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The 7-Million-Unit "Ugly Chair" Craze: Winning Over Steve Jobs and Obama, Earning $15 Billion Annually by "Pleasing Bottoms" - Incredible!

Source: Jin Cuodao (ID: ijincuodao)
Author: Max

Title

What criteria, besides office environment, salary, and travel perks, can be used to measure a company's humanity? If you ask me, I'd choose a comfortable office chair.


For instance, for those poor souls we call programmers, who spend 8 hours a day in front of a computer, at least a third of their 30-year career is spent sitting - even more time than sleeping.


If you work more than ten hours a day at a computer, your back and neck will be wrecked in two or three years. No exaggeration - a poor quality office chair is the number one killer in the office, silently murdering you.


Today, we're talking about Herman Miller, a company that's been around for over 100 years, focused on one thing - "pleasing people's bottoms." Herman Miller's ergonomic chairs have become synonymous with top-tier seating worldwide. They're also the most copied chairs. Why is an office chair priced at nearly 10,000 yuan so popular, and how has it held the title of "World's Most Comfortable Office Chair" for nearly 20 years?

Many bosses have heard that Herman Miller chairs can make employees voluntarily work overtime every day, so they've consciously replaced their company's shabby chairs with Herman Millers.


Herman Miller became known to the Chinese public thanks to a few Weibo posts by Luo Yonghao during his years founding Smartisan Technology.

In 2012, shortly after Smartisan was established, Luo bought 10 Herman Miller chairs for his colleagues.

In 2013, when Smartisan was hiring, Luo listed Herman Miller chairs as an employee benefit.

In 2014, after watching "Lucy," Luo couldn't help but show off the chairs used by Smartisan engineers.

In the following years, Luo stopped mentioning these legendary chairs that cost nearly 10,000 yuan on Weibo, possibly because business wasn't going well... I think Luo was quite sincere in his willingness to provide such good chairs for his employees.


Actually, it's not just Luo. Most top (or self-proclaimed top) companies worldwide provide office chairs costing over $1,000 for their employees.


Facebook headquarters uses Herman Miller chairs.

Herman Miller chairs are not only favored in Silicon Valley, but their various classic models are also frequent guests on screen.


The American TV series "Mad Men" featured various classic Herman Miller chairs.

The "Hunger Games" featured the Herman Miller SAYL chair.

"Iron Man 2" featured the Eames Lounge & Ottoman.

ABC's TV series "Selfie" featured Herman Miller chairs.

They're also Sheldon's favorite in "The Big Bang Theory."

Even former U.S. President Obama had them as standard equipment.

In Luc Besson's 2014 film "Lucy," Scarlett Johansson sits in one of their chairs.

Exploding Globally with Three Hit Products, One Chair Sells 7 Million Units


Let me briefly introduce Herman Miller.


In 1909, the American furniture design company Michigan Star Furniture hired a clerk named D.J. De Pree. In 1919, after tireless efforts, D.J De Pree was finally promoted to president of Michigan Star.


In 1923, he finally convinced his father-in-law Herman Miller to acquire Michigan Star, and he became the chairman. To thank his father-in-law for his generosity, DP named the company after him.

During the American economic crisis of 1930, Herman Miller began seeking ways to save the company. De Pree decided to abandon traditional furniture and focus on products more suited to the changing needs and lifestyles of Americans. The Executive Office Group office furniture, launched in 1942, marked Herman Miller's official entry into the office furniture market.


Three hit chair models played a crucial role in making Herman Miller a world-class office furniture brand.


Eames Lounge & Ottoman: The Chair That Amazed Steve Jobs


In 1946, furniture design master Charles Eames (named "The Most Influential Designer of the Century" in 1985) joined Herman Miller. The lounge chair he designed in 1956 is considered the most outstanding representative of lounge chair design.

Charles and Ray Eames

The chair that Jobs and Gates are sitting on is the Eames Lounge & Ottoman, which many consider one of the ten most comfortable chairs money can buy (countless celebrities have collected this chair).


This lounge chair remains timeless. Although it's been over half a century since its introduction, it still sells for around 60,000 RMB.


Herman Miller Aeron: 7 Million Sold, Bestseller for 20 Years


As modern office work rapidly developed, office workers became increasingly aware of the harm of prolonged sitting. Herman Miller quickly captured this pain point of the era. In 1976, Herman Miller produced the Ergon chair, the first to apply ergonomics to office chair design. However, due to limited awareness, it didn't become popular at the time. But Herman Miller's judgment of future trends was very accurate.


