Robotics past the demo stage.
Machine Minds is an interview show about robotics, AI, hard tech, and physical industry. It favors practical questions: what breaks outside the lab, how teams reach customers, and why demos are easier than deployment.
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Machine Minds is a robotics and hard-tech interview show built around people trying to make advanced machines useful outside controlled environments. Its center of gravity is practical, not theatrical. A guest might start with childhood curiosity, lab frustration, or a strange first obsession, but the conversation usually turns toward deployment, customers, and the physics of real work. The show is especially interested in the space between impressive demos and durable products. That gap comes up in trucks, humanoids, warehouse robotics, motion control, industrial AI, and robot fleet interoperability. It asks why a system that succeeds in simulation can struggle in a dusty warehouse, a dock, or a manufacturing line. It also asks who benefits when automation is designed around actual labor shortages rather than abstract replacement stories. The interviews are practical without sounding like fundraising copy. Guests are given room to explain long chains of cause and effect: why a cabless freight platform changes payload assumptions, why exception handling matters in warehouses, why robot hardware may become commoditized, or why motion-control expertise is harder to fake than it looks. The show keeps returning to adoption. Customers need reliability, ease of use, serviceability, and a low barrier to trying the technology. Operators need tools that fit the work they already understand. Investors need more than a beautiful prototype. Machine Minds works best for listeners who want the specific texture of robotics commercialization: the electrical noise, the industrial buying committees, the data, the maintenance burden, the early customer calls, and the sober limits of what current systems can do. It is optimistic, but not starry-eyed. The future here has invoices, warranties, hiring problems, and forklifts in the way.
Made for: For founders, engineers, operators, investors, and curious technologists who want grounded conversations about robotics, AI, hard tech, and physical industry. It suits listeners who like technical detail when it is tied to customers, deployment, and company building.
What sets it apart: Machine Minds stands out by treating robotics as an execution problem, not just a spectacle. Its interviews keep pulling flashy categories like humanoids, autonomy, and AI back to reliability, adoption, labor realities, and the messy environments where products must actually work.
Machine Minds - the minds behind the machines! This is the show where we dive deep into the intricate worlds of robotics, AI, and Hard Tech. In each episode, we bring you intimate conversations with the founders, investors, and trailblazers who are at the heart of these tech revolutions. We dig into their journeys, the challenges they've overcome, and the breakthroughs that are shaping our future. Join us as we explore how these machine minds are transforming the way we live, work, and understand our world.
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Machine Minds connects ambitious robotics and AI research to the stubborn work of making physical systems safe, scalable, and commercially usable.
Machine Minds follows Greg Tarusian into the practical problems that appear when artificial intelligence meets the physical world. His conversations move from self-driving laboratories and materials discovery to edge deployment, active sensing, and robots that must demonstrate…
A moving robot has to prove it is safe; your inner engineer gets to ask how.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded test of whether industrial technology can move past the demo and survive real deployment.
The episode focuses on the hard, unglamorous stretch between a polished demo and a system that can deploy, scale, and keep working. Scott explains why the final 5 percent can take 80 percent of the effort, especially when lighting, fog, or an unexpected person reveals how…
A clear, practical look at motion-control tradeoffs in humanoid and subsea robotics.
This episode approaches motion control through Simone's work at Elmer Motion Control, using humanoid robotics as the main pressure point. The discussion is clearest when it sits with a practical split in the field: teams chasing machines that look and move like people, and teams…
A grounded look at why warehouse robots need orchestration when real-world exceptions overwhelm elegant demos.
Robotics gets more revealing once the demo polish drops away. Machine Minds follows Saurabh Gupta from sleek humanoid robot videos into the warehouse floor, where systems have to deal with breakdowns, drained robots, and situations no engineer fully predicted.
A grounded look at why humanoid robotics has to prove itself on the factory floor.
