Bend, Not Break

by Ping Fu

  At first, we would get orders to change lightbulbs or repair blown electrical circuits. Wang taught me how to find a circuit breaker and change a fuse, and gave me lessons about electrical currents, voltage, and the safety importance of grounding. He also showed me how to read engineering diagrams. Studying maps of electrical wiring systems fascinated me. Like radios, here was something we used every day, and yet most of us didn’t understand how electricity worked. Now I not only understood what happened when I flipped a switch and made a light come on, but also I could set it up myself. I can do this at home for our dormitory, I thought. When the lights go out, we don’t have to wait for weeks for the government to send us an electrician anymore.

  Over time, Wang taught me how to wire entire buildings. He showed me how to set up light circuits in serial, so that all the lights would turn on at once, or in parallel, so that each line of lights operated from a different switch.

  One day, the manager told us that a factory that would manufacture motorcycles was being constructed from the ground up in the outskirts of Nanjing. It required a complete, brand-new electrical system, and Wang and I had been tasked with the installation. We enthusiastically took the assignment, high-fiving each other right there in the manager’s office. We felt so excited to be given the opportunity to create something entirely new. This job would prove a true test of our abilities.

  But my excitement turned to anxiety the moment we stepped inside the factory. The ceilings stretched over twenty feet high. Most of our work would have to be done at the top of tall ladders—and I was afraid of heights.

  Vertigo gripped me as I climbed slowly upward to do my first bit of wiring. Wang stood at the base, holding the ladder steady, but it didn’t matter. My stomach churned with each step I took. My palms began to sweat, and I worried that my grip on the rungs would slip. The farther I climbed, the more I felt as though I were going to pee in my pants. When I reached the top of the ladder, I froze.

  “Don’t look down—look straight ahead or up,” Wang called from the factory floor, sensing my panic. I did as he said, but my dizziness persisted. There was no way I would be able to release my hold on the top rung and raise one arm, much less two, toward the ceiling to get my work done.

  “I’m coming down,” I mumbled as tears threatened to leak out of my eyes. My face flushed deep purple with shame.

  When I reached the bottom, Wang sat down on the bare concrete floor with me. “I could tell you were scared to death up there,” he said, staring intensely into my eyes. His voice held steady, but I detected a note of concern. “Ping, you need to learn how to do this. You must overcome your fear.”

  “How?” I asked. “How do I do it?”

  “I don’t know how, but you must,” he replied. A few minutes passed as we sat in silence, our minds racing. Then Wang’s face lit up like one of the bulbs we so often replaced. “I have an idea. If I put a rope around your waist and tied it to a crane, and I used that crane to raise you up to the ceiling, would you feel safer?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’ll give it a try,” I replied, determined not to let him down.

  The next day, Wang found a mechanical lift with a small basket that I could sit inside while performing our high-altitude electrical work. He took a cloth he had brought from home, which resembled a roughly woven bedsheet, and spun it around to form a thick rope. Then he tied one end around my waist. The other end he secured to the railing of the lift basket. He yanked at the rope, causing me to stumble a few feet forward. “See?” he said. “It’s strong. You’re not going to fall.”

  I climbed into the basket and took a few deep breaths as Wang began to raise me up toward the ceiling. Sure enough, with the rope tied around my waist, I felt more secure. My stomach still churned and my palms grew damp with perspiration again, but I did not freeze. Once he had me in position, I raised my arms up to the ceiling and did the wiring as Wang cheered me on from below. Looking back now, I see what a creative solution he dreamed up for my problem. The experience made me realize that sometimes there are very simple steps we can take to overcome our fears, or just minimize them enough so that we can function.

  As we were nearing completion of our work on the motorcycle factory, Wang suggested that I take over the wiring of one of the main rooms. “I know you can do it by yourself,” he said, handing me an electrical map.

  I hesitated for a moment. “Are you sure?”

  He smiled his broad, easy grin. “It’s like learning to ride a bicycle, Ping. Someone runs along beside you holding the back of your seat until you are able to pedal off on your own. You’re ready to do this without me.”

  I felt inspired that Wang would entrust me with such a task. Yet anxiety also clawed at the corners of my mind as I worked; I had better not mess up. I paid close attention to the diagram, double- and triple-checking each wire and every connection. When I finished a week later, I showed Wang my handiwork. Every light turned on as it should and every outlet worked properly. Wang gazed at me with the same pride that Shanghai Papa had years ago when I recited one of his Taoist sayings in front of our dinner guests.

  The next day, I was surprised when a group of several dozen workers, some of whom I recognized from my prior assignments, arrived at our building around lunchtime. The factory was not ready for them to use yet. Wang gathered them into the room that I had just finished wiring.

  “I want you to see what this little girl did all by herself,” he announced to the crowd. Then he turned to me. “Ping, flip the switch.”

  I took a deep breath, fervently hoping that nothing had gone wrong overnight. But when I did as Wang had commanded, the factory flooded with bright light. The assembled workers began to clap their hands, whistle, and cheer my name. I thought I might float off the ground from sheer elation. I had earned the respect of the workers, the people I revered most. I could imagine no greater honor. I was a somebody at last.

