Building Deep Tech

In this episode, I talk with ⁠Eris Dhionis Sako⁠, Co-Founder & CEO of Duatic AG⁠, a robotics startup based in Zurich:Eris shares his journey from growing up in Albania and studying in Greece, to becoming a leading robotics engineer at ETH Zurich.Over the past 8+ years, he’s designed actuators, robotic arms, and more at the Robotic Systems Lab. Now, he’s taking that experience into entrepreneurship with Duatic, helping teams worldwide build better robots.We talked about his early days, what shaped him, who inspired him, and the mindset behind hardware startups. (And what’s next as he gears up for Automatica25 in Munich 🤫)It’s a founder story full of grit, sharp insights, and a real love for building things that move!

🎙️ Episode #59: Willpower, Product Thinking & Building Vention... with Etienne Lacroix:In today’s episode, I talk with Etienne Lacroix, Founder and CEO of Vention, a company making industrial automation faster, more accessible, and more affordable for manufacturers around the world. Etienne shares the roots of his drive and discipline, shaped by a father who was full of energy and a mother who placed strict value on education. We talk about how those influences helped him develop the mindset needed to build and lead a company.He walks us through his early days; from mountain bike design, to engineering competitions, to working at GE and later McKinsey. Etienne also opens up about his decision to leave consulting, guided by three mental tests he uses to evaluate big moves.One of my favorite parts: we dive into his personal framework: Memory, CPU, and Will to Kill, as a way to think about founder effectiveness. It's a simple but powerful mental model.Toward the end, we explore how Vention works, and how their “Lego-like” approach to automation is changing the way manufacturers build and deploy systems on the factory floor.Lots of gems in this one. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

In this episode, I talk with Sandor Felber, a Robot Learning Researcher at MIT's CSAIL, where he’s building intelligent control systems for humanoid robots:We talk about how he got into robotics, from electric race cars at Edinburgh University Formula Student to control frameworks for teleoperation and deep reinforcement learning locomotion.Sandor has also worked at Tesla, building actuator systems, and now focuses on legged and whole-body control for humanoids.He and his co-founder, Nathan, were recently accepted into the South Park Commons founder fellowship, where they’re working on deploying humanoid robots for real-world use cases. They are building their own company now!While the specific application is still open, their goal is to build something useful that makes life a bit easier or better.

Episode #57: Advancing Bionic and Robotic Hands with Ryan Saavedra, CEO & Founder of Alt-Bionics, Inc.In this episode, I talk with Ryan Saavedra, founder and CEO of Alt-Bionics, a company making advanced yet affordable bionic hands for both prosthetics and robotics.Ryan started Alt-Bionics in 2020 while studying Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Since then, he’s been on a mission to bridge the gap between human and robotic dexterity. We talk about the challenges of building accessible prosthetics, his work with humanoid robots, and how modular design can change the game for repairability and longevity.It was a great conversation and I truly hope you enjoy today’s episode (despite my raspy voice 😝 ).

In this episode, I talk with Antoine Van Malleghem, a robotics engineer and Co-Founder of Botronics:They are building the next-generation autonomous golf trolley using machine learning, and advanced computer vision.Antoine shares his journey from IT consultancy to robotics entrepreneurship, why he took a pay cut to follow his passion and the technical challenges of developing AI-driven autonomous systems. Building a company is tough.Antoine and his co-founder, Eric Piraux, had to return to consulting temporarily to fund their journey. But that didn’t shake them; they knew exactly why they were doing it.Had a great time recording this one, especially showing other forms of robots! Hope you enjoy the episode!

My newest guest is Frédéric Legrand, a founding engineer at Phospho (YC W24), an AI company based in Paris focused on making AI robotics more accessible.Frédéric grew up in France but spent nearly a decade in Hong Kong before returning for his higher education. With a passion for building (both in software and hardware), he’s now working on helping machine learning engineers get started with AI in robotics.At Phospho, he’s building SDKs, tutorials, and dev kits to make real-world robotics more approachable, all in Python.We discuss his journey into AI robotics, how Phospho is simplifying robotics development, and why lowering the entry barrier is crucial for the next wave of intelligent automation.Hope you enjoy this one!

In this episode, I talk with Sankaet Pathak, founder of Foundation. Their first product? A humanoid robot built for real-world tasks:Foundation is an advanced technology company developing autonomous machines. Why start with humanoids?To automate labour across manufacturing, logistics, and defence. Sankaet shares his journey from computer engineering and physics at the University of Memphis to leading AI and robotics innovation.We discuss why current AI models struggle with real-world physics, why Foundation is taking a different approach to autonomy, and what it will take to bring humanoid robots from labs to everyday work.This episode is packed with bold ideas and hard tech insights; hope you enjoy it!

This week, I talked with Aadeel Akhtar, PhD Akhtar, CEO and Founder of PSYONIC, a company redefining prosthetics with AI-powered bionic limbs: You might have seen him on Shark Tank or heard about PSYONIC’s Ability Hand, an advanced prosthetic that’s setting new standards for accessibility and performance.Aadeel’s story is fascinating. He started out studying neuroscience and medicine and then pivoted to building next-generation bionics.We discuss his journey from academia to entrepreneurship, what it takes to scale deep tech hardware, and why the future of prosthetics isn’t just for humans, but also for robots.It’s an inspiring convo packed with insights on deep tech, AI, and building a real-world impact startup, its low lows and high highs and how to make it through!

In this episode, I talk with Usman Roshan, founder of 7Xrobotics and Associate Professor in AI and Machine Learning at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Usman and his co-founder are building autonomous household robots designed to tackle everyday tasks like dishwashing and laundry folding; turning AI into real, practical solutions for the home.We discuss his journey from academia to robotics entrepreneurship, his research on deep learning models for video understanding, and how he’s developing affordable, AI-powered robots with a total cost of around $7,000.Usman shares insights on the challenges of building a working product, what it takes to bridge AI research with real-world applications, his passion for art and what things to consider from a business point of view.It was a fascinating conversation... hope you enjoy today’s episode!

In today's 51st episode, I talk to Adrian Macneil, Co-Founder and CEO of Foxglove: Adrian Macneil is the Co-Founder & CEO of Foxglove, a purpose-built robotics development platform to increase the GDP of robotics. Coming from New Zealand with a degree in Computer Science, Adrian knew early on that his home country wasn’t big enough for his ambitions. He moved to San Francisco, the center of entrepreneurship and tech startups. He was an early employee at Coinbase, working long hours through its highs and lows, before joining Cruise, where he built large-scale infrastructure for autonomous vehicles. In this episode, he shares his experience as a deep tech founder, the challenges of building a platform for robotics development tools, why he sees Rust as the future of robotics, and why starting a company means committing at least 10 years to solving a real problem. This episode is for you if you're a founder, or engineer working in AI, robotics or deep tech.