-ion batteries don't last long enough and aren't safe enough -- the latter as evidenced by their propensity to spontaneously catch on fire, which is rare but does happen. Dyson believes the answer lies in using ceramics to create solid-state lithium-ion batteries. Dyson says he intended to spend $1.4 billion in research and development and in building a battery factory over the next five years. Last year Dyson bought Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Sakti3, which focuses on creating advanced solid-state batteries, for $90 million. The global lithium-ion battery market accounts for $40 billion in annual sales, according to research firm Lux as cited by Forbes. Dyson's company (which is an accurate description since he has 100-percent ownership) currently employs 3,000 engineers worldwide. He intends to hire another 3,000 by 2020. Their average age is 26. Dyson values young engineers, saying, "The enthusiasm and lack of fear is important. Not taking notice of experts and plowing on because you believe in something is important. It's much easier to do when you're young."
That and they have less to loose in case of failure. So they are willing to take more risks and perhaps get bigger rewards. Having a family while personally rewarding forced you to play it safer as failure will effect more than themselves.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Also a lot of engineers that you can fire or layoff without causing shareholders to notice.
I don't know how good Dyson is good with HR. But those comments make it sound like it may be a tough job to keep.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You need both science and engineering, hopefully in a collaborative atmosphere where they are willing to talk about the challenges to make a piratical solution, then figure out how to overcome them. Basic research is more pure science, and applied research becomes more engineering. If they already have some basic research products that they intend to move in applied research, then they'll need engineers. It appears they have some basic technological approach in mind.
FTA: “The enthusiasm and lack of fear is important,” Dyson says. “Not taking notice of experts and plowing on because you believe in something is important. It’s much easier to do when you’re young.”
I work, effectively, in this very area of materials science. I publish in journals like Nature. I have written many patents, and own several myself.
Oh, but gosh, I am not 25 years old. I am, in Dyson's "We love to fail" world, useless. Expertise, knowledge, actual experience, quick hands in the lab, and so on are of no value to them. I doubt that they'd even look at my CV. At least, in its current form... Hmmn.
Why don't I apply? I'll omit dates from my degrees, and only include the last 5 years' experience, patents, and publications. At the interview, they'll see that I'm not 25 (I look 35, but am older). They'll ask for transcripts or photocopies of degrees at some point – HR's method of engaging in age discrimination without asking "what year were you born in?". At the in-person interview, they will learn my real age. They will drop me immediately.
Then, I will sue them for age discrimination. The owner and CEO has already publicly admitted it. I don't want a job at their shitty Edison-esque "try everything" R&D facility, but rather the salary and options that I could have made had they not engaged in their already admitted age discrimination.
Sound like a good plan?
It is said that Microsoft in the early days hired only young fresh software engineers so they wouldn't be corrupted by "old school" thinking.
These engineers went on to build software that re-created every mistake in the book about how and OS should be designed and implemented.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
My Tesla is a far superior driving experience than any ICE car I have ever owned (i.e. Porsche, Audi, etc.). It is faster, quieter, smoother, better handling. Better in every way. There is no way I will ever buy an ICE car again.
The subsidy was a very small percentage of the cost and was not a factor in the purchase.
Whatever you do, don't take a Tesla test drive. It will make you hate your slow, noisy, polluting ICE car forever.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I was teaching a kid SQL and he fell into an issue where his joins and where when he gave up and asked why he wasn't getting the proper results.
So I sketched the answer on a whiteboard in less than two minutes and explained how his joins and cases were excluding the data he wanted. He spent a few days on the issue trying to figure it out on his own.
When he asked me how the hell I figured out so fast I told him that I ran into the issue years ago and simply asked someone with experience.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!