\nMistakes were made (and that\u2019s fine)<\/br>
\n2023-03-09 21:36:22<\/br><\/p>\n
Forgive the scattered<\/span> nature of this week\u2019s Actuator. No big, overarching monologs this week \u2014 just a handful of things I\u2019ve been thinking about lately that I\u2019d like to get down on paper. I suppose that\u2019s one of the perks of doing a weekly newsletter\u2014 it forces you to flesh out some bigger ideas.<\/p>\n Point number one is failure. Ingrained in the American psyche (as I\u2019m sure is the case with many other cultures around the world) is an inability to reckon with our mistakes. They fill us with a sense of shame that we weren\u2019t perfect the first time around. Our impulse (depending on how your brain is wired) is to either stew in them to an unhealthy level (hi, it\u2019s me) or pretend they never happened.<\/p>\n I think there\u2019s something inherent in the sense of rugged American individualism that doesn\u2019t allow us to accept our own mistakes. Mistakes are weaknesses, character flaws. Mistakes mean we\u2019re less than or bad people. A country that prides itself on the notion of a self-made person above all has difficulty reconciling mistakes as part of that narrative.<\/p>\n I loved this thread<\/a> from Dusty co-founder\/CEO Tessa Lau late last year about the hardness of hardware. It concludes with, \u201cWhen you realize that there are hundreds of components in the simplest robot, and each one can have unpredictable failure modes like this one \u2026 that\u2019s why hardware is hard\u201d and then the request link to their job board. \u201cIf this sounds like fun, we\u2019re hiring!\u201d<\/p>\n As winter approaches, here’s a story about why hardware is hard. \u2744\ufe0f\ud83e\udd76<\/p>\n About a year ago, we started getting reports from the field about undesirable behavior when our robots were turned on. They would behave unpredictably.<\/p>\n \u2014 Tessa Lau (@tessalau) December 17, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n The thing I appreciated most about the Tesla Optimus demo was the \u2014 perhaps unintended \u2014 consequence of showing the world just how long and difficult the road to the product is. And that assumes that they\u2019ll ever actually get there.<\/p>\n I recently cited the \u201cbloopers\u201d video that Boston Dynamics put out last year as a good example of a thing more robotics companies can\/should do. Those well-choreographed viral videos only tell a fraction of the story. I\u2019m putting out an open call for companies to be more transparent about the bumps along the road. These videos should be regarded as points of pride. They help demonstrate how much work goes into making things work.<\/p>\n The folks at Kiwibot were the first to respond. Here\u2019s a clip of their testing:<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Kiwibot<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Consider this an ongoing invitation. Send me your videos and stories. Pull back the curtain a bit. Remove a little bit of that mystique. Let\u2019s see those mistakes.<\/p>\n Point number two is an observation. I\u2019m not sure how much of a role the aforementioned Optimus demo has played in this, but suddenly humanoid robots are in the air. I get the sense that Tesla announcing its intentions has either (a) forced a lot of people\u2019s hands or (b) provided the opportunity for them to tell us why their solutions are better.<\/p>\n It\u2019s clear a lot of folks have been working on this stuff for a long time \u2014 many in stealth. I\u2019ve recently been getting wind of a number of companies operating in the space. No one has sold me on the idea of a general-purpose humanoid just yet. That is to say, I\u2019m all for it if it works, obviously, but I\u2019ve yet to see truly compelling evidence that it will.<\/p>\n Point three is agtech and construction. That\u2019s where I\u2019d been putting my VC bucks following the explosion of warehouse\/fulfillment tech. These are two gigantic industries that are essential to human life. They\u2019re also having increasing difficulty staffing. In the same way that the smartphone race afforded us so many of the components driving modern robotics, the push for autonomous driving has primed these categories. And, of course, structured spaces are far easier to operate in than roads.<\/p>\n Point four is jobs. Now, granted, this is a point we discuss all the time on these pages, but a nice thing happened on Tuesday. That morning, I put out a call on LinkedIn for robotics companies that are looking to hire. I was flooded. In a good way. I posted the story in a few hours and continued to update it for the remainer of the day. I finally had to close it the following morning, lest I risk becoming a full-time job board operator. If your company didn\u2019t make it, don\u2019t worry. I\u2019ll do it again at some point.<\/p>\n To me, the very clear message here is that robotics companies are, indeed, hiring. Quoting myself (sorry):<\/p>\n Now some good news: Companies are hiring. As an industry, robotics is somewhat uniquely positioned here, given the growth it saw during the pandemic. It\u2019s true that some big companies (Alphabet, Amazon) have slowed robotics investments. It\u2019s also true that we\u2019re going to see more companies get acquired or wind down.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n But a lot of money was infused into automation, providing runways that will help many get out on the other side in one piece. If anything, a lot of this bad news will only serve to bolster the industry. Certainly, labor issues aren\u2019t going away any time soon, nor is the drive to increasingly automate fields like fulfillment, construction, healthcare and agriculture, among others.<\/p>\n Here is a list of 45 companies that are hiring:<\/p>\n Addverb<\/a>\u00a0(6 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Aescape<\/a>\u00a0(21 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Alert Innovation<\/a>\u00a0(14 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n ANYbotics<\/a>\u00a0(6 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n AWL Automation<\/a>\u00a0(3 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Automated Architecture<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(4 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Bear Flag Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(6 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Boston Dynamics<\/a>\u00a0(45 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Boston Dynamics AI Institute<\/a>\u00a0(11 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Brooks Automation<\/a>\u00a0(50 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Chef Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(13 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Clearpath Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(3 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Cobalt Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(3 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Dexory<\/a>\u00a0(5 