Sources with Alex Heath
00:31:02 · Tony Zhao
[00:31:02] S0: Yeah. So I I think this is maybe a hot take, but I think there is a myth around, like, industrial automation or, like, in factories, it's an easier, like, thing for the robot to do. And that might be intuitive for people. Right? There's more constraints. Like, there's clearly well defined things that you should do. But I think the broader context here is more like if you want to do robotics, like, pretty much everything is hard. Like, a 100% of the things will be hard. And putting in that context, I think the relative... Like, the hardness difference between going for the industrial automation or going for, like, homes, I think it's small in that perspective. And then I think the question becomes like, hey. Are we really asking the right question of, like, trying to find things that are easy? Because everything is hard. And what we end up with there is, like, I think we would just want to work on something that is really inspiring and exciting to people, and that will help us build the best team. And that will help us gather people who are, like, truly excited about the mission and, like, putting the actual work, putting, like, all the ingenuities into making that a reality. So I think that's the... Maybe the hot take here is in a grand scheme of things, I think being, like, 20%, 30% harder or easier really doesn't matter that much. And I think there is also a a a different viewpoint here when it comes to home versus, like like, say, factories. Right? One of the big thesis we have is we believe robots will win on the availability before they win on the sheer, like, productivity or, like, the speed. So if you think about, like, factory automations, you're essentially competing with hourly wage workers and essentially humans. And human hands are so perfect after, like, millions years of revolution, and we're so intelligent. And it's actually really hard to beat the throughput and the precision that human has. But these are absolutely critical in factories because if you're slow, like, the whole line will be blocked by you. And if your success rate is not high enough, maybe you'll be damaging some parts, and that's, like, causing real economic damages.
00:33:29 · Ellis Hamburger, Tony Zhao
[00:33:29] S1: Right? [00:33:29] S0: So if we think about it in in that context, home actually becomes quite easy because the type of work that we need to do is not like rocket science. It's not like assembling an iPhone. It's essentially things that a six year old knows how to do, And it's one of the few places that you can provide a lot of value by, like, maybe giving people a cup of water when they're tired and maybe refilling that water, like, time over time, making sure it's always, like, the perfect temperature and perfect volume there. The chores are they come, like, every day. Every day, there is new, like, 30 to an hour of chores getting invented in your homes. But you cannot just have a housekeeper to come in for, like, thirty minute and you let them go. Right? You either are, like, super rich and you have someone in your home the whole time. They're your, like, housekeeper. You pay, like, a full time salary for that, or you actually need to do it yourself. And so the time we save becomes not like competing with a hourly wage worker, but becomes your opportunity cost of, like, hey. If every day after work, you have, like, three hours you can spend, and if you can save one more hour a day, it's actually quite significant. So it becomes, like, almost like a labor arbitrage that if you're making more, the robot will be more useful to you earlier. And that allows us to kind of get into the markets, like, gradually as opposed to, like, we're spot on competing with human dexterity, like, from day one.
00:35:00 · Ellis Hamburger, Tony Zhao, Alex Heath
[00:35:00] S1: I get so mad at people who have three hours after work every day because clearly they don't have kids or they're super rich as you said, and they have their own assistant or butler or something. I was like, I have approximately like forty three minutes of free time per day. And if I have some music on, doing the dishes or whatever is not the worst thing in the world, but when that is very literally the time that I have to like read a book or play a game or spend the time with my wife, it's like, that is very valuable time. And so I do I do see some some need there. And I know the rumor is that Apple's working on something like this as well. Right? [00:35:41] S0: Yeah. I think pretty much everyone is. If you look at the latest demos coming from Tesla, from Figure, it's all about the homes. Right? [00:35:51] S2: Do you think we actually have robots in the homes of, like, everyday normal people, though, in the next even five years? I don't know, like, when you... What you have is so well thought out. It's like the videos, the branding, the positioning, it really resonates. It's very intentional. Shout out Ellis, I'm sure, for a lot of that too. But when do you think this actually shows up for people in a way that's, like, cost conscious, that's accessible, that's scalable?
00:36:20 · Tony Zhao, S3
[00:36:20] S0: Yeah. So I think the way we think about it is that as the hardware costs get lower and as the capability of the robot in terms of, like, the AI, the neural network expand over time, let's say in the beginning, can do one task, but over time, it can do, like, a thousand tasks. Right? I think the product itself is inevitable. If That it costs you a few thousand dollars and you can do all the chores in your home, I think everybody will want it. Right? But then the question really becomes like, how can we get there? I think we all agree that the end goal is is very clear. Can we get the cost down fast enough? Can we get the AI capability to go up fast enough? So I I think I will say, like, for us, we certainly believe that home robots will be in your neighbor's home, like, maybe sooner than you think, definitely within the next five years. And we're actually running a beta program this year towards the end of it to be putting it in real people's homes. That's actually the thing that, like, really drives us as a team is that it's not a 100% sure yet. It's not, like, set in stone. So we're almost, like, driven by this agent... Like, urgency to see how can we, like, optimize things a little bit better so we can get this out of the door, like, a little bit sooner. So I think it's it's part of the excitement that we have is that it's not clear yet. [00:37:47] S3: This episode is brought to
00:37:47 · S3, S4, S5
[00:37:47] S3: This episode is brought to [00:37:48] S4: you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at accenture.com slash Spotify. [00:38:17] S5: This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini in Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility, availability varies 18 plus.
00:38:17 · S5, Alex Heath
[00:38:17] S5: This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini in Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility, availability varies 18 plus. [00:38:47] S2: The neo launch was super interesting to me because, again, it was really good branding. The keynote was awesome. And then you realize it's like, oh, no. They wanna charge you, like, $20,000 to do data collection in your home with a teleoperated robot. I don't know if that's your strategy, Tony, with Sunday. Sorry if it is. That's, I think that's not gonna work at scale. I think, like, you can sucker a few early adopters into doing that, but, you have to have value and not, like, trick people into actually being the customer, right, in a way that they don't know that they're the customer. Like, you know, you can buy the robot, but you're actually feeding the data back to the company, and that's the reason they're doing it. You're actually giving them more value than they're giving you. Right? And you wanna... You don't wanna do that, I assume, with Sunday.