Tom Zhang, founder and CEO of Daxo Robotics: with over 100 actuators they challenge everything we thought we knew about dexterity.In this episode, we talk about his journey from growing up in a mountain village in China to launching one of the most talked-about robotics startups of 2025.

Tom shares how early life on a family orchard shaped his fascination with building and problem-solving, what he learned during his years at Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP Lab, and why he believes the robotics industry has been climbing the wrong mountain by chasing simplicity instead of embracing complexity.

We explore the story behind Daxo’s “Muscle v0” hand, how it was built in days with 108 tiny motors and off-the-shelf materials, and why redundancy, not minimalism, might hold the key to human-level adaptability. Tom also talks about his earlier success in agricultural robotics, raising over a million dollars in pre-seed funding, and what it takes to pivot from apple orchards to general-purpose robot dexterity.

If you’re interested in robotics, entrepreneurship, or the mindset of founders who challenge fundamental assumptions, you’ll want to hear this conversation with Tom.

Maximilian Schilling, co-founder and CTO of warmwind, is building a new kind of browser where AI works like a digital employee: clicking, typing, and navigating apps visually instead of through APIs.

In this episode, we talk about his mission to make automation transparent, reliable, and accessible for every business, and how he’s building one of Europe’s most ambitious AI startups from Jena, Germany.

We dive into Max’s story, from growing up in a family that both inspired and warned him against entrepreneurship, to starting his first business at 14, and selling his second before launching Warmwind. He shares how financial independence as a teenager shaped his drive, why failure never felt like a real risk, and how curiosity (not comfort) has guided every decision he’s made.

Max also explains Warmwind’s approach to building Warmwind OS, a browser-based system where AI agents automate workflows for small and medium businesses by acting on the screen instead of behind closed APIs. We talk about building reliable software, hiring in Europe, retraining vision-first AI models, and why he believes European founders should channel their “rage to compete” into world-class products.

If you’re interested in AI, automation, or the mindset behind building bold companies from scratch, you’ll love this conversation with Max.

Robots still need weeks of coding to learn one new task. Xavier (Tianhao) Chi is changing that with Mbodi AI:

Mbodi helps industrial robots learn through language and demonstration. No coding, no engineers, just simple instruction. We talk about how his team is closing the gap between advanced AI research and real factory floors, and what that means for the future of automation.

Xavier shares his path from growing up in Shenyang to leading Google Public DNS, one of the internet’s core services, and why he left to build Mbodi with his co-founder. He explains why the next wave of robotics will come from adaptable software, not humanoids.

We also talk about risk, ambition, and what it takes to move from stable engineering to startup chaos. Xavier breaks down Mbodi’s hybrid AI approach, its sub-0.5 second response times, and how their partnership with ABB is turning it into real deployments.

A must-listen for anyone building in robotics, AI, or industrial automation.

Ashish Kapoor is building General Robotics to solve the biggest deployment problem in robotics: Getting real robots to work in the real world.

In this episode, he shares how he’s doing it, and why most robotics stacks aren’t built to scale.

We talk about growing up in India, studying at IIT and MIT, and how his mindset shifted from solving hard problems to finding the right ones. Ashish shares why he left research to start General Robotics, the limits of today’s robotics stacks, and how Grid aims to solve the deployment bottleneck, especially for enterprises drowning in PoCs and fragmented software.

He also opens up about his background in aviation, building his own airplane, and how he's betting on cloud-first skills infrastructure while others chase edge. This one’s packed with insight from someone who’s worked across every layer of the robotics stack... and is now trying to make it all work in the real world.

In this episode, I talk with Brian Walker, founder and CEO of REVEL, the company building the simulation backbone for humanoid robotics.

Brian’s journey started far from Silicon Valley: growing up in the Czech Republic and working on Hollywood sets like Avatar and The Mandalorian, where he helped pioneer real-time XR production.

We talk about what pulled him from filmmaking into robotics, and how sci-fi inspired him to stop watching the future and start building it. Brian shares why he founded REVEL to create a massive library of digital twins, turning real-world products into high-fidelity simulation assets so robots can train on them before ever touching them.