Twenty years later, another ergonomic chair, the Herman Miller Aeron, emerged. Designed by two American designers, Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick, the Aeron can be called the king of office chairs. Since its launch, it has sold over 7 million units in 134 countries, which is indeed an impressive sales figure in the diverse office chair market.

 

Designer Bill Stumpt and Don Chadwick

The Aeron is called "Herman Miller's gift to employees." It can adjust to various sitting postures of office workers throughout the day. Its suspended design and convenient adjustment controls provide balanced body support.


The uniqueness of the Aeron chair lies in its butterfly-shaped support structure at the back and the highly elastic mesh backrest. It can fully support the weight of a person leaning back, providing enough support without being too hard. Sitting on it is very comfortable, giving a feeling as if someone is gently pushing you from behind. At the same time, its material can effectively regulate body temperature. In actual tests, after sitting for 40 minutes, the average temperature increases by about 5.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Aeron chair is also the first to use a "different size" strategy, providing chair sizes that best fit your body, like choosing shoes.


This comfortable chair that makes people want to collapse into it won over many judges as soon as it was launched, winning numerous awards. Even the European Furniture Industry Research Association (FIRA) awarded it an ergonomic excellence award, which is the highest award in European human environment transformation studies! Moreover, this Aeron chair has been permanently exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.


The Aeron chair became a representative item of pop culture for a while. Even in the cartoon "The Simpsons," when depicting heaven, God is sitting in an Aeron chair.


Embody: Ten Years of Polishing


After reigning as the "Most Comfortable and Safe Chair on Earth" for nearly 20 years, Aeron welcomed its good brother - the Embody chair.


In 2006, Bill Stumpf, who had worked for Herman Miller for over 30 years, passed away. Weber continued this unfinished business.


To complete this work, Weber invited more than 20 doctors and PhDs from fields such as biomechanics, vision, physical therapy, and ergonomics to sit on it, evaluate its pros and cons, continuously provide opinions, and refine it. This finally resulted in the perfect Embody chair. One can't help but admire Herman Miller's rigorous and serious approach to design and their decade-long focus.


Compared to the Aeron chair, the Embody is more adjustable. On the basis of comfort, designers Bill Stumpf and Jeff Weber wanted to solve the problem of the lack of substantial harmony between humans and technology. This is the concept of Embody - to ensure that sitting for long periods doesn't burden the human body, and can even have a positive impact.


The back of the Embody is wrapped in a "spine," giving it a very sci-fi look. The design inspiration for Embody comes from the human spine. The strange tubular design on the chair is a set of rubber connectors that not only evenly distribute body weight and reduce pressure but also help maximize body stretch.

The Embody also has 7 different handles and buttons for adjustment. From backrest tilt and seat position to chair armrests, you can adjust almost everything on the chair.

12-Year Warranty! The Most Incredible Product in History


So, is it worth spending over 10,000 yuan on a chair?


I think that the toughest 10 years when you first enter society are also a person's golden period, and you should reward yourself with such a chair. Many people buy their first Herman Miller chair with the thought that 10,000 yuan for a chair is "not expensive" because they use it for eight hours a day. If the chair can improve spine and sedentary disease, the medical expenses and time spent seeing doctors added together would definitely make it more cost-effective than this money.


Herman Miller rarely disappoints customers. Incredibly, Herman Miller's warranty period is 12 years, and this is just the warranty period. The confident Americans say that a Herman Miller chair can easily be used for 20 or 30 years.


And all parts can be replaced.

For bosses, is buying such chairs for employees a sign of wealth or stupidity? In fact, this is the most reliable investment a company can make.


In 1994, during the internet boom, if a company equipped its engineers with Aeron chairs, it could even influence potential talents' career choices.


Because for those overtime dogs who work tirelessly for the company, they sit longer than they sleep throughout the year. The comfort level of the chair is directly proportional to employees' overtime hours and inversely proportional to turnover rates.


Over the past 40 years, it's precisely because Herman Miller has focused on pleasing people's bottoms that their revenue has soared from over $40 million to $2.3 billion.


Speaking of Herman Miller's success, designer Bill Stumpf said:


"I absolutely believe that good products are a moral obligation. Those things that 'deny the human spirit' just to make money should be eliminated."

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