Barrett Ames (CTO / REK)

In this episode of Just Gonna Send It, Jim Belosic sits down with Barrett Ames, robotics engineer, startup founder, former NASA researcher, and CTO of REK, a humanoid robot fighting league inspired by Real Steel. Barrett shares his journey from building robots as a kid to working on NASA’s Valkyrie and Robonaut 2 projects, earning a PhD in AI and robotics at Duke, and launching startups focused on construction automation and entertainment robotics.

The conversation explores the realities of building hard tech, lessons learned from failed startups, the future of humanoid robots, and why competition and destruction might actually accelerate innovation. From DARPA challenges and space robotics to robot MMA fights in San Francisco, this episode is packed with stories about curiosity, risk taking, and learning through building.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

My mom told me no, and then I just went and blew shit up.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Who why don't we race missiles? That sounds a like right? Like we have cruise missiles. Why don't we race them?

SPEAKER_05 0:08

There's no replacement for displacement.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Let's build robots to build homes. Shit. Well, now I need my questions. We met because we were sword fighting with meter sticks and he broke my phone.

SPEAKER_05 0:20

I think I'm unk. I was told that.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 0:33

Well, welcome to our our uh I was gonna call it a shitty podcast, but it's not a shitty podcast. Producer Dom is sitting right across from me. She looks really fucking hard at this. So um it's a great podcast. I'm the shitty part. How about how about welcome to our great podcast with a shitty host? There we go. Jeez, sorry, you're doing a great job, Dom. Welcome to the Jeff Canada podcast. I'm your host, Jim Belosic. I am joined today by a very special guest, Barrett Ames, um, of all kinds of robotics background and cool stuff. So we're gonna talk about Rec, and we're gonna talk about Botbuilt, we're gonna talk about NASA, we're gonna talk about Duke and who knows what else, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:16

Okay, cool game. Welcome to the show. Um shit. Well, now I need my questions. Okay, so I shouldn't have like introduced that way. All right, so so on the pod, we're we're basically kids call it the pod? Or what do we call it? The pod, is that's okay? Okay, I don't want to be uh cringe or boomer. Yeah, I I think I'm unk. I was told that.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yep. I think we're all unk at this point.

SPEAKER_05 1:44

Uh so the the point of this uh this pod is I don't know, just kind of we have a lot of listeners that are you know young people just getting out of college or they're in high school or whatever, and they're like, hey, how do I how do I do what you guys are doing? You know, how do you create a cool business? How do you get a cool job? How do you make cool stuff? And uh the reason I have guests like you on is so that we can say like we didn't know what the hell we were doing, we just figured it out. Here's where we are today. Um it'll make you feel a little bit better about whatever path you happen to be on. So uh long way of saying, like, let's start with your background. Like, tell me where you grew up, what were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, in the middle of suburbia, uh, like classic suburbia, uh like pinnacle of man's hubris, live in the middle of a desert, have uh, you know, fake lake, uh, so that way we can all pretend we're not actually in the middle of the desert. Um, but yeah, no, I I always was always building or designing stuff. Uh I looked for it because my parents just moved out of out of my out of the house that I grew up in, and they sent me everything. Like they they got rid of nothing, right? So they sent me everything from my room. And there I was looking for one book that it was my invention book, right? Like that just had all of my childhood scrawlings. Uh but the I I couldn't find it this afternoon, but but there's like you know, ray guns in there. I had like missile racing. Like, who why don't we race missiles? That sounds right, like right, like we have cruise missiles. Why don't we race them? Uh Palmer, if you're listening, cruise missile races. Let's go.

SPEAKER_05 3:32

We will we will be uh the first to sponsor. This sounds incredible.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Uh so you know, just just all sorts of stuff.

SPEAKER_05 3:41

Okay, so I don't know. I guess it sounds like um if you want to get into robotics as an adult, you should probably already have like a invention book when you're what five or six years old.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah, so like one morning when I was seven, I came running downstairs and I was just like, Mom, I want to blow stuff up. Uh and she said, You're going to robot camp, right? Like, that's the like I could I could have just been blowing stuff up all summer, but instead she like she channeled it, right? Um so it's it's uh there there does need you you you need mentors, right?