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Diligent Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(9 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Figure<\/a>\u00a0(15 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n GrayMatter Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(9 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Honest AgTech<\/a>\u00a0(10 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Impossible Metals <\/strong><\/a>(2 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n ISEE AI<\/a>\u00a0(20 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Kewazo<\/a>\u00a0(10 roles)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Kiwibot<\/a>\u00a0(30 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Kodiak Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(20 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Machina Labs<\/a>\u00a0(18 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Mighty Fly<\/a>\u00a0(2 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Miso<\/a>\u00a0(9 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Monarch Tractors<\/a>\u00a0(15 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Nidec\u00a0Motor\u00a0Corporation<\/a>\u00a0(3 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Mujin Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(108 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n OTTO Motors<\/a>\u00a0(18 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Path Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(3 open roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Rapid Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(6 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Righthand Robotics<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(7 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Rigorous Technology<\/a>\u00a0(3 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Robco<\/a>\u00a0(10 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Sanctuary AI<\/a>\u00a0(18 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Scythe Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(10 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Symbotic<\/a>\u00a0(93 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Telos Health<\/a>\u00a0(10 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Toyota Research Institute<\/a>\u00a0(2 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Urban Machine<\/a>\u00a0(5 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Verdant Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(7 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Viam Robotics<\/a>\u00a0(10 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Whisker<\/a>\u00a0(10 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Zipline<\/a>\u00a0(50 roles)<\/strong><\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Plus One Robotics<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This week we had the scoop<\/a> on a $50 million raise from Plus One Robotics. The Series C brings the San Antonio startup\u2019s total funding up to $94 million to date. \u201cThe world needs what we do, and our financial performance supported that premise,\u201d CEO Erik Nieves told me. \u201cOnce Scale Ventures leaned in, the round came together quickly and we closed in six weeks from term sheet to wires.\u201d<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Wing<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This week, Alphabet X graduate Wing highlighted plans to build a drone \u201cDelivery Network.\u201d<\/a> The company likened the idea to car-sharing services like Uber and Lyft in the way it determines drone delivery paths based on their vicinity. Says CEO Adam Woodworth:<\/p>\n Up to this point, the industry has been fixated on drones themselves \u2014 designing, testing, and iterating on aircraft, rather than finding the best way to harness an entire fleet for efficient delivery. Wing\u2019s approach to delivery is different. We see drone delivery at scale looking more like an efficient data network than a traditional transportation system. As with many other areas of technology, from data centers to smartphones, the physical hardware is only as useful as the software and logistics networks that make it meaningful for organizations and their customers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Boston-based SparkAI has been acquired by John Deere, as the farm equipment giant continues to build a massive agtech robotics portfolio. The startup\u2019s founder and CEO Michael Kohen confirmed the news in a LinkedIn post<\/a> this week, noting the longstanding collaboration between the two. Kohen adds:<\/p>\n Nowhere is this more critical than on the farm, where the pressures of climate change and increasing population demand that growers produce more with less. And nowhere is this more deeply felt than at Deere, where the call for solutions is being responded to in force by the transformation of a generational company into the epicenter of the AI & robotics revolution. We are inspired by Deere\u2019s mission, the scale of its ambition, and the magnitude of its potential to impact billions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n A spokesperson for John Deere tells TechCrunch,<\/p>\n The SparkAI team will integrate into John Deere\u2019s Blue River Technology organization. SparkAI will continue to collaborate with Blue River Technology to innovate and bring new features to this capability.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Boston Dynamics<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Following clashes between city councils and citizens up north in San Francisco and Oakland, Los Angeles is facing its own questions<\/a> around police robots. These haven\u2019t quite graduated to the killer robot level, but enough residents are concerned about the LAPD\u2019s potential adoption of a Boston Dynamics Spot that the city council has decided to delay the vote by two months.<\/p>\n Critics are concerned about the potential impact to underserved communities. \u201cThis is a product, and products will meet the needs of desires in the future,\u201d Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said during the hearing. \u201cWhy does our Police Department need a piece of equipment that can even have those capabilities in the future? We know that our Black, brown, immigrant communities and our less resourced communities are so often the places where these new technologies are deployed.\u201d<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Agility Robotics<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Oh, and here\u2019s a sneak peak of the Digit head that Agility teased at last year\u2019s TechCrunch Robotics event. The company has promised a better look at ProMat later this month.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Bryce Durbin\/TechCrunch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Want Actuator in your inbox? Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/br><\/br><\/br><\/p>\n\n
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