David Qian / ECOVACS: Father & Son, Inside Business Succession, Robotics, and My Search for Meaning

Summary

• The central lesson from ECOVACS’s succession is that even the right strategy can lose momentum if the organization cannot execute it. Qian Cheng says the direction—exiting OEM manufacturing, moving upmarket and accelerating international expansion—has not changed. The mistake was assuming that success overseas meant he was ready to run the whole company. Merging the domestic and overseas organizations was like mixing “oil and water,” while the founder’s personal strengths may have been compensating for organizational weaknesses. Taking over meant “building on top of a skyscraper”; he first needed to understand its foundations.
• Global expansion is Qian’s clearest bet today: the next step is to move from having an overseas business to becoming fully international. Early on, he opened markets with “value-for-money products, e-commerce channels and internet marketing,” recalling that the German business may have captured roughly 30% market share in just 6 months. Overseas revenue now accounts for 50%, he says, and could reach 60% or 70% in the next few years. Chinese companies today can compete with innovation and premium products; they cannot simply copy the old value-alternative playbook.
• ECOVACS’s move into multiple categories is about cultivating new demand, while ensuring that technology, channels and market scale are up to the task. Qian describes the company as agrarian: plant seeds and let an industry grow, rather than seeing a big market and “taking a bite.” Window-cleaning robots were already on the market before he joined; he says the company can ship 2M units this year. Lawn and pool robots also address household needs, drawing on shared capabilities in sensors, algorithms, controls, quality delivery and global channels.
• Qian does not see a consumer-electronics brand as a durable moat; competitive advantage has to be earned again with every product generation. A brand is just a consumer’s memory of the last purchase. If the next product disappoints, “that memory ends there.” Pure hardware has more of a scale effect than a network effect. He admits he “overestimated himself and underestimated the competition.” Now he emphasizes seeing ahead, moving fast and making fewer mistakes, while devoting 70%–80% of the work to replicating capabilities and 20%–30% to improving them.
• Qian sees long-term potential in embodied robotics, but rejects the idea that today’s technology buzz translates directly into near-term household revenue. He estimates that some commercial and factory applications could be ready in 3–5 years, while consumer-home applications may take 5–10 years. The industry is still “looking for nails with a hammer.” ECOVACS has invested in R&D and the supply chain, but he sees no certain demand that must be chased today: “The meat is imaginary” (“这个肉是虚幻的”).
• ECOVACS envisions a future with multiple specialized types of household robots, not one in which humanoids swallow every tool category. Qian asks whether consumers, once robot vacuums are widespread, will really “buy another vacuum cleaner for a robot.” The company has not moved into foundation models or invested in them; its stronger position may be understanding household needs and defining products. The signal he is watching for is software and hardware that first prove highly robust, replicable and scalable in commercial settings.
• For Qian, growing into the next generation of a family business means shifting from avoiding loss to actively creating the next set of goals. Before 30, his underlying motivation was mostly not to “squander this good fortune.” After becoming CEO, he even thought he had reached the peak of his life—a view he later called an “epic misjudgment.” Today, he describes his goal as “testing the ceiling”: succession is only a transition. The real test is whether the company can keep growing in the next era, not whether a title has changed hands.

Deep dive

1. Returning to the family business was initially just an easy career choice

• Qian Cheng was born in Shenzhen in 1990, moved to Canada at 11, and returned to China after graduating from university at 22. By the time of the interview, he had lived and worked in Suzhou for 14 years. He did not grow up understanding his father’s business; at first, all he knew was that his family “sold vacuum cleaners.” He only began thinking about what his father did—and what he might do himself—after starting university.
• His father was busy with work and gave him room to grow independently. Moving abroad at 11 was not the result of a long discussion; he was simply told in advance. His father stayed with him for a while in Canada and asked him to choose 10 words from the dictionary each day and memorize them, then returned to China a few months later. Qian does not describe any pre-planned education for taking over the business.
• At university from 2008 to 2012, he considered building an app but had no clear plan to start a company. He returned because he had a vague sense that China offered better growth opportunities. Joining the family business was a relatively good career option. Nobody expected his first job to last until today, and he did not join with succession as the end goal.