SPEAKER_05 4:17

Yeah, my mom told me no, and then I just went and blew shit up. So yeah, and then I got in trouble. So yeah, that's that's that's pretty cool to have parents that encourage it. So I mean, and she knew that robot camp existed. Well, first of all, yeah, robot camp existed, and we're you're in Phoenix, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she uh she had been putting me in all sorts of camps, right? Like just to like get out of here, kid. Uh so no, she she I think she had already picked it out, uh, and this was just the like trigger that like the information. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 4:53

Yeah. And then and then how many siblings?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I have four siblings, but they're all way older than me. So my brother, my brother's 20 years older than me. He's uh he's a a sear instructor, which is the like if you're gonna go behind enemy lines, you have to get taught how to how to deal with uh torture and search and rescue and all of that. And he was the instructor for that. So like my first memory of my brother is him picking me up. He's massive, he's a ginormous human being, uh, picking me up and putting me like an inch and a half away from the ceiling fan blades, uh, which is just like like just uh like everything about my brother collapsed into 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_04 5:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

And then I've got three sisters uh who are are all like uh additional mothers, right? Like they're they're uh the the greatest example I have of this, I was I was at the uh at the hospital with my mom recently, and uh my I was handing off between my sister and me, and we're changing the contact information, and I the lady was like, Oh, how do you spell your name? And my sister answered before I could, right? Which I was just like, I'm I'm 36, I know how to spell my name. You don't have to spell it for me. Uh so like that's you know, I've got a lot of a lot of mothers.

SPEAKER_05 6:17

Yeah, so uh so it sounds like you know, especially with the age difference, um, you're running around telling your mom that you want to blow stuff up, and she's like, awesome, let's uh let you're the you're the last one, you're the youngest. It's just like driving me crazy. Let's go put you into camps.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_05 6:36

Uh so how was how was robot camp?

SPEAKER_01 6:38

It was good. I mean, like there are two things that I remember from it. Uh one was like it was cool to build, it was Lego robots, right? It was like very early mindstorms that and and MM had just come out. So it was like I learned about MM uh and and Legos at the same time, and uh, you know, Lego Mindstorm at the same time.

SPEAKER_05 6:58

Okay, that's a pretty good camp, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:00

Yeah. And then that led you to you you did uh first robotics in high school, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yep, yeah, did first, uh, which was which was an awesome experience. Just uh, you know, uh the the high school that I went to was very hands-off, uh, and it was just like here's money and space, go build stuff.

SPEAKER_05 7:24

Uh oh, as far as like the first team right when okay, I was like, I was thinking about high school in general. I was like, at no point my English teacher would be like, I mean, whatever. Like, what high school? Yeah, I was getting kind of jealous of Phoenix there. Okay. So uh so hands off. Okay, so what was what was that like? I mean, did you always want to work with robots? I mean, because you still do, like, we'll get into like rack and everything else.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Yeah, yeah. I think so. In high school, I I did have to like make a decision between like robotics, and at the time I was also working in a genetics lab doing like helping genetically modified mice so they have asthma. And like they both consumed a lot of time, right? And at one point, I just sat, I actually sat down with my math teacher at the time and was like, I I don't know which way should I go, man. Uh, and we just had a conversation about it. Uh, and at the end of it, I was like, I'm gonna go build robots. Uh and and he was smart, like wicked smart dude. Uh, he was smart enough to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you like mechanical engineering and you're pretty good at it, but you need to go study uh computer science and AI. Uh like the that that's the future of it. Um so good good advice early.

SPEAKER_05 8:45

Yeah, and uh he could like kind of see the future a little bit too. That's that's pretty cool. Um I had a really good question now, it just fell oh shit. Okay, so uh otherwise, like how was high school for you? Did you like high school or did you like parts of it or hate it or yeah, yeah, that's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

High school is like uh I mean uh parts of it were awesome, right? Like I got my my my best man working at what uh I met in in high school. We like I don't know, high school's weird being being you know, we we met because we were sword fighting with meter sticks, and he broke my phone. Uh and we've been friends ever since. Uh so it he was the best man at my wedding. We worked at NASA together, like just all sorts of crazy stuff. Um so I don't know. Well, I and like you just get a couple of good friends and and like I don't know, the rest of it's just kind of stuff you grind through because you have to.

