Niels and I met in 1997 at a time when I was talking to designers about developing our first chair. I actually searched him out because I had asked many people how to adjust your chair and no one knew how to do it. I was looking to develop a chair that was easy to use and he was known as one of the great chair designers of the world. As we were talking, we realized we shared many of the same beliefs and both valued simplicity and ease of use. Over the years, he taught me so much, including the importance of restraint and how complicated simplicity can be to achieve. Thanks to Niels I learned that true innovation is very expensive, very unpredictable and very slow, whereas styling (which often passes for design) is inexpensive, predictable and fast. Niels and I were always only interested in the former.

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