Although I and Kathy were integrally part of the early decisions, directions and perspectives, it was Jim who took the bit in his teeth to create the electro-acoustic solutions. And he got better and better. My chief contribution was building a company and creating a manufacturing platform and capacity to support and manufacture Jim's designs. A manufacturing company defines itself by what it can actually accomplish as well as the designs it sets out to make. Our plant could make things with high precision and repeatability at low cost, which allowed fairly sophisticated designs to be translated into real world products at affordable prices. Additionally, I developed a very capable "project shop" for in-house prototyping, including hydro-spinning cones, machining motor assemblies, making production tooling and producing finished products, troubleshot and production-ready. In my travels, I've never seen anything like it, especially at such a small scale. Thiel remained under $10million / year with 50 or fewer employees. That's tiny for our high level of vertical integration.