SPEAKER_05 9:49

Yeah, yeah, same. Um I think there's there's a lot of people where high school was like the best place in the world, and then that's kind of like peak of their life. And then I talked to a lot of people where high school wasn't that great, and then they're doing so much better now, and there's just a blip. So anyway, if if you hate high school right now, uh don't worry, it gets way better. Yeah, when my like one friend wasn't there, I'd have to like go hang out in the library. It's I'd hate it. Yes, uh so you're you're doing a bunch of robots and stuff. Um in high school, you're doing first, uh, you're getting your thumb broken with meter sticks. Yep. Uh and then college is Cornell, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:31

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_05 10:32

Okay, so how did I mean that's that's a hell of a school. I've I've heard just because I've I don't know any schools, but I've heard of that one.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 10:39

How'd you how'd you get in?

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Uh how did I get in? Yeah, I mean I don't I don't know. Like uh first and and and you know good grades.

SPEAKER_05 10:51

Uh and uh you think robotics like today, um, do you think robotics would help you know kids get into uh into a school? Oh definitely.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

I think I think I mean a lot of academia is becoming ever more interdisciplinary because the the the ivory towers are kind of at their limits, right? Like, like sure, you can go study math and and just do pure math all the time. Um, but a lot of the at least in the engineering fields, it's it's all right, let's take these two things that nobody else has taken and put smash them together. Let's see what's cool.

SPEAKER_05 11:30

So we we talk a lot about you know uh just hiring here at Send Cut Send. It's like it's great if people have an example of what they do, like if they have a portfolio, if they can show some photos on their phone, they're like, hey, check out this thing that I built. Um is that even possible with a college application? Like, can you you can write down, hey, I did first robotics and here's my accomplishments. Is it is it possible to demonstrate you know to uh an administr admissions board, um hey, here's some cool shit that I did. Like what are some hacks you think? Sorry, I'm just thinking. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

No, no, no, definitely. Like um, I was just helping a kid write his his college app, excuse me, his college applications, and like we just included his portfolio website. Um, that's smart. Um you can all also just like describe it uh and uh that that that helps too. Um my nephew had a portfolio website um that worked for him. Uh so yeah, no, I think you can definitely show off.

SPEAKER_05 12:33

So how is how is Cornell?

SPEAKER_01 12:35

Cornell was like Cornell's an interesting place. Uh it's like 360, 350 days of clouds a year coming from Phoenix, where it's like five days of clouds a year. Uh so like I was doing summers in Phoenix and winters in upstate New York. Uh like worst weather transition ever. Learned a ton. Uh uh made some really good friends in my fraternity. Um and you know, I uh it definitely trained me. Uh I was surrounded by geniuses, right? Like the guy, the guy who's in charge of uh Starship's uh navigation system, like all of it, uh, was sitting next to me in physics. And like I'm really happy that I got to know him uh and that he's in charge of Starship because he just crushed me in physics constantly, right? And I was like, God, I'm stupid. Uh but like uh he's he's just wicked smart. Um so no, it it's like it's cool to meet people like that. Um and and you know, just just be around ambitious people. The Cornell like gets this rep for being like really cutthroat, and I never experienced that. Like uh maybe it is in in other schools, but in engineering and CS, like whatever. We're we're all we all have the same enemy, it's the problem set. Uh and and you know, everybody's just trying to help each other uh understand the problem. I I'm also like uh deeply like I want to do it myself as much as possible, right? So maybe that's why I didn't uh experience the cutthroateness.

SPEAKER_05 14:30

When when you were going to Cornell, did you go there specifically because you're like, yeah, I want to continue in robotics, or were you just like uh it's college and I'm gonna do college here? Or do you have a master plan?

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yeah, so I actually looked at a bunch of schools, um, and like I didn't even I went to MIT, looked at their robotics, and was like, what are these scrubs doing? Um and so I didn't even apply to MIT.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

Uh I've never heard anyone trash MIT like that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Right? Like uh and like in hindsight, uh I was clearly like uh misjudging some of their stuff, right? Like the thing that I distinctly remember, like I went to a lab and there was a there was an axle in one of their robots, and they just like didn't finish the cut, right? Like they just snapped it off, and there was just like a jagged edge, and I was like, who what? Just like finish the cut or like get a file and finish it off, like right, like that that's what that that's what pissed me off and shoved me over the edge. And I was like, Nope, take them off the list.