2. E-commerce barely made it from 0 to 0.1 in 3 years; overseas losses forced him to learn how to run a business

• When Qian joined in 2012, both robotics and e-commerce caught his interest. The company still had a traditional vacuum-cleaner OEM business and factories, and he spent time on the production line, but his main assignment was e-commerce. His father would show him daily sales texts: 10 or 20 robot vacuums sold nationwide was already exciting to him.
• His father put him in charge of e-commerce, and the company also launched a new brand. The company was then called TTI, with the English name TEK; ECOVACS was its brand for the China market. In its first Singles’ Day sale, ECOVACS sold 10,000 robot vacuums at RMB999 apiece and became a hit across the internet. Qian’s TEK business, by contrast, sold only a few hundred thousand yuan. He mainly felt disappointed by the comparison, rather than criticized by his father.
• Hiring, setting pay and managing a team were all things he had to figure out from scratch as a recent graduate. Looking back, Qian says, “That was basically a mess.” He rates his first 3 years of growth as “from 0 to 0.1.” He only began to understand how to analyze problems, develop insights and mobilize organizational resources around 2015, when he took over the overseas business.
• At the time, the businesses in Germany, the US and Japan were losing about RMB50M in total. He describes the starting point as “hell mode.” His father still handed him a business and let him work it out. Some of the domestic e-commerce team later shifted to overseas markets, bringing the operational capabilities they had already built.

3. The moment a customer opened Amazon, the overseas playbook began to take shape

• At first, the only option for going overseas was to sell products developed for China. Qian saw that some of them could undercut overseas competitors on price while still earning a margin. When he spoke with local managers, the feedback was mostly that the products were poor and investment was insufficient. Those complaints did not tell him how to get the business moving.
• At a meeting with a channel customer, the customer asked whether ECOVACS was already selling in the US and on Amazon, then searched for products on Amazon. Qian’s reaction was: “If you’re searching on Amazon, what am I doing selling through you?” If customers were using e-commerce to assess brands, why not take the company’s domestic e-commerce capabilities directly overseas?
• He later summed up the approach as “value-for-money products, e-commerce channels and internet marketing,” but stresses that it was not a top-down concept worked backward into a strategy; the model emerged through trial and error. At the time, most of the sellers at Amazon conferences were moving factory goods and selling them under a brand. Few companies were taking Chinese brands overseas in earnest.

4. The overseas breakthrough changed his view of growth first, then the organization’s division of labor

• Qian’s core message to the team was: “We’re not here to divide up the pie.” China’s robot-vacuum market was growing rapidly, while overseas growth was slower but penetration was also low. Rather than estimate the existing market and aim for 10% of it, the team should first grow the pie and then claim its fair share.
• Germany was the first market to break through, followed by the US. Qian recalls that they may have captured roughly 30% of the German market in just 6 months. It showed him that when the direction and strategy are right, results can come quickly. The company’s mission is “to let robots serve households around the world,” and its overseas growth made him feel that this was work he was suited to do.
• Organizationally, he replaced several locally hired managers chosen by his father who had traditional sales backgrounds, shifting to an e-commerce-led model with local channel-building as support. The first replacements were still local hires; the company only gradually moved toward sending people from China. He admits he lacked the experience to manage overseas managers in their 40s and 50s, and was also short on cross-cultural management skills.

5. Chinese brands going global today have more options than low-priced alternatives

• Qian says the biggest change over the past 3–5 years is that Chinese companies can now make products that are better than overseas brands and relatively premium. The product determines whether a brand can establish itself, as well as its leverage with channels. If it is only a cheaper alternative to an overseas brand, its position in the channel is inherently weak.
• Talent, distributors, logistics, cross-border payments and overseas consumers’ openness to Chinese brands have all changed from a decade ago. He estimates that 70%–80% of relevant companies may still rely on the traditional three-part playbook, but more and more companies are targeting overseas markets from day one, competing on technology and global operating capabilities.
• ECOVACS now earns 50% of its revenue overseas, he says, and expects that figure to reach 60% or 70% in the next few years. His view is that Chinese companies will increasingly compete globally. In a reasonable steady state, China may account for just 30% of revenue; the bigger opportunity is overseas, provided companies understand the real and significant differences among global consumers.