This single-episode review moves humanoid robotics away from flashy demos and into the crowded, practical world of industrial work. The conversation focuses on the labor gap in shipbuilding, where welders, grinders, painters, and fabricators are hard to find, and on the revenue…
A practical conversation about making AI usable in the real world.
Sam's conversation keeps returning to a practical tension: a clever AI system is one thing, but a product people will actually use is another.
A sharp look at the harder problem in robotics: proving safety while the machine is moving.
Andrew Singletary and Amir Sharif keep the focus on a robotics question that is simple to ask and hard to answer: how to prove a machine is safe while it is still in motion.
A grounded look at AI turning materials discovery into something closer to standard practice.
Machine Minds narrows in on one of the more convincing AI for science bets: using automation to speed up materials discovery. Joseph Krause gives Radical AI a clear sense of urgency without sounding inflated, moving from why the company exists to the policy angle, the lab…
AI that asks what to learn next.
Machine Minds frames Tara Javidi and Sam Bigdeli's conversation around a simple but useful idea: intelligence systems should not only wait for data, but also decide what data to look for next.
Warm STEAM stories with practical wonder.
Robotics, explained through the hardware.
Commercial robotics, explained from the field up.
Real talk from the FRC pit lane.
Robots, AI, and the isms underneath.
Caitlin Allen, SVP of Marketing at Simbe, tells Machine Minds host Greg Truusian that retailers know what enters and leaves the building but not what happens in the aisles, and that Simbe's Tally robot closes that gap.
Machine Minds host Greg Tarusian interviews Scott Walbrun, principal at BMW iVentures, about investing in robotics, physical AI, industrial software, and deep tech.
Simone Gianotti, application engineering manager at Elmo Motion Control, explains why robotics customers often waste a year or more building hardware instead of concentrating on AI.
Machine Minds host Greg Tarusian interviews Saurabh Gupta, Chief Technology Officer at Gray Orange, about moving robotics from impressive demos to useful warehouse systems.
G-Day Akinyode, co-founder and COO of Persona AI, explains why the company is applying humanoid robotics to shipbuilding, where shortages of welders, grinders, painters, and fabricators limit throughput.
A live panel at a drones and robotics summit featuring four companies building across autonomy, robotics, and aerial systems.
This episode features an interview with Aldous Vonderberg, founder and CEO of MyLay Robotics, discussing the interoperability gap in robotics and his journey into robotics entrepreneurship.
A conversation with a robotics founder about his journey from wanting to be a cleaner to inventing systems for mundane tasks, and his favorite non-invasive technologies.
Sam starts with coffee.
Andrew and Amir spend the conversation on one hard question: how do you prove a robot is safe while it is moving?
An interview with a robotics startup founder discussing their journey from physics to AI and their goal to deploy software on millions of robots.
An interview with a tech founder discussing their journey, daily habits, and use of AI tools like ChatGPT.
An interview with a tech founder discussing AI's impact on jobs and the importance of buying assets, with personal anecdotes.
An interview with a director of software engineering discussing the potential of robotics and automation in healthcare and his journey from mechanical engineering to software.
An interview with a robotics founder discussing the challenges of connecting robots to the cloud and ensuring human oversight, with a casual conversation about mate tea.
An interview with a robotics and AI expert who aims to apply these technologies to international development, discussing his background and vision.
An interview with a robotics founder discussing automation challenges and personal background.
An interview with a founder discussing challenges in enabling interoperability across diverse robotic ecosystems and managing robots in the cloud.
An interview with a robotics founder discussing technology advancements, building businesses, and personal insights.
Joseph Krause explains why Radical AI exists.
Greg Tarusian welcomes Tara Javidi and Sam Bigdeli, the co-founders of Carve AI.
Host Greg Tarusian interviews James Emmerich, CEO of Cosmic Robotics, about his journey and the robotics industry.
Host Greg Tarusian interviews venture capitalist Neil Mehta about his career journey and influences in deep tech and venture capital.