SPEAKER_05 15:35

A bunch of hacks over at MIT. I'd like to say that uh my views do not reflect uh both of those. We love MIT. Right. We like all of them.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Um yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 15:47

So no, that but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

So I mean, clearly, MIT has done a bunch of cool stuff. Russ, uh a bunch of my PhD work is actually building off of Russ Tedrake from MIT. Songbei Kim has done a bunch of cool stuff, Ben Katz, like the the MIT is uh like clearly a very good school.

SPEAKER_05 16:06

Well, yeah, I I was gonna say we were talking about Cornell, but I was gonna go further because the then you went to Duke.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 16:13

Uh and and because you are like really good at school. Uh I guess.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:19

Because Cornell for Robotics and then Duke uh to get your your doctorate in AI and robotics. Okay, so so Cornell gets you, you know, your um Yeah, so I did I did uh yeah, I was like master's. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Yeah, I did I did a McI did uh I made up my own degree, which was one reason that I went to Cornell. Uh the founding founding motto of Cornell uh is any person any study. And at the time there weren't any robotics programs. Um so I picked Cornell for two reasons. One was there were a ton of robotics project teams that I could just join. Um, and then the any person any study let me build my own curriculum. So I did I did a bunch of AI and robotics, and I did dynamics, statics, material synthesis, you know, got in the machine shop. Cornell has an amazing machine shop for a university. Um and so I put those two together and left out things that I I didn't think I was ever going to need in robotics, like operating systems. Like, who cares? It's there, I'm gonna use it, I don't need to understand it. Um, so that that's that was the big reason why I ended up going to Cornell.

SPEAKER_05 17:34

Okay, and then and then after you're done, you're like, okay, I could get a job, or maybe not, let me go to Duke for a little while, or how'd that happen?

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Right, yeah. So so I actually did my first startup right out of undergrad. The advice that I got out of Cornell was you're young and dumb, go find a mentor. Um, and I was like, okay, cool. So I went to went went back to Phoenix, did uh an anti-piracy, as in like, let's take on real pirates, uh like ocean faring pirates. Um, as so I I helped build a uh cannon launched drone.

SPEAKER_05 18:11

Why are they doing this in Phoenix? That's not a lot of pirates in Phoenix, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

I know, I know, I know. This story does not end well for me. Uh I I make it about like four and a half months. We make one really big sale of this drone, um, and uh it was like $10,000, $15,000. And the guy I I had been working for free, living out of my parents, uh, thought we were like equal partners. Uh, and I was like, all right, cool, like I need some money, bro. Uh, and he was like, here's a hundred bucks. Oh and I was like, all right, I've made a mistake here.

SPEAKER_05 18:49

Yeah, to anyone listening, uh nothing exists unless it's in writing.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Right.

SPEAKER_05 18:55

Yeah, you can have a lot of handshakes, you can have a lot of other stuff, get it in writing. Be very, very clear. I was just telling my son this. My son is into photography, and and he was uh he's like, Oh, these guys invited me to go like photograph this event or whatever. I'm like, how much are you getting paid? And he's like, Oh, I don't know, but I'm gonna go do it. And I was like, No, you need to like either tell them how much you charge or negotiate a fee, and then they can either tell you yes or no. And he didn't do it, and I think he ended up getting like a you know 50% off coupon to the frozen yogurt place. Yeah, yeah, you know, maybe you need those lessons, I guess. Right, right. Can you tell me about the drone? Okay, how does uh tell me how the drone uh gets rid of the pirates?

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah, so there's this really uh shipping like uh commercial shipping has this interesting problem where when you're going through pirate-infested waters like Somalia, like around the coast of Somalia, uh, you want uh private military contractors. Private military contractors don't want to be subordinate to a ship captain, but ship captain wants to control the entire ship. Uh and so we built this drone as a way to empower ship captains without giving them private military contractors, because also like the in a bunch of ports in the world, weapons are just illegal.

SPEAKER_05 20:17

Yeah, I was gonna say like the main problem is you can't have a bunch of guns on boats, like unless you're the Navy. So that's yeah, step one.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Right. Which leads to really interesting things there. Floating armories uh off the coast of India, which is super cool. Uh but but anyways, this drone you can't have them in the ports, right?

