I sit down with Nic Radford, co-founder & CEO of Persona, to discuss the current labor shortage in heavy industries, declining fertility rates, and how important robotics and automation are for building an optimistic future. While many companies are chasing the dream of a general-purpose home assistant robot, Persona is looking to deploy humanoid robots for heavy industrial use. In this conversation, we discuss:
* Declining global fertility rates and the “demographic cliff”
* Why he believes general-purpose home robots are still 10 years away
* How Persona is Adapting NASA space technology for heavy industry
* The strategy of dominating welding before moving to other industrial uses
* Challenges of building a robotics company and escaping “Pilot Hell”
* Lessons learned from building underwater robots at Nauticus
Enjoy!
Watch on YouTube; listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
02:28 Depopulation And The Need For Robotics
09:06 South Korea Is A Society Without Children
14:35 Labor Scarcity Is The True Driver For Robotics
20:05 Persona AI’s Technology
24:53 Why “General Purpose” Home Robots Is A Decade Away
27:21 Persona AI’s Initial Focus: Welding in Shipyards
32:27 Hyundai Partnership And Commercialization
33:54 Persona AI Founding Story
36:48 Training Data Strategies
43:20 Navigating Supply Chains in Robotics
45:15 Challenges in Crossing The Chasm In Robotics
49:53 Lessons from Previous Robotics Company
55:02 Personal Motivations and Inspiration To Work On Robotics
01:00:22 Rapid Fire
* Follow Jordan on X: https://x.com/jrwolfe
* Links to Nic’s Work:
* Persona – https://personainc.ai/
* LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolaus-radford/
Remember to go direct!
Jordan
P.S. Build with love
Thanks for reading Going Direct! Subscribe for free to receive weekly conversations and monthly recaps.
