00:30:46 · Sean O’Kane
[00:30:46] S3: Yeah. This is a company that is based in Massachusetts and and kind of keeps it low profile. They are... You could call them, like, sort of a domestic manufacturing accelerator incubator, a little bit of both. It was started by Jeff Wilke, who was the former commercial CEO at Amazon, and his sort of college buddy, Miles Arnold. And they are... They've been in operation since 2020. The idea... The pitch was basically they saw in 2020 how supply chains were getting disrupted and how we were kind of left in the lurch, not being able to access stuff from China. And so they were early on this idea of reindustrialization. And their approach is basically, like, you know, like incubate some startups and spin them out when necessary, attract technologies, let them foster here, or foster them here in The US. And, you know, I think the biggest, most, visible thing that they've done to date was this is where Slate Auto, which is the Bezos backed EV startup that we've written so much about and first revealed, you know, a little over a year and a half ago, was, you know, started. It got started here by by Jeff and Miles, and then they brought in their first CEO, and then they spun that out in order to to bring more capital into that effort. But a lot of the other things they're doing are are really kind of, like, wonky, deep in the weeds, industrial automation, and drone assembly, and things like that. And so, you know, this is a lot of money for a company not a lot of people know. $2,100,000,000. It was led by General Catalyst, which is also an investor in Slate, and the strategic investment group from JPMorgan Chase. And so, you know, this is one of a number of right now that I think are doing really interesting things. I think when you think about, like, bring back US manufacturing, we think about big boxes in different places and and filling them with robots or... And workers. But it's also about, like, fostering these technologies that contribute to that... To making that easier and also, you know, the other problem that we have, which is there are a lot of manufacturers in this country who are capable of doing really incredible things. And so it's about finding those manufacturers, matching them up with customers, enabling them with new technologies. And I think all of that stuff is why they were able to raise so much money here.
00:32:53 · Kirsten Korosec
[00:32:53] S1: Well, I do have one quick question before we wrap up the show... This episode. Obviously, there's a lot of Amazon connections here. So, you know, there's the Jeff Bezos back spin out, Slate Auto, which you mentioned, and then, of course, Jeff Wilke. What is your sense, or is there any evidence that shows that this company specifically working on this sort of very broad area of industrial manufacturing, does it feel like a test bed for, like, the next, you know, spinouts or potential companies or tech that Amazon would be interested in, or do these... Should we be viewing this as a completely completely separate animal and just doing something that has a thread of Amazon connected to it?
00:33:39 · Sean O’Kane, Anthony Ha
[00:33:39] S3: I I think it's probably more the latter. I think, you know, you and I both know in the amount of effort we put in to try to nail down Bezos' investment in Slate Auto, we really came away from... It was an investment that he made, and it was not something he was controlling day to day. And we've we've spoken to their leadership a bunch of times since then about how he isn't involved in that day to day. And I, you know, I think we've heard similar things in in trying to report out that story about the connections to Rebuild. I think it would be silly to deny the obvious connections. Like, there's just so many executives at Rebuild that that have spent a lot of time at Amazon. And I think there is, you know, a network there that is supporting it that is very Amazon heavy. And so I think that there's there's DNA there for sure, but I don't think this is something where Amazon is gonna make this an arm of itself or anything anytime soon. This feels very focused and something that that Jeff Wilke and his partner, Miles Arnold, are are are are running with conviction and are gonna try and do something on their own. [00:34:44] S0: Alright. Well, that is all the time we have, but Equity will be back next week. And in the meantime, you can follow us at Equity Pod on X and Threads. Thanks so much for listening.
00:34:44 · Anthony Ha, S4
[00:34:44] S0: Alright. Well, that is all the time we have, but Equity will be back next week. And in the meantime, you can follow us at Equity Pod on X and Threads. Thanks so much for listening. [00:34:56] S4: Equity is hosted by TechCrunch senior reporters and produced by Theresa Loconzolo with editing by Cal. Subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts and find out what's next at techcrunch.com/events. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.