His goal? To make every product “robot-ready” and compress a decade of physical experience into just hours of training.

We also dive into his views on self-education, outsider thinking, and why he acquired a startup during a 20-hour hackathon, with a mic-drop and a €20K offer.

If you’re into robotics, simulation, or stories of wild career pivots, don’t miss this one.

A Stanford physicist leaves academia to build open-source software for humanoid robots? I talked to OpenMind founder Jan Liphardt: OpenMind a new robotics company building an open-source, AI-native operating system for humanoid robots.

We talk about being born in Germany, his upbringing in Michigan, early love for taking things apart, and how his path led from biochemistry at Reed to a PhD at Cambridge, then faculty roles at Berkeley and Stanford.

Jan shares why he made the leap from academia to entrepreneurship, how a Nature paper and a Christmas Eve email nudged him out of the lab, and what drives his belief in transparency, modularity, and decentralized control for intelligent machines.

We also discuss OpenMind’s strategy, where robots download their rulebooks from Ethereum, and why he thinks humanoids won't fold your laundry... but could teach your kids or assist in hospitals.

🎙️ I talked with Bob van Luijt, co-founder and CEO of Weaviate, the open-source vector database that's become core infrastructure for AI-native applications.

We talk about how Bob grew up in a small Dutch town, started coding in QBasic, and built his first software company while still in school. Then came the unexpected turn: jazz.

He shares how studying music (from a conservatory in the Netherlands to Berklee in Boston) taught him grit, deep focus, and how to think in systems. For Bob, writing code and playing music happen in the same part of the brain.

We talk about how Weaviate began as a side project fueled by curiosity about the distance between words, and how that simple idea turned into one of the most used vector databases in the world. Bob explains how the release of transformer models unlocked everything, and how he's stayed focused on helping real developers build, not just chasing hype.

We also get into his philosophy on building companies, how he thinks about talent and education, and why he believes too much "academic thinking" blocks real potential. Bob’s not in it for the ego or the exit... he’s building tools for other builders.

In this episode, I talk with Vikash Kumar, Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon and founder of MyoLab.AI, where he’s building human-embodied AI systems:

We talk about growing up in a small Indian town, the influence of his mother on his early learning, and how a robotics club at IIT Kharagpur set him on a 15-year path through the world’s top labs.

From a PhD at the University of Washington, to OpenAI, Google Brain, Meta FAIR, and now his own company! Vikash shares how his curiosity evolved from tinkering with machines to uncovering the fundamentals of embodied intelligence, and why he believes the future of AI is physical, not just linguistic.

He also explains the bold vision behind MyoLab: building “digital twins” that are physiologically and behaviorally lifelike; AI companions that understand not just what you say, but who you are. We talk about how this intersects with robotics, health, memory, and agency, and why the path to general intelligence may start in the body, not the cloud.

I talked with Brennand Pierce, founder and CEO of

Kinisi Robotics, where he’s building one-armed mobile manipulators:

Designed to automate warehouse tasks like picking, palletizing, and labeling and many more.

After nearly two decades in robotics, Bren brings a rare mix of academic depth, startup experience, and hands-on engineering to the conversation.

We talk about growing up fascinated by sci-fi and Japanese hobby robots, studying computer science at Exeter, earning a Master’s at the Bristol Robotics Lab, and completing his PhD in humanoid robotics at the Technical University of Munich.

Bren shares what he learned building humanoids, founding three robotics companies; including co-founding Bear Robotics, which shipped over 25,000 service robots, and why he now believes the future belongs to practical, task-optimized robots rather than overpromised humanoids.

We also look into Kinisi’s approach to solving real-world deployment challenges, lessons from past robotics booms, and what it takes to move from flashy demos to robots that actually work in production.

In this episode, I talk with Aaron Tan, PhD, Co-founder of Syncere, where he’s reimagining domestic robotics:

A robotic lamp capable of folding laundry!