6. Becoming CEO at 29 left him without a clear next goal

• Qian admits that before 30, his drive was more about “not losing anything” than gaining something. He already had a lot going for him and did not want to “squander this good fortune.” Zhang Xiaojun describes it as “protecting the floor,” and he agrees.
• When he became CEO at 29, he briefly thought he had reached the peak of his life, then realized it was an “epic misjudgment.” He was not prepared for what came next: “When you think you’re great, you’re not far from being stupid.”
• The overseas business was a new venture built “from the ground up.” Taking over the company meant adding floors to an existing building. He did not understand how his father had laid each brick and built the pillars. Growing up in Shenzhen and then abroad also left him realizing later that he did not truly understand Chinese society or the corporate culture rooted in it.

7. The founder’s strengths may have been compensating for the organization’s weaknesses

• When the business ran into difficulty, Qian felt a huge gap between what he wanted and what actually got done. If the CEO was the brain, his connection to the company’s nerves had not fused; he could not effectively control every muscle. It took 2 or 3 years after taking over for him to gradually recognize that disconnect.
• He later arrived at an important reflection: “To some extent, this weakness was caused by the founder’s and CEO’s strengths.” The way the organization operated was coupled to key individuals. A successor who sees only the weaknesses, but does not have the founder’s strengths, may remove the support already in place and leave the organization with even more weaknesses.
• One place he ran into a wall was decision-making. He wanted to introduce more democratic, collective discussion and standardized management. The team was not necessarily used to that; more discussion often slowed execution. “People just wanted you to tell them what to do.” Change required trust, systems and shared habits; it could not be driven by an idea of how a listed company “should” be managed.
• His father had shifted his attention to Tineco and built a new brand, reducing his involvement in the original business. Zhang Xiaojun asked why he did not help Qian through the transition more. Qian replied, “It’s always been like this since I was a kid.” His father shared his experience, but “hearing it” was not the same as figuring it out for himself. In the end, he had to learn by doing.

8. The failed domestic-overseas merger showed that individual capabilities had not become organizational capabilities

• After becoming CEO, Qian wanted the domestic and overseas businesses to stop operating like two different companies, so he pushed for integration. He accepts that splitting or combining organizations should serve the needs of the business at each stage, but admits that his own attempt to combine them was “wishful thinking,” without the systems or organizational development to support it. “It was like oil and water”: putting them in the same bottle did not make them mix.
• The less obvious problem was that when he left the front line overseas, his user and customer insights—and his judgment about which key battles to fight—did not automatically become organizational capabilities. “My strengths were compensating for the organization’s weaknesses.” Once he was no longer directly in charge, those weaknesses reappeared.
• The pandemic made it harder to travel and understand markets firsthand. He stresses that the issue was not whether a CEO had to travel personally, but whether management systems could feed back information, convey judgment and support decisions. If the business had relied on one person’s insight without building those systems, it went from running smoothly to “not even understanding the battle we were fighting.”

9. Adjustments around 2024 were about bringing ambition and capability back into sync

• Zhang Xiaojun recaps 3 things Qian did after taking over: cut OEM manufacturing, move upmarket and accelerate overseas expansion. Qian still believes the direction was right. Internationalization, more categories and a premium brand driven by innovation remain the plan; what needed adjusting was the pace, not the goals themselves.
• The ambition to move from household into commercial applications and become an “all-scenario robotics company” was another case of ambition exceeding the organization’s capacity. Having the technology does not mean a company can run both B2B and B2C businesses at once. The two require different operating DNA, and few companies can truly span both. There was a wide gap between the appealing vision and the ability to execute it.
• Around 2024, he began to realize that changes were needed. He also learned from his father’s resilience, decisiveness and sense of responsibility in difficult times. Qian acknowledges that he is not a founder and does not naturally have the same founder’s mindset, but he can observe, learn and emulate it rather than treating that difference as a dead end.
• Zhang Xiaojun’s counterpoint is worth preserving: if the direction is right, a mismatch in capabilities can be addressed by building capabilities, rather than changing the ambition. Qian agrees that the issue can be on the capability side. What changed for him was a greater focus on making progress at a pace the team could absorb, rather than trying to upend everything in the short term.

10. Change every decade: the growth horizon he sets for the company

• Qian divides the company’s history into decades. From 1998 to 2008, it moved from traditional manufacturing and OEM work into branding. From 2008 to 2018, it completed its transformation and went public. He stresses that the listed company was already a branded robot-vacuum business, not a vacuum-cleaner OEM, and had begun building an overseas business.
• For 2018–2028, his goal is that “this decade won’t have been wasted.” Over the next 2 or 3 years, he hopes the company will become fully international and no longer be known only for robot vacuums and wet-and-dry floor cleaners, but for a range of household robots including window, lawn and pool cleaners.
• Looking ahead to 2028–2038, he expects major changes in the robotics industry and technology environment, which he finds “exciting.” Companies belong to their era; the factors that built a company in one era do not guarantee success in the next. A new decade can itself become a source of renewed ambition and goals.

