Blending a Rake Handle in a Blendtec and the Bugatti Vento blenderIf you search for "iPod" on YouTube, the first thing that comes up isn't a silhouetted dancer doing the freak against a Technicolor background. Nope, you get Tom Dickson, an otherwise bland grandfatherly-type from Utah, smiling sweetly next to a blender."Will it blend?" he asks. "That is the question." And then, Dickson drops a $400 iPod into the plastic maw of his BlendTec blender. After a flip of the switch, the device is ground to dust in mere seconds -- a seemingly impossible feat for such an ordinary looking machine. The iPod isn't the only thing to have met such a fate. Dickson's hugely popular series of "Will It Blend" videos have ground up golf balls, cell phones, marbles, light bulbs, and matches, to name a few.The clips have become a viral marketing sensation for Tom Dickson, CEO of BlendTec, a Salt Lake City company whose main products are turbocharged, high-torque kitchen appliances. A search for "BlendTec" or "Tom Dickson" now produces more than 18 million results on Google, he's blended the wooden handle of a rake on The Tonight Show and even has his own T-shirt that says, "Tom Dickson is my homeboy."

Esquire sat down with Dickson to find out about one man's singular quest to build the perfect blender. .So when did you first realize that your blender could pulverize anything into a fine powder?One of the first things I did was I took a box of 250 matches... See, the blender didn't have a molded lid for the jar yet so I put a piece of plastic on it. I hit the switch. cuisinart spb-10ch blender partsThe matches really blew up! ninja master prep professional qb1004 youtubeI had on a sports coat and a long-sleeve shirt and the smoke shot up my sleeve and I remember wiggling my hand and being like Whooo! black and decker cyclone 600 watt blenderI thought my hand was on fire. philips hr1363 hand blender price

The next thing I knew the smoke had gone to the ceiling. We had to evacuate the building.What's the horsepower like on these blenders?We started at 1.8 horsepower and about ten amps, but now our entry-level machine -- what we do our "Will it Blend?" blending with -- those are three horsepower and 13 amps. We actually go all the way up to 20 amps, though. That's the most powerful machine in the industry, bar-none -- in fact you have to have a special 20 amp plug to run our top-of-the-line blenders. We haven't really shown that blender in the videos yet.What are the blades made out of and why don't they break?Basically, the blades are made out of surgical stainless steel. The reason they're able to do what they do is just by virtue of high speed -- when you have blades that are going that fast, they can annihilate things that are even harder than they are. Eventually, it's going to ruin the blade. We have a lifetime warranty on our blade doing normal blending, but certainly not doing two-by-fours.

Has anything ever not blended?And we can't blend a crowbar. Millions of people have seen you online. You even have your own T-shirt. What's it like being recognized in public?People either say, "Hey you're the blender guy!" Or it's, "Where have I seen you before?" About a month or so ago, I went into a Wal-Mart and walked back to the garden section and asked this older gentleman where all the rakes were. A 75-year-old lady was back there and she looked at me and said, "Oh no! You're the blender guy! You're gonna buy all the rakes!" [One of Blendtec's more famous videos shows Dickson blending a full-sized rake.] And I said, "I'll tell you what -- come with me." We walked all the way to the front of the store and I said, "You wait here." Then I went and bought all the rakes and went out front and told her, "Here pick the rake you want, and I'll take the rest." Visit the "Will It Blend?" site to see more videos.Headquarters:Orem, UTDescription:They've blended everything from rake handles to golf balls and glow sticks in their test lab.

Employees:501 - 1k | 1 in CrunchbaseBack in 1975, Tom's curiosity was piqued when he used a vacuum to clean up some spilled wheat kernels. His innate inquisitiveness drove him to revolutionize the home wheat milling industry, taking it from stone grinding to his patented stainless steel milling heads. Like most inventors, Tom didn't stop there. He envisioned the perfect mixer using the freshly milled flour from his mill to make wholesome bread in minutes. When back in the lab, Tom developed an autoknead feature, enabling the mixer to knead the dough, develop the gluten and turn off automatically when finished. Tom continued to improve the mixer and decided to add a blender with a square jar, rather than the conventional round jar. As Tom expanded his mill and mixer business, new ideas developed. He enhanced the blender and began developing commercial blending machines just as the smoothie era began. Fast forward a few decades to the present: Tom is still inventing and the company is still growing!

Walking into the world of Blendtec, you'll find the innovative engineering team and their "torture chamber, " you'll see the international team preparing for where their travels will take them next, and you'll glimpse Tom scooting off to blend up his next invention. Tom DicksonExecutive Chairman and FounderWill it BlendWill it Blend is an entertainment website consisting of a series of infomercials demonstrating the Blendtec line of blenders.DateNews - Will it integrate? Blendtec taps connectors for data mash-up - Blendtec Introduces Jar-free Commercial Blending - Yes, the iPhone SE blends [Video] - 3 Highly Memorable Product Demos That Made Their Brand - Blendtec and Jamba Juice Announce Commercial Blender Agreement - It's 2015. Why are we still talking about Will It Blend? - A Gift Guide For The Tech-Friendly Kitchen - From smoothies to pesto to almond butter: 13 blenders reviewed - CNETLoading Blendtec's tweets...Blendtec on TwitterHQ1206 South 1680West OremOrem, UT 84058USAJonathan GoffPresident & CEO & Founder @ Altius Space Machines