America installs a fraction of the robots China does, and Evan Beard thinks that’s a problem for everything we build. He’s the co-founder and CEO of Standard Bots, a New York company making AI native industrial robot arms, designed and built in the US.
In this episode of ODDS, we go inside the Standard Bots factory, from the room where they make their own circuit boards to the floor where robots learn new tasks in minutes. Evan tells us why it took seven years to sell the first 100 robots, how his friends staged an intervention to get him to quit, why he testified to Congress about American manufacturing, and why he thinks robots are the next great computing platform.
If you’re into robotics, AI, manufacturing, or how hardware founders keep going against the odds, this one is for you.
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00:00 America Is Falling Behind on Robots
00:52 Ten Years to Build a Robot Company
01:38 7 Years to Sell the First 100 Robots
02:54 Why New York, Not Silicon Valley
03:18 From Web Design to Y Combinator to Robots
04:15 Talking to 100 Customers
05:29 A Robot Anyone Can Use With an iPad
06:09 We Won’t Profit Off Our Customers’ Pain
06:40 Why Build Robots in America, Not China
07:43 Inside the In-House Electronics Room
09:46 Robots Are the Next Platform
10:35 The American Dream and Manufacturing Jobs
11:59 The Friends’ Intervention
13:08 Prototyping at Home, All Night
13:53 The Naked Artist in the Garage
14:27 Outgrowing the Factory
15:20 "We Need It Done in a Week"
16:58 If a Demo Works, Is It a Good Product?
17:34 Why Arms, Not Humanoids
18:17 Why 70% Reliability Is a Terrible Teammate
19:00 Training Robots With Field Data
20:32 The Labor Shortage
21:12 Designing Robots for Ordinary People
22:02 Will Robots Replace Humans?
22:52 The Odds of Building the Next Apple or Nvidia
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ODDS is a startup documentary series for founders who defy the odds. We go inside a startup to see how a crazy idea becomes a real company.
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