Examine the rise, fall and rise of Hypto Krypto inventor Hayden Cox…
Books can change lives? Yeah, you know they can.
All of us have a book that hit us at the right time, when our heads were in the right space, and it irrevocably changed our position in the world. I was a miserable sonofbitch as a kid and worse as a teenger: morose, friendless, one misstep away from blowing high-court judges in Kings Cross alleyways.
Before it got that defiantly sexual, I found the 1936 classic How to Win Friends and Influence People in a library and, overnight, my life got a whole lot better. The chapter Six Ways To Make People Like You might state the obvious (be interested in people, smile, be a good listener etc) but it… works. Same thing with Neil Strauss’ The Game. Pick-up artistry is the ghastliest, but the ability to meet the woman of your dreams isn’t.
A few nights ago in Bondi, the noted Australian shaper Hayden Cox launched his book New Wave Vision, a memoir-self-help tome. Cox, who is thirty-four years old, divides his time between homes in Venice Beach, California, and Palm Beach in Sydney. Although figures are a little blurry on such things, it’s likely his surfboard model, the Hypto-Krypto, is the biggest-selling surfboard model in the world.
New Wave Vision, therefore, is a wonderful story of a driven kid who shucks the expectations of his family (accountancy!) to learn to shape, build a surfboard company, create a unique method of surfboard construction and, eventually, be feted by icons as diverse as Audi and Alexander Wang. A tough biz-man, sure, and…oowee… a little sensitive to the inconsequential yapping of critics, but his advice, his thoughts, are compelling enough to fill a few hundred pages.
On schools: In the most crucial years of learning, the test system doesn’t exactly encourage outside-the-box thing, which is what leads to innovation. Some of the world’s best-known stories are school dropouts, who went on to create products and businesses that have changed the world. (Sure, there are also the dropouts who really should have stayed in school…) When you see the big success stories, however, it’s hard to deduce that traditional education systems are flawed.
Tough times: When I started my factory I had no boards, no money, nowhere to go, and I’d fallen out with my friend and only employee. I asked my mum for a loan, but she said, ‘No way and I lending you money for a business that you’re already starting in debt.’
Rounding out the book are short chapters from Tony Hawk, the co-founder of Google Maps Noel Gordon, designer Karen Walker, Oakley founder and RED creator Jim Jannard, Vissla’s Paul Naude and the founder of Aesop Dennis Paphitis. These are a little light, but you’ll like Jannard’s manic story which ends with the carrot, “Oh and one more thing. The biggest project of my life is coming in 2017. And it is for everyone…” A phone, maybe?
Cox is an easy target. Handsome kid and gorgeous wife annex a hunk of the surfboard market with a a high-fashion approach to marketing and a model that appeals to everyone, even beginners. What’s not to hate?
New Wave Vision isn’t How to Win Friends nor is it The Game. And I doubt if Cox would claim it so. As a window into a young shaper’s rise, fall and rise, of the challenges of the surfboard game, of defiance in the face of unsupportive parents, of making your way in the world on your own terms, it works.
Buy it here if you want the stiffened cover version (free postage) or if you want your book on a screen, swipe it from iTunes here.
Read the reader comments, there’s clues in there as to why the disdain.
If Pyzel started using … in front of his name, Biolas being miffed would only be because he’s jealous that John John won the Title.
I’ve never heard or read any comments by Rusty about Hayden. You’ll have to post them for me to make a guess at his intentions.
I don’t think he’s done anything nasty. He does come off like he puts business before boards where most shapers I know like the board building side way more than the business side of what they do.
Back when Tom Curren rode the Fireball Fish (short, wide, floaty),a ton of people starting riding those and their surfing got better and they could get a ton more waves. It is still a sick and very modern board but fell from the spotlight when something else became more popular (Thanks Kelly for those terrible narrow boards). The Hypto is on the same path. https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Hayden will never be a legend in our sport like the Fireball creator Tommy Peterson or Rusty, whose name you dropped. Rusty is from the creative roots of modern surfing like a lot of other shapers still in business. And he has made more money in surfing than Hayden ever will. If anything Hayden is jealous of him.
” i have seen people get better because of them”
They got better because of width and volume, ask Medina about the illusion of black rails on beefy wide boards
I’m not sure that there’s more “soul” involved in using a pencil, cardboard template, and a hacksaw than there is in using a computer to design and cut a board. But I do know that CNC-milled boards work every single time. Handmade? Roll the dice.
you prefer the logo abominations of CI or Lost?
Lost is easily — easily — the worst logo in surf. The last thing I ever want to be reminded of is the SoCal faux beach-punk-ska bullshit scene of the early 90s.
Lost shapes look really good, but seriously, the logo has deterred me from ever purchasing one…
Schroff should do a public reading, I’d brave LA traffic to watch.
Calling hayden Cox a shaper is like calling me sober.
Thank you!
Imagine if Anderson had a real board during that Nokandui session. Guys were getting drained. Yeah I guess doing a drop knee bottom turn on an eight foot monster is cool, but I’d have preferred to have been in the tube that day. Everyone gives that kid so much props for that session, I don’t really get it. He shreds, don’t get me wrong. But a Hypsto Crypto or whatever for that day seemed like a dumb call–but I guess he won because that shit was all over the internet
Maybe he had fun? Is there a problem to be solved in surfing other than having fun? This criticism of Ando is so weird. Are people worried that he wasted a wave? Who cares if he rode a wave differently than most? It’s just a wave.
Seems to be what a comment board is for…I’m all for having fun and even said Ando shreds. I was just pointing out the humor of the dumb decision to ride that board that day…then getting most of the coverage bottom turning. Not that I could pull it off, though–just being a cynical ass.
It always makes me laugh when guys snap them, the construction is so floored the board will twist and bend without returning to the original curve but because they are bought by weekend surfers they don’t notice the bend for a year or two or until it snaps which by then they feel is an acceptable life span for Chinese board and then buy another because it went so well in the beginning, genius!
Poor bloke. Sounds like he went through some real hard times at Palm Beach. Glad to see the little battler get up
The best selling board in the world will always stand alone. It will be that board that each individual comes across, by happenstance or purpose, that presents them with the opportunity to get out there. Could be a $10 garage sale find for one and the wallet emptying “how much is the sales tax on that again?” whatever fuck it I can afford to buy it.To each there is the best sell. The numbers disguise the stoke, that original feel, the shit, the core, the true blessing that is found at $10 as much as at $800.
The difference between feted and thoroughly vetted appears blurred
huh?
in english for dumb convicts pls.
Happenstance… someone’s been thumbing the thesaurus before they post.
the hardest word to look up an alternative for in the thesaurus is the word “thesaurus”
no wait….found one….treasury of words. fuck! that’s way better
Hayden sits in cell block C. Sells lots of cigarettes cause his commissary account is well funded. So do others. So fucking what?!? Hayden’s numbers don’t mean shit. Its not the amount of cigarettes that are sold. Its the reason why that sale occurs that’s important.
In the yard, cigarettes are cigarettes. So why should I read his take on cigarettes
I couldn’t think of anything worse than reading about Hayden Coxsucker.
but the krypto…
Wavestorm is the best selling board in the world (I don’t know this, but when ignorance is mutual, confidence is king), let me know when Mr Costco’s shaping self help book comes out!