SPEAKER_05 20:36

You can have them on the ship. Oh, so you just go load up with guns on your way out?

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 20:41

Oh, this is okay. This is great. Yeah, that's that's our next business.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, floating banks and floating armories are uh like a thelian wet dream, right? Yeah, just seasteading to its best. Um, but the uh uh guns or bombs or the the the drone had two options. One was uh pepper balls. Uh the other was if you were feeling a little more aggressive, you could just crash the thing into the boat. Uh because most of the boats are are tiny, and you really just need to like slow them down for a little bit and you'll get away. Um so that was our like not super lethal uh uh way of of of deterring them.

SPEAKER_05 21:30

How big is this drone?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Uh it's like three and a half, four feet.

SPEAKER_05 21:36

Okay, yeah, you don't really want that thing flying at you, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

No, yeah, yeah. It was it was pretty fast.

SPEAKER_05 21:42

So you so you did this cool project. You're the designer, developer, mechanical engineer on this project.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

I did uh all of the controls. The other guy was in charge of like aerospace stuff.

SPEAKER_05 21:55

Okay, so and then you got your hundred bucks.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Got my hundred bucks, and I actually That ended up being like uh really useful um because I got it I got uh onto the Valkyrie project because I was looking for a job in October, November, which is a weird time, uh and is also a time when government's hiring. Um and so I I was a guy who had mechanical engineering experience, computer science experience. I used Ross, right? Which like back back in the day, like I started using Ross when it first came out. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 22:36

Uh yeah, uh thinking of the clothing store. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

I shop at Ross. Um, no, it's uh uh the robot operating system. So it it's uh there's there's uh a nonprofit called Willow Garage that started in the Bay Area um that built the PR2 and then released this middleware that allowed you to like plug and play a whole bunch of different software, right? Uh and so I immediately started using it. Um and they were looking for people with that experience. Uh, and there was no one with more experience than than me who didn't work there.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

And you had a hundred bucks, too. So that's right. I did have a hundred bucks, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned Valkyrie project. So what tell tell us uh what the Valkyrie project was, like in Bruce.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Valkyrie was uh you know, DARPA robotics challenge. Um basically Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster happens. Um it's the biggest failure of the field of robotics to date, right? There's like 150 plus robots in that nuclear reactor that all tried to go in there and turn the reactor off. And none of them could do it. They all failed, and all they had to do was go through a hallway and press a button. Um, and they failed for a bunch of different reasons.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Yeah, yeah. And and as a result, like some dude had to give up his life, right? In like the grossest, nastiest way ever. Like nuclear radiation poisoning is just the absolute worst way to die. Um, and like we did we he had to do that because we couldn't get a robot to press a button. Um, so that's the like motivating example for the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Can we build a robot that can get through all of the various obstacles that stopped robots so that way we can press a button and somebody doesn't have to die that way again?

SPEAKER_05 24:38

Wow. Okay, and so you were on that project or on the project.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Okay, yep, yep. So now so we went from blank sheet of paper to you know functioning humanoid bipedal robot in 18 months. There's a team of 50 out of that lab. Uh you the the founders of noble machines, persona, uh aptronic, uh, like a bunch of the big humanoid players all come out of out of this lab. Uh it's it's a it's a cool lab to to have been a part of.

SPEAKER_05 25:15

Plus, still stay in touch.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Oh yeah, I was just texting uh one of them today. That's awesome. Um and uh the the we also got to do like a bunch of really cool historic stuff. Uh like I I've sat in the original Houston control, uh mission control, like at a desk. Um we built this, we built Valkyrie in the same clean room that they built the Apollo capsules. Uh just like cool stuff. Uh there's some downsides, like it's all asbestos and whatnot, but you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_05 25:47

I was gonna say, do they let you smoke at the Houston control room?

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Like that seems like you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't have to, it just kind of seeps in.

SPEAKER_05 25:56

Okay, yeah. I assumed it was a requirement.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:59

Dude, that's cool. Okay, so okay, so the you have like all these like little experiences that kind of build and build and build. So after Valkyrie, um then then what's next?

