VCs Should Fund Proven Small‑scale Entrepreneurs More
The job of an entrepreneur is to turn a small amount of money into a large amount of money. It gets harder to do this the larger the pot of money you are investing. It's a wonder VCs don't invest more in people who have proven they can do this at small scale first.
Spaceflight Hubs Share Sunny, Theme‑park Locales
The two hubs of spaceflight in the US are central Florida and southern California. They are also both very sunny and filled with theme parks. What's the connection?
Low‑Cost Arms
This is the most promising direction in robotics today. Problem: industrial robot arms are too expensive to install Solution: low cost arms + vision + targeted machine learning technoques to make programming easier and system more robust to variation without...
More Funding Doesn't Guarantee Hardware Startup Success
It seems like the opposite is true and the best funded hardware startups almost never win Tesla > Rivian Rocket Lab > Relativity DJI > GoPro, 3DRobotics Fitbit > Jawbone Formlabs > Carbon, Desktop Metal I'm sure there are many more examples
Self‑Reflection, Not Empire‑Building, Drives True Success
Incredibly interesting interview with Frank Wang, founder and CEO of DJI "He said that after 20 years of entrepreneurship, what he is most satisfied with is not building a world-class company, but learning to reflect" Basically the opposite of retardmaxxing. While...
Graduate-Student Duo Unveils Fascinating Tentacle Robot
Apparently, a tentacle robot video is the most interesting thing I've ever shared with the world, so here is another one. I worked on it with my wife when we were grad students. https://t.co/nR0w7Kpx79
When Japan Finds Your Tentacle Robot Creepy, It’s Overdone
If the Japanese think your tentacle robot is too creepy, you have definitely gone too far.
One Typo Can Break a Million-Line Build—VC & Tests Needed
"A single character typo broke the build for a 1,000,000 line code base" <-- this can easily happen and isn't a big deal. Version control + automated testing fix this. Those two things are generally weak in CAD...
Risk‑averse Culture May Be Stifling Canadian Entrepreneurship
I wonder if a culture that reminds people to be risk-averse leads to Canada underperforming in entrepreneurship. (Of course I agree that designing bridges that don't fall down is a good thing)
Cut Industrial Robot Costs Tenfold with AI-Driven Components
The biggest opportunity in robotics right now is not humanoids, home robots, or any of that nonsense. It's achieving a 10x reduction in the total cost to install an industrial robot ($200k to $20k) using all of the progress in cost...
Optimize Shape and Material for Superior Part Performance
The performance of almost every physical part is a combination of a Shape factor and a Material factor. Maximizing both makes for the best part. True across mechanical structures, heat transfer, electrical design, even industrial design. https://t.co/F1lJ3dZlya
China’s Factories Span From Ultra‑modern to Unsafe Extremes
True. Crazy what variety of manufacturing environments exist in China. From factories that are far more automated, clean, modern than any equivalent one in the US to ones that would get shutdown by a combined OSHA, EPA, NLRB squad in...