  —

  From age fifteen to eighteen, I worked on and off at a factory that made car parts. Wang no longer worked with me, but we remained friends throughout those years. My first assignment was to manually operate a milling machine that made screws and fasteners. That experience taught me how to read mechanical engineering drawings—side, top, and front views. I had to measure the hexagonal screw heads precisely so that the fasteners would thread properly. It was my most dangerous job yet: hair caught in the turning belt would get yanked out in giant chunks; fingers could be sliced off completely if we weren’t careful. I wore safety goggles to keep bits of metal from flying into my eyes.

  Next, I was tasked with making gears with teeth. I discovered that the size of the teeth and the diameter of the gears were of utmost importance. They had to fit together precisely with the other gears in order to turn the machinery properly. This work required me to interpret even more sophisticated mechanical engineering drawings. I learned a great deal about size, speed, velocity, and torque—mechanical engineering concepts that I had never encountered in study sessions of Mao’s teachings.

  Later in life, I realized that many students learn the theory behind engineering and mathematical principles without ever applying their education through hands-on experience. I did just the opposite: I learned by doing, and slowly filled in the theory behind my work through intuition and by asking questions of others. Eventually, I studied some of the principles in books and college courses—but that would be years down the road.

  My final factory task was stamping and sanding large pieces of rough, flat metal until it was mirror smooth. I would work on the same piece of metal for months on end. Today I can’t imagine enjoying this tedious task that I spent two years of my life doing, yet I embraced it in the moment.

  Several of us worked together on one sheet of rough metal at a time. We each held a long chisel with both hands, resting the flat end against our stomachs for leverage as we used the sharp end to take out small bumps in the metal. Next,
we placed a sheet of blue ink paper, like carbon paper, on top of the rough metal surface. Using a machine, we lowered an equal-sized piece of smooth, flat metal until it touched the rough metal’s surface. The machine moved back and forth, causing the blue ink from the carbon paper to be transferred to the bumps on the rough metal sheet. When the machine lifted the smooth metal piece away, we could see from these blue ink spots where we needed to do more sanding. We went back to work with our chisels, removing all the remaining bumps marked by the blue ink.

  It was a mind-numbingly slow and repetitive process. I became bruised, with thick skin and calluses covering my hands and my stomach where I rested the flat end of the chisel. Fortunately, we did the work together as a team. The other workers were older than me, but they, too, treated me kindly and respected me for my work discipline. Being able to share stories, crack jokes, and laugh with them throughout the day made time pass more quickly.

  When my colleagues and I had finished making our first piece of metal mirror smooth, I caught sight in it of a perfect reflection of my face. We didn’t have mirrors at home or around the dormitory—Mao’s Communism discouraged concern with one’s physical appearance. This was the first reflection of myself that I had seen in a mirror in years. I was surprised that I looked all grown up. I recalled the well in the courtyard of my Shanghai family’s home where I had gazed at myself before I was taken away.

  Suddenly, sense memories flooded me. I longed to taste Shanghai Mama’s elaborate dishes, to feel the soft touch of her hand on my cheek, to smell the sweet jasmine she always wore in her hair, to see the dragonflies buzzing around the scholar garden. I missed the tender warmth of Shanghai Papa, the rambunctious energy of my cousin-siblings, the quiet wisdom of my grandfather. Tears came to my eyes unbidden. I frantically tried to wipe them from my face with my shirtsleeve before the others noticed, but one of my coworkers had already caught sight of me.

  “What’s wrong?” the middle-aged woman asked.

  “Nothing,” I replied, excusing myself to take a bathroom break so I could clean myself up. What was there to say? I had kept myself sane for a decade by pushing away thoughts of the life that had been stolen away from me. But now I wanted my family to witness me. I had started with a rusty, bumpy piece of metal and turned it into a beautiful shining work of art. I hoped they would feel the same way about me—an unfinished child who had transformed into a proud and capable worker as an adult.

  THE PERSONAL FACTORY: 1996–1999

  THE YEAR 1996 was nearing its end and I was determined to get a company started. Xixi was three, sweet and chatty, and I truly enjoyed being a mother. Ironically, it took me a little over nine months to bring Geomagic to life as well.

  I spent the first few months gathering information and researching potential business ideas before plunging into anything. I interviewed, and mostly just listened to, dozens of people: experts, scientists, and business founders—anyone with an opinion or an idea. I also attended conferences and learning sessions. This was the height of the Internet era, and everywhere people were chattering about starting dot-com companies. At a panel at NCSA with representatives from Kodak, Sun Microsystems, GE, Morgan Stanley, and IBM, each one proudly pronounced, “We are a dot-com company.”

  That doesn’t make sense, I thought. Why would they call themselves dot-com companies? I had learned that whenever there were breakthroughs in transportation and communication, big things happened. The invention of the railroad, highway, and aerospace industries had helped transport people and goods to new places with unprecedented speed. The radio, telephone, and now Internet enabled us to access information and connect virtually. Those innovations in transportation and communication had fundamentally altered our perception of space and time. Nevertheless, when the telephone came into being, businesses didn’t rush to call themselves “phone companies” simply because they used the new device. Why should they redefine themselves as “dot-com companies” just because they now had a .com in their domain name?