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Then I gotta work on Robonaut 2, which was on the International Space Station. Uh super cool robot. Uh I this won't be true much longer, but astronaut time is roughly $50,000 an hour, and they spend four to five hours a week cleaning their rooms. Um, and so we taught Robonaut to do some some station keeping.

SPEAKER_05 26:31

Uh, like like what do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Like like like vacuuming.

SPEAKER_05 26:35

Oh, do shit, really?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um uh which a super cool project to work on. It was originally built uh because uh astronaut hands in spacesuits are like the size of a bratwurst, like each finger is a bratwurst, and it's it's like being inside of a balloon, right? So it's like very difficult and you have no dexterity. And uh one of my advisors, Rob Platt, figured out early that we could design a hand that's more agile uh than a human hand in a in an astronaut suit. Um, so that was like the the original thrust of Robonaut 2 is to do all of the uh EVAs with robots.

SPEAKER_05 27:19

Oh, okay. This is EVA. I was picturing them vacuuming inside.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Right. Oh no, well, so yeah, uh I wasn't clear there. The stuff I did was all inside, but the robot was built for the outside.

SPEAKER_05 27:31

Okay, okay, that makes that makes sense. I was like, why are they in spacesuits when they're vacuuming inside? Okay, got it, got it. Sorry, I'm stupid. Uh so you you have these amazing opportunities. Uh and then what, do you wake up one day and you're like, I need my my PhD?

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah, basically.

SPEAKER_05 27:49

Like uh was there like a role, a lull in the job market or something?

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Or no, no, there was just there's some math that I wanted to go understand, and I knew it was gonna take longer uh than I could like squeeze in on the sides. Um and also like NASA, like I guess the startup culture hadn't quite fully consumed the world that like it has now. Um and and being at NASA, like credentials and experience are very important. And so there is this like, well, you're only gonna get here if you have this, right? And so I was like, all right, cool. Like I want to go learn this math. Uh, I also did like the financial ROI and was like, all right, so like if I have a PhD, I'm gonna get paid this much. So I gotta do it, gotta do it in like this amount of time.

SPEAKER_05 28:42

So the goal, the goal wasn't to like leave NASA, it was to like level up so you can get to a better pay bracket or whatever. Like my wife did that when she was a teacher. They were like, oh, if you're a teacher plus a master's, then you get like another you know 700 bucks or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah, it wasn't specifically to stay at NASA, but just like what I could figure out about the field as you know, somebody poking around in it.

SPEAKER_05 29:05

Well, uh, can you tell us a little bit about like the pay at NASA? Like, are they competitive with startups or is it like a good career?

SPEAKER_01 29:13

You don't have to say that no, no, no, it's fine. Uh NASA itself, all pay is public. Uh there are public, uh everybody who's a NASA servant public servant, their pay is online. Uh and it it's like very under market, uh, with like most government jobs, but there's there's stability there. Um at least for the most part.

SPEAKER_05 29:38

It it seems too like you can leverage that for something else. You know, if you're going into the startup world, but you're like, hey, I worked at NASA, like that's that's a pretty good foot in the door, I would assume.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Yep, yep, for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_05 29:51

So you you're like, okay, I'm gonna get my my PhD because I need to be smarter at math. Um, and then that's how you end up at Duke?

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah, yeah. So I I talked to a bunch of uh like when you do a PhD, you don't really care too much about the school. There's like you're really applying to work with one particular person, right? Uh, and so my my advisor was was the only person that I found who was working on the symbol grounding problem, which is basically like how do you take all of this continuous madness and boil it down to one one token, right? Like uh turns out like large language models were the answer here. Um and uh that I don't know that they were trying to do to solve the symbol grounding problem, but that was the problem that that uh I was really interested in because we have all of these like really nice formal methods that are pretty quick for solving logical problems, and I needed some way to connect those and robots. Uh because I wanted to be able to say, like, hey robot, go do X uh and figure it out, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:04

Figure it out, like fill in the blanks. Okay, and that's so kind of like the early days of of LLM or whatever. That was yeah, yeah, okay. So uh is your is your PhD in in AI?

