Richard Buckminster Fuller

  b. 1895; d. 1983 | American designer/inventor

At The Bottom

— 1933

Fuller was -- once again - broke and without any viable economic prospects.

In October 1933, a teardrop-shaped, experimental three-wheeled car — a prototype that resembled a racing boat more than an automobile — rolled over during a test drive, killing its driver and seriously injuring two potential investors.  The “Dymaxion,” as it was called, was the brainchild of a man named Richard Buckminster Fuller, who was not an engineer but rather saw himself as a philosopher who put his ideas into physical form.  In this case, the Dymaxion was supposed to be a lighter-weight and more energy-efficient vehicle than conventional cars.  Indeed, it wasn’t even supposed to be a “car” at all.  Instead, Fuller hoped that he might eventually be able to add wings that allowed the Dymaxion to fly as well as cruise along the ground.  But the wreck of the Dymaxion prototype discouraged investors, and Fuller was — once again – broke and without any viable economic prospects.  It was only the latest of numerous failures in Fuller’s young life.  He had been expelled from Harvard — twice — and had cycled from one job to another after serving a two-year stint in the Navy during World War I.  He and his father had founded a housing design company that gone bankrupt in 1927, and — adding personal tragedy to failure — his youngest daughter had died of polio and spinal meningitis.  At a relatively young age, Fuller was (in his own words) a “throwaway,” a man who had become “discredited and penniless.”