11. A CEO has to own the product; the 2021 architecture remains one of his key calls

• Qian gives himself a 5 or 6 out of 10 for his performance as CEO over the past few years. He sees insight and strategic direction as strengths, and fine-grained management and strong execution as weaknesses. But he believes the CEO has to be deeply involved in product: “A company like this cannot not manage the product.”
• He sees a 2021 product as an important architectural definition: an all-in-one docking station, plus AI vision and voice AI on the robot vacuum itself. It also helped lift average industry prices. In his view, the industry has kept iterating since then, but mainstream products have not strayed from that original form; the core architecture has not fundamentally changed.

12. Choosing categories is like farming: it takes patience and requires clearing a scale threshold

• Faced with huge markets such as air conditioning, worth hundreds of billions of yuan, Qian does not assume entering them means a higher chance of success. He compares ECOVACS to an “agrarian civilization”: plant seeds, work the land and let the crop grow. A “nomadic civilization” sees a big industry and wants to “take a bite.” The company is more comfortable creating and cultivating new categories.
• In the early days, when robot vacuums were sold in shopping malls, some consumers thought they were electronic scales. Even basic awareness of the category was missing. Window-cleaning robots also took years to develop; the first model existed before he joined. He says the company can ship 2M units this year, while admitting that for a long time he did not appreciate the category’s potential. Now the company is focusing more resources on it.
• Category selection is not just about vision; it also depends on whether the company can reuse its capabilities: proprietary sensors, algorithms, controls, high-quality delivery at scale and global channels. Household applications beyond robot vacuums are worth pursuing only when they fit these underlying strengths.
• Scale is another filter. He uses the group’s revenue of RMB20B as an example: if a market is worth only RMB100M–RMB300M a year, the revenue it contributes to the group may not even amount to 1%. A new business needs room to grow and the potential to scale within a defined period. The company should not do something just because it can.

13. Facing new competitors starts with admitting he overestimated himself and underestimated the competition

• As companies such as Roborock and Dreame have grown, the competitive landscape has changed. Qian says the next generation of companies has a different set of resources and advantages from those ECOVACS knew in the past. Mastering the factors behind success in the previous era does not guarantee success in the next.
• He does not blame external factors for the company’s past performance: “We overestimated ourselves and underestimated the competition.” That does not mean being defeatist. The key is to understand what has changed and what capabilities the company needs, then act on it. Seeing someone else in great shape while refusing to exercise and continuing to eat junk food is pointless.
• He reduces running a business to 3 things: see ahead, move fast and avoid mistakes. The first is about understanding change and direction, the second about management and execution, and the third about pursuing reasonable ambitions while restraining unreasonable ones. Many companies are fatally damaged by their own mistakes.
• He now favors spending 70%–80% of the effort replicating capabilities and 20%–30% improving them, rather than aiming for a large-scale transformation of capabilities. Competitors are a “touchstone,” not the company’s goal. Asked what he thinks of Yu Hao, he replies, “He just exists.” His own goals remain the vision and user value.

14. In consumer electronics, a brand is a memory of a purchase, not a permanent moat

• Asked about the core moat in consumer electronics, Qian answers directly: “There is no core moat.” Zhang Xiaojun suggests that a brand could be one. He says a brand helps consumers make their next purchase quickly based on their last experience; if the next product disappoints, that memory may end.
• Coca-Cola can keep its taste unchanged for decades; consumer electronics cannot. Brand memory cannot substitute for the next generation of products, so he does not equate past consumer approval with a guarantee of future earnings.
• He concedes that Apple may have a moat, but links it to a kind of network effect. Pure hardware does not have the same network effect; it has more of a scale effect. For most consumer-electronics companies, the more practical task is to establish a relative scale advantage and keep iterating quickly.
• Zhang Xiaojun asks whether the company should try to build the moat investors want to see. Qian says a true moat is monopoly power, which is difficult to establish in a fast-changing environment. Calling the ECOVACS brand and its understanding of households around the world a moat “is something you can say, but it may not be true.”