One single video of the concept went viral, pulling in over 4 million views and sparking thousands of conversations online.

We talk about growing up in Taiwan, immigrating to Canada as a teenager, and how a Lego Mindstorms kit from his father kicked off a lifelong obsession with robots. Aaron walks me through his path from a Bachelor’s and Master’s at Ontario Tech University, to a PhD at the University of Toronto, and a postdoc at Stanford... and why he chose the Bay Area to build Syncere.

He also shares the story behind Lume’s design, inspired by Beauty and the Beast, and explains why he believes the future of home robotics shouldn’t look like humanoids. We talk about building in public, customer psychology, and what it’s like creating a product people can’t wait to have in their homes.

In this episode, I talk with Brendah Njiru, founder of HOMY Robotics, where she’s building emotionally intelligent humanoid robots for senior living:

With a background in neuroscience and Alzheimer’s research at Cornell, Brendah brings a rare scientific depth to robotics.

We talk about her upbringing in Kenya, her early obsession with medicine, and what pulled her into AI and hardware. She shares how she transitioned from labs to startups, why senior care is the perfect proving ground for home robotics, and how her work is grounded in real-world deployment.

Brendah also opens up about pressure, ambition, and how she's building HOMY to solve deep human problems, not just automate tasks.

In this episode, I talk with Lerrel Pinto, Assistant Professor at NYU and one of the most cited researchers in robotics today:

His work spans everything from self-supervised learning to robot dexterity, and he's on a mission to make robots generalize the way humans do.

We talk about growing up in India, building his own education at IIT, and what led him to Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley, and now New York. Lerrel explains how his lab at NYU, GRAIL, tackles robot learning at scale (from representation learning to reinforcement learning) and why open-source, affordable robots are core to his approach.

He also shares what it’s like launching his new stealth-mode startup, Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI), while running one of the top research labs in the country. We talk about how his teaching, mentoring, and outreach are shaping the next generation of roboticists.

I sit down with Benji Barash, CEO of Roboto AI, to talk Amazon, robotics, and why knowing what to do with your data is key to scaling:

Benji spent years at Amazon working on drone delivery, but started to see a growing problem in robotics, the data was piling up faster than teams could make sense of it.

He left Amazon to build a solution. Today, Roboto AI helps robotics companies analyze massive amounts of sensor logs and time-series data. It’s like a copilot for engineers trying to figure out why something broke, how to improve it, and what to do next.

We talk about growing up in the UK, getting into programming way before school even taught it, and what it takes to go from big tech to a lean startup. Benji shares what surprised him about building in the real world, how he works across time zones with his co-founder in Zurich, and what it means to build tools that help others scale.

In this episode, I talk with Madison Maxey, founder of LOOMIA, a company building soft, flexible electronics for everything: Everything? Everything! From robotics to automotive interiors.

Maddie’s journey spans fashion school, a Thiel Fellowship, a return to Stanford in her mid-20s to study material science, and a decade of turning prototypes into real-world tech.

We talk about growing up with a soldering iron and a sewing machine, how she designed a smart jacket for Zac Posen and Google, and why building a company means more than building a product.

Maddie shares what it took to land early customers like Airbus, how she balances long timelines with fast-moving industries, and why her goal is to build something meaningful over 30 years, not just raise another round.

We talk about early wins, hard lessons, the beauty of tactile sensing, and why confidence comes from doing hard things until they start to feel normal.

Yesterday, they launched a $299 robot. It looks like a toy, but it opens up a world of AI. Today, I talk to the person who made it real.

Matthieu Lapeyre is the founder of Pollen Robotics and one of the most quietly influential roboticists in Europe. He’s been building open-source humanoids long before it was cool, from Poppy to Reachy to Reachy Mini.

We talk about how growing up without a tech background shaped him, why he left research to ship hardware, and how he kept going through years of bootstrapping with barely enough to pay the team. He shares what it’s really like to live on the edge for years, and how joining Hugging Face gave them the launchpad they needed.