  “I don’t want to create another dot-com company,” I told Herbert one evening.

  He nodded. “Well, at least you know now what it is that you don’t want to do.”

  “I want to create something of value,” I said. This was my New Year’s resolution in 1997.

  I asked three questions:

  1. Why should I start a company?

  2. What will it have to offer?

  3. How can I build it?

  One day, I saw a demo of a 3D printing machine called a stereolithography apparatus, or SLA. I was mesmerized by it. From my factory work in China, I knew the subtractive (milling) and formative (casting) process. But this was different—it was additive. Just as a regular printer lays down colored ink on a blank page in order to form two-dimensional words and pictures, this machine laid down printable materials—plastic, metal, or ceramic—a layer at a time. The SLA machine was capable of re-creating complex three-dimensional shapes that couldn’t be milled or casted.

  Three-dimensional printers were not yet advanced enough to make complex consumer products like cars or cameras. But they could produce specialized parts for the space shuttle or one of Frank Gehry’s buildings. Engineers could print the parts in solid form as a prototype before sending their designs off to a factory for expensive manufacturing.

  These printers depended on 3D computer models, which I wrote software to create at NCSA. Herbert was a leading research figure in the field of computational geometry. It was alpha shapes, a theory developed by Herbert and his PhD students, that had enabled us at NCSA to help scientists create and visualize 3D shapes on their computer screens that were either too small for our eyes to see or too large for our minds to comprehend—from the 3D structure of molecules to the shape composition of galaxies. I already knew that people were downloading alpha shapes software from the public domain site where we gave the software away for free, but I had not checked into what anyone other than the scientists at NCSA were using it for.

  I discovered that many people were using the alpha shapes software to process data captured by 3D scanners—not medical CT and MRI scanners, but industrial ones made from digital cameras. With the aid of either a laser or light patterns, they would produce 3D point clouds. Imagine dots floating in space, arranged to cover the surface of an object to form an impression of its shape. In 2D digital pictures, those dots lie directly on the paper or flat screen; we call them pixels. In 3D, the dots are not projected onto a flat surface, but rather retain the depth of an object’s true shape in space.

  This was my aha moment. State-of-the-art 3D appliances, such as 3D scanners and 3D printers, already existed. If we offered software that could take the data from 3D scanners, process it, and output it on 3D printers, our new company could do in three dimensions for desktop fabrication what Adobe had done for desktop publishing in two dimensions. My head spun with possibilities.

  After graduating from UNM and starting a family, Hong had founded a specialty retail store in Scottsdale, Arizona. She told me that shoes were one of the most challenging merchandise items to carry because the store needed to stock so many different sizes and styles, yet the one the customer wanted always seemed to be missing. In the nineteenth century, cobblers measured people’s feet and made shoes to fit them precisely. But their skills were not scalable, and the shoes they custom made were costly. In the twentieth century, such personalized products gave way to factory assembly lines. Scale was achieved and costs plummeted, but the products became standardized. Stores carried racks full of shoes that nobody wanted because so many didn’t fit quite right—in size, shape, or style.

  Ask a factory today to make you a single pair of shoes of your own design and you will be presented with a bill for thousands of dollars. If you produce thousands of shoes, each one of them will be much cheaper thanks to economies of scale. For a 3D printer, though, economies of scale matter far less. Its software can be endlessly twea
ked so that it can make just about anything. The cost of setting up the machine is the same whether it prints one object or many. It will keep going, at about the same cost per item, until it runs out of materials, just like your home printer will keep going until it runs out of paper and ink.

  I wondered, Could we develop technology and software to enable a digital form-fitting and manufacturing system that made shoes and thousands of other items that were both one of a kind and produced with the efficiency of mass production? “Mass customization”: I had heard people talk about it before, but so far it had come to mean little more than nonfat-soy extra-foam lattes and made-to-order jeans that still didn’t fit well.

  I started to get excited. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

  “We’ll call it the Personal Factory,” I told Mike Facello, a bright PhD student of Herbert’s who would become one of our first employees. “It’s intuitive. People already know the PC. Now we’ll have the PF.”

  “Cute, Ping,” he observed. “You’ve managed to name an industry after your own initials.”

  I was possessed by the idea of revolutionizing the manufacturing process, just as Henry Ford once had with his invention of the assembly line. That night when I fell asleep, I had a dream about the years I’d spent in factories in China. I awoke the next morning with visions of spinning parts and shining metal floating through my head. I found that I could recall details about those years that I hadn’t been able to for decades. I thought to myself, No wonder I came up with the “personal factory” idea for my business. Working in factories had ingrained not just the knowledge but also the visceral experience of manufacturing into my brain and body.

  That day, I felt even more convinced that I should build a technology company to enable the “personal factory.” This was my destiny, I realized, my calling as an entrepreneur. I could see where it came from—the depths of my subconscious. For the first time since volunteering to create a business, I felt confident that I could actually do it because I had found my reason why.