Never give up

(FSB Magazine) Indianapolis -- Undeterred by the failure of Escient, in 2005 Jones sponsored a team to compete in the second DARPA Grand Challenge (darpa.mil/grandchallenge), a competition to create and race an unmanned vehicle for a $2 million prize and the prospect of lucrative military contracts. Because of a small technical glitch, the $400,000 robot peeled out at the starting line, veered right, and crashed into a wall. Jones, however, encourages his employees to take ideas and turn them inside out until they make sense as a business.

He ended up building a company out of his robot technology, but not quite the one he imagined. The late management sage Peter Drucker said that innovation often occurs when an entrepreneur takes an idea in an entirely new direction. And that's what Jones did with Precise Path, which is developing robotic lawn mowers that will neatly mow golf course greens.

Movie magic: Jones gets inspiration from watching flicks in his 20-seat home theater.

More from FSB

Help wanted for HR firm A CEO and rodeo queen King of the mountain bike

Current Issue

In the garage of a small Colonial house on Jones's estate, Doug Traster, formerly the leader of Jones's Indy Robot Racing Team and now president of Precise Path, points to several color 3-D schematics taped to the wall, which show the evolution of the idea. After deciding an unmanned Jeep posed too many liability issues, the team considered robotic chemical sprayers that would protect workers from inhaling chemicals. "The demand wasn't there," says Traster.

Innovate Like Edison

They considered a lawn mower, dubbed "the purple lozenge" for its size and shape. But the technology was too expensive for the consumer market. The team then pitched fairway mowers to golf course managers, but they all said what they really needed was a better mower for putting greens. Traditional mowers create small imperfections that disrupt the speed and uniformity of the green. That's when Traster decided to manufacture robotic mowers that promise much smoother greens. Production is planned for 2009, and Jones says the company already has a $200,000 order from a distributor for ten of the machines.

Driving home from dinner one evening in his Lexus LX-470, Jones makes a bold statement. "I already know where I'm spending my next $4 billion to $6 billion." He says it so casually, as if he weren't talking about a sum more than 25 times his net worth. Where will he spend part of that? "Many entrepreneurs have had the dream of being able to fly," he continues. "I think I actually know how to do it in a way that's new and different, that would largely eliminate the need for cars. I just need $2 billion to prove it."

The beauty of it is, he's not particularly bothered that no one will believe him.