We also get into the making of Reachy Mini, why it's designed to be unbreakable, what inspired the egg-shaped head, and how it could become the iPhone moment for robotics.

In this episode, I talk with Kaan Dogrusoz, Co-Founder and CEO of Weave Robotics, a YC-backed team building Isaac, a personal home robot:

Kaan grew up in Istanbul, chased curiosity across physics, art, and engineering, and eventually made his way to Carnegie Mellon, then Apple, where he spent nearly a decade working on robotics and shipping features like Double Tap on the Apple Watch.

But something kept pulling at him. He didn’t want to be part of a massive machine anymore. He wanted to build something real, something personal, a robot he’d want in his own home. That’s how Isaac was born. A home robot built not for factories or labs, but for laundry piles and living rooms.

We talk about leaving comfort behind, learning by doing, what it’s like to live with your own prototype, and why he thinks shipping a robot (not just dreaming one) is the hardest and most honest thing a founder can do.

🎙️ I talked with Benjamin Bolte, founder of K-Scale Labs, who left Meta to build something he actually believes in: an open-source humanoid robot!

After working on Autopilot at Tesla, he saw the inside of Optimus and decided the big players were getting it wrong.

Benjamin walks me through how he built the first robot with Alibaba parts and 3D-printed parts in his apartment, why raising too much money too early is a trap, and how soldering wires all night helped him remember why he’s doing this in the first place.

He’s not chasing prestige or funding rounds. He’s trying to ship a $9K robot that can do your laundry. We talk about his time at Tesla and Meta, how he thinks about mortality, the power of conviction, why open-source matters, and what it really takes to build hardware that people want to own.

In this episode, I talk with ⁠Nikolaus West⁠, Co-Founder & CEO of Rerun; their team is building the data stack for Physical AI:

We get into the early days of Rerun: how an open-source visualization tool for multimodal data became widely adopted across robotics, spatial computing, and even inside companies like Apple and Meta. But that was just the start.

Now, they’re building a full-stack platform for logging, querying, and managing robotic-scale data, from raw logs to model training.

Niko shares his personal journey from business school in London to engineering in Sweden, to startups in retail, Kenya, and AR. Along the way, he learned the hard truth: physical AI teams are still flying blind when it comes to data. That pain turned into obsession, and obsession turned into Rerun.

🎙️ I spoke with Chang Liu, founder and CEO of Extend Robotics, a startup developing intuitive VR interfaces to control robot arms and train AI models using real-world data.

Chang shares his story from growing up in China to moving to the UK for university, studying at Newcastle and Southampton, and completing a PhD in aerial robotics. After postdoc work at Imperial College on autonomous drone systems, he made the leap into entrepreneurship and started Extend Robotics.

We talk about the early pivots (from drone teleoperation to building lightweight robotic arms) and how the company eventually focused on software, helping users control off-the-shelf robot arms through an easy-to-use VR interface.

Chang explains how they’re now using this interface to collect high-quality data for AI training, with real-world pilots in agriculture, EV manufacturing, and satellite servicing. The goal is to go from teleoperation to automation, and to make robot training as accessible as robot control.

Took me 2 years to land this one...

🎙️ In this episode, I talk with ⁠Dhanush Radhakrishnan⁠, Co-Founder and CEO of ⁠Clone Robotics⁠:

The company building lifelike, musculoskeletal androids that move like humans and could become the next personal computing platform.

Dhanush shares how watching Iron Man at 13 sparked a lifelong obsession with tech, leading him from plasma thrusters and nuclear fusion research to founding a YC-backed robotics company now making headlines with their human-like androids.

We talk about why his first startup didn’t work out (and why Plan A to do B never does), how he met his co-founder on the internet, and why moving to Poland turned out to be one of the best decisions for focus and execution.

Clone is going against the grain: from hydraulics to neural net control, from soft-body design to building general-purpose robots from scratch.

This convo is packed with vision, hard-earned insights, and a founder who’s not afraid to do things differently.

Give it a listen. You’ll see why people are paying attention.