15. Separate AI’s impact on organizations from its revenue potential

• On the technological changes since ChatGPT arrived in late 2022, Qian draws a distinction between 2 things: how models and AI agents change the way companies operate and manage, and how technology changes products and generates revenue. ECOVACS has developed internal alignment and started practical work on both fronts; the effects of AI should not be collapsed into a single judgment.
• The most direct revenue opportunity he sees today is in infrastructure companies such as optical-module makers, but they are outside ECOVACS’s industry. More relevant to the company is Physical AI and embodied robotics. He estimates that some commercial and factory applications could be ready in 3–5 years, while household consumer applications may take 5–10 years.
• Highly standardized work is the first area suited to replacement; there is no need to overemphasize generalization. Household software and hardware still need time to mature. He also resists defining the company categorically as either a manufacturer or an AI company: identifying demand and using innovation to meet it are technological work in their own right.

16. Embodied robotics is still looking for nails with a hammer, and organizational structure shapes the playbook

• Qian says it is not especially hard to assemble a robot using Shenzhen’s supply chain, or even to buy a leading product and repackage it. If everyone rushes in, that does not necessarily create meaningful differentiation. The industry is still using a “very big hammer” on “very small nails”; the question is what use case it will ultimately find.
• He recalls that in the early days of drones, it was also unclear what they were for. As he remembers it, Parrot worked with Walmart to position its product as a toy, while DJI chose the prosumer market and gradually turned drones into productivity tools. The hammer itself may not be the problem; the nail it finds determines what comes next.
• Startups can begin with a paper or a demo, facing different constraints on revenue, profit and delivery. Listed companies have to consider investors and capital allocation. He mentions XPeng’s spinout of its embodied-robotics business and says bringing in outside capital was part of the decision. Startups also have more flexibility in allocating equity to core teams.
• Zhang Xiaojun asks: if ECOVACS is a farmer, shouldn’t it start early? Qian says many of today’s entrants look more like nomads, drawn by how easily the primary market provides funding. ECOVACS has not been idle: it has invested in embodied-robotics R&D, the supply chain and key areas. But he does not believe the company needs to rush in now to grab a piece of the action.

17. An unlimited field of possibility still takes a long time to turn into results

• For electric vehicles, existing car ownership offers a reference point for the scale of electrification. Embodied robotics is a new market; if the goal is to replace people, the opportunity could be unlimited. But “how big is it?” Qian says a long period of execution still separates the excitement generated by technology from the size of the business it can actually create.
• He compares valuations of RMB200B for Unitree and RMB4T for China’s most valuable company: the former would need to grow about 20-fold to reach the latter. He adds, “Of course, it might exceed RMB4T,” setting no absolute ceiling on the future, but using the comparison to ask how a big market vision ultimately translates into company value.
• Autonomous driving is his real-world reference point. When he bought a Model S, Elon Musk was already talking about FSD. More than 10 years later, delivery is still a work in progress. Even in China, where he thinks progress has been relatively fast, “probably less than half” of consumers use autonomous driving in every scenario. It is moving even more slowly elsewhere in the world.

18. ECOVACS has yet to define its own path in embodied robotics; product definition may be its stronger suit

• Qian expects hardware supply in China to become abundant, with software potentially becoming the more important capability. But building a world model in-house would require “huge” investment. Data-collection standards are also changing quickly; a method from a year ago “may not even be useful now.” He points to Figure’s data-collection app as evidence that the industry is still at an early stage.
• For ECOVACS, he is focused on whether software and hardware can first become highly robust, replicable and scalable in commercial applications. If they can, household use may not be far behind. The company has not entered the model layer or invested in models; he believes it is better at understanding household needs and defining products.
• Zhang Xiaojun asks whether this wave could take ECOVACS to its next level, and whether it should embrace it more aggressively. Qian acknowledges that possibility and agrees with the ambition behind the direction, but says corporate governance also means judging whether the steps make sense and whether current capabilities can support them. The goal of developing robotics over the next 10 years has not changed; the path is still to be explored.

