Long involvement in The Spectator’s Economic Innovator Awards has taught me that entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes. Even so, when I met the founder of a British rocket-science venture called Pulsar Fusion, I was looking for a bespectacled boffin rather than someone I might have presumed was a musical-theatre actor – or a star of one of those TV reality shows populated only by the young, fit and blond, such as Made In Chelsea.
Well, guess what: 35-year-old Richard Dinan actually was a star of Made in Chelsea and he has the teeth, hair and cheekbones to prove it. But he’s also been a serial start-up entrepreneur since he was 16 and now he’s a self-taught astrophysicist as well. ‘Not really a scientist,’ he explains with a hint of apology. ‘But I’ve always loved technology and building things. I guess I’m a natural engineer.’
Bypassing university, Dinan trained briefly as a gunsmith before venturing into 3D printing, robotics, high-frequency trading and fintech.
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