22Astronauts

Ep 100 | You Need To Be 10x Better (w/ Evan Beard)

Evan Beard [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/#] is the co-founder and CEO of Standard Bots [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/#], building AI-trained industrial robot arms designed to automate real factory work, not demos:In this episode, Evan shares a founder path that started in software startups and Y Combinator long before robotics. Seeing engineers at YC building giant robots convinced him this was a “cheat code on life” and he taught himself mechanical and electrical engineering to make it possible  We talk about the early years spent building prototypes in a small apartment, running more than one hundred calls with manufacturers, and discovering the same problem every time. Companies wanted automation, but robots were too expensive and too difficult to program  Evan explains why Standard Bots focuses on usable automation instead of chasing hype. The goal was not a slightly better robot but something ten times easier to deploy, trained through demonstration and physical AI rather than complex programming  We also discuss surviving the near-death phase, raising funding weeks before running out of money, rebuilding electronics during the chip shortage, and learning electrical engineering while debugging exploding circuit boards remotely  A conversation about persistence, customer obsession, and why the future of robotics will be decided by real ROI on factory floors, not humanoid spectacle.

Ep 99 | You Can’t Be What You Can’t See (w/ Grace Brown)

Grace Brown [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/#] is the founder and CEO of Andromeda [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/#], building social companion robots designed for aged care and healthcare environments: In this episode, Grace shares a founder journey that started long before a company existed. She had been building robots since her teenage years, but the real motivation appeared during COVID lockdowns. People in care facilities were physically supported, yet emotionally isolated. The goal became simple. Build a robot people actually want around them. We talk about learning outside the curriculum, reaching out to mentors early, and running long real-world pilots before the product was ready. Instead of waiting for perfection, Andromeda deployed unfinished systems into nursing homes to understand behavior, trust, and human reaction. Grace explains why the hardest problem in social robotics is not intelligence but comfort. A robot can function technically and still fail if people feel uneasy around it. Design, personality, and interaction determine adoption more than raw capability. We also discuss building a company as a young founder, hiring commercial leadership early, and how moving into the US startup ecosystem changed the pace of decisions and iteration. You don't want to miss this one!

Ep 98 | Discipline Is a Transferable Skill (w/ Camilla Mazzoleni)

Camilla Mazzoleni [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/#] is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of FORGIS [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/#], a Zurich-based startup building an AI operating layer for industrial automation: In this episode, Camilla shares a founder journey shaped long before robotics. She grew up as a competitive alpine skier, leaving home early to train at elite level. Discipline, pressure, and repetition defined her daily life. Losing was normal. Learning how to reset and keep going became second nature. After an injury ended her professional sports career, that same intensity moved into engineering. Camilla talks about discovering robotics through building, not theory. Working on factory floors, programming robots across vendors, and seeing firsthand how slow and fragmented industrial automation really is. We talk about how Forgis came to life at ETH Zurich. Why hardware is not the bottleneck in factories. Why software fragmentation is. And how Forgis sits on top of existing systems as a hardware-agnostic, edge-based AI layer that upgrades how factories operate instead of tearing them apart. A great conversation about discipline, switching paths, and why Europe’s manufacturing future depends on intelligence, not replacement.

Ep 97 | Why Robotics Keeps Rebuilding the Same Infrastructure (w/ Stephen James)

Stephen James [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/#] is the founder and CEO of Neuracore [https://www.linkedin.com/feed/#], and Assistant Professor of Robot Learning at Imperial College London: In this episode, Stephen shares his path from growing up in Wales to spending a decade at Imperial, a postdoc at Berkeley, and eventually founding Neuracore. Not because he wanted to be a startup founder, but because he kept running into the same problem again and again: every robotics team rebuilding the same infrastructure from scratch. We talk about what actually slows robotics teams down, why data pipelines matter more than clever algorithms, and how Neuracore aims to become the infrastructure layer that lets teams focus on deployment instead of plumbing. Stephen also reflects on imposter syndrome, work ethic, moving between academia and industry, and why Europe can and should build its own robotics infrastructure instead of copying Silicon Valley playbooks. A very honest conversation about building foundations, not hype, and why scaling robotics is mostly about removing friction.

Ep 96 | Talent Didn’t Save Me, Consistency Did (w/ Steve Xie)

Steve Xie is the founder and CEO of Lightwheel AI, building the simulation and synthetic data layer powering the next generation of embodied AI and humanoid robotics. In this episode, Steve shares a rare founder journey that starts far from robotics. From studying physics at Peking University, struggling to stand out, and rebuilding confidence through sheer consistency, to a PhD at Columbia and an early failed startup built out of love for his dog. A detour that taught him the cost of building without a business model. We talk about his path through Cruise, NVIDIA, and NIO, where he led large-scale simulation efforts for autonomous driving. Steve explains how those years shaped his conviction that simulation, data quality, and evaluation are the real bottlenecks in physical AI. He then breaks down how Lightwheel AI came to life. Why sim-ready assets matter more than solvers. How synthetic data actually closes the sim-to-real gap. And why robotics teams hit a ceiling without proper evaluation and scaling infrastructure. A deep conversation about resilience, delayed gratification, and why the hardest part of building is often unlearning what made you successful before.