19. Robots are more likely to evolve into multiple species than leave only humanoids

• Qian points out that appliances have long been driven by smart technology. ECOVACS has been using AI for obstacle avoidance, object recognition and efficiency improvements. But consumers spending their own money remain rational: what matters is product performance and value for money. “It has AI” is not, on its own, a reason to buy.
• Asked whether embodied robots will replace robot vacuums, he asks in return: once robot-vacuum penetration is already high, will people really “buy another vacuum cleaner for a robot”? He favors a Darwinian evolution in which different robots become specialized for different scenarios and build the capabilities to fit them. There may be humanoids, but there will certainly be other kinds as well.
• The company’s long-term direction is to move from tools toward household caretaker robots, but the underlying goal is always to free up consumers’ time—not just to clean floors or mow lawns. He hopes ECOVACS can be one of the key companies bringing robots into the home, but does not think that will happen tomorrow.

20. Excitement in tech circles does not mean consumers’ lives have already changed dramatically

• Qian clearly recognizes AI’s impact on individuals and industries, but does not think ordinary consumers have yet felt a decisive change. Seeing a robot dance or wave on the street or at the Spring Festival Gala is still mostly entertaining. The ambition of technology’s builders matters, but they still need to answer what has actually changed for consumers.
• He acknowledges that AI video and content-generation capabilities are already strong, but says face-to-face interviews remain a necessary part of the content ecosystem. Both agree that “people still like watching content about people.” Technology can help creators improve their capabilities, but the arrival of generative tools does not mean human creativity will simply disappear.

21. Succession means using the old house’s framework to bring the company into a new era

• Qian sees the central challenge of succession at the intersection of 2 eras. The previous generation succeeded with the talent, organization and customer relationships of its time; the next generation is expected to take the company through another cycle. The elements of the previous era are neither 100% retained nor 100% discarded. The successor has to identify what should remain and what needs to change.
• A successor must also master the ingredients of the new era, rather than simply enter the old company as a younger person. The house’s framework is already there, but it still needs to be adjusted and built out. If the successor has neither changed the company nor brought it into a new stage of development, completing the leadership handover is not enough to count as success.
• At ECOVACS, the underlying culture worth preserving is pragmatism, prudence and a long-term outlook. His father often says, “Look up at the stars, but keep your feet on the ground.” Without the first, the company would not keep transforming; without the second, it would lose its footing. Father and son share the goal of making the company better, but still have to reconcile their approaches, division of work and communication.

22. Trust with longtime colleagues cannot simply be transferred; renewal has to reach key roles

• Qian admits he cannot fully know what his father and longtime colleagues went through together, how they built trust, or how they communicate behind closed doors and over WeChat. Those relationships have to be built again from scratch; sometimes, he says, it “comes down to fate.” There is no management method that automatically transfers that accumulated trust.
• He does not believe he can be forced to become exactly like his father, even if that is what some people expect. Both sides have to adjust. It is unrealistic to ask only him to change. If they can find a way to work together, they should; if not, they need to return to whether goals and capabilities are aligned and consider how to fill the gaps.
• The organizational change he wants to see is young people actually moving into key roles. For example, the head of the China business joined the company the same year as Qian and now runs a business worth tens of billions of yuan. If key positions are still held only by his father’s longtime colleagues years from now, it would be hard to say the organization had really changed. Renewal has to show up in responsibility and growth.

23. Creating continuously matters more than completing the handover

• Discussing entrepreneurs such as Wang Xingxing and Liu Jingkang, Qian says they embody a stronger entrepreneurial spirit. The conversation then turns to analogies about children and brothers. Qian says, “This company is my brother,” but the references shift during the exchange; they do not support a firm conclusion about the specific relationship between ECOVACS or any of the entrepreneurs and Qian.
• He is now more inclined to “test the ceiling.” After 14 years, the time and emotional investment, his commitment to the team, his pursuit of self-worth and his bond with his father have made him part of the company. He is no longer simply accepting responsibility because he holds the CEO role; he wants to carry it properly: “I still see myself as creating.”
• His father said he would retire at 40, 50 and 60, but never managed to stop. Qian saw that even after achieving a goal, the next question is still, “What’s next?” He says he is not naturally all that combative, but his environment has gradually brought out his desire to fight. After reaching a peak, losing the next goal may bring more losses instead.
• Looking ahead, he wants the company to move from one category to many, from tools to a household caretaker, and to make “global competition” a major bet today. Succession is not a knot to untie; it is only a transition. The ultimate test is whether he can set the right goals, lead the company to achieve them and do “valuable, creative work.”