SPEAKER_01 31:19

It's in AI and robotics, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:22

Okay, yeah, dude. You're like the smartest, most down to earth person that I I think I've met. Like just like I thanks, thanks, Dave. You look like you could catch a beer, uh uh, but then you're doing some super smart shit. So anyway, I I feel very out of my league. Um as do most people that I know that went to Duke, like my lovely wife. She she was going to Duke, she came home for Christmas break, uh, and I was working for her mom, and her mom is like, You should take my daughter out. And I was like, No way, she's like gorgeous. So anyway, yeah, Duke people are just way out of my league. Anyway, sorry that I had to like fangirl you.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

No, no, no, it's it's all right. So we're we're all fangirling over you, Jim. I don't know about you. You're cutting a lot of sheet metal, you're doing a lot of good work, man.

SPEAKER_05 32:15

I'm I'm just doing all the dumb shit so that you guys can go do the smart stuff. Um okay, so you get your your PhD. Are you are you Dr. Barrett? Is that can I call you? Can I call you? I mean you you can.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Uh you don't you don't have to.

SPEAKER_05 32:29

Uh do you oh when you when you book a flight, you know it gives you the prefix. Do you uh the doctor on there?

SPEAKER_01 32:36

No, but if my uh bot built yeah uh at bot built, my founders, if they if they ever booked tickets for me, would would put doctor in there.

SPEAKER_05 32:47

There's also reverent. I choose reverent all the time. That's my favorite one.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

So they on international flights, they'll actually like call you out on it. Um what do you mean? Like they'll say doctor.

SPEAKER_05 32:59

Oh, like when you get on, they're like welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Domestic, they don't care. They're right, yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_05 33:06

Yeah, cattle. So so you can't get your doctor, you get your PhD, uh, and then you go back to NASA and you're like, hey, pay me more, or what what's next?

SPEAKER_01 33:16

I didn't I so uh about uh about a year into doing the PhD, my wife and I uh made a deeply questionable decision, which was to buy the shittiest house we could find uh and renovate it.

SPEAKER_05 33:37

Was it the shittiest house in the best neighborhood or just shitty house in general?

SPEAKER_01 33:42

It was in a good neighborhood.

SPEAKER_05 33:44

Okay, because yeah, I like the I like the bad house in a good neighborhood theory.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Oh, totally, totally. And the idea was like during the week I'd burn my brain out on math and on the weekends, like I'd restore myself by being a craftsman, right? Like, because I've all I've always liked building stuff. And like, no, just like just just a lot of work. Uh still one of the best investments I've ever made, but still uh just a ton of work. And I was sitting there are you in your living room right now?

SPEAKER_05 34:13

Is this progress?

SPEAKER_01 34:14

I know, right? Like, I'm just I'm so comfortable around uh uh you know bare stud walls that this is this is where I work now. But no, it's uh I I finished that job for the most part. Um and but I was sitting there one Saturday uh installing flooring uh and I was just looking at at a stud wall just like this, and I was like, man, there's so much regularity here. Like the methods in robotics are good enough to do this now. Why isn't anybody doing this? Uh and that's how bot built started.

SPEAKER_05 34:50

Okay, that's awesome. Okay, what a good segue. Um, so so tell us a little bit about bot built.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah, so we uh I was in my notes.

SPEAKER_05 35:00

Good job, good job, Dom. Uh producer Dom does deep research on everyone before they come in.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so Bot Built was uh you know an idea that came out of out of renovation and looking at houses and and realizing also like looking at my checking book every every month and being like, wow, housing's really expensive. Um and digging into why is that, right? And it's like no one no one no one builds anymore. Um and so we we we thought, well, let's let's get robots to do that. And so actually the the first person I talked to was uh my cousin Brent. Uh he was our CEO. And he's he's crazy. He had spent 10 years in special operations uh doing, and before that, had exited a couple of businesses successfully. Uh so I always I always knew that I wanted to do a business with him. I knew I was gonna learn a ton from working with him. Uh so I was just like, hey, Brent, let's solve homelessness, let's build robots to build homes.

SPEAKER_05 36:08

What does your wife say? Uh was she like for it or like what the hell are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Yeah, no, she was like, Oh yeah, no, if you're gonna start a business, Brent's like the only person you should start a business with. Um, so no, it it actually worked, you know, she was very supportive of it. Um she's she's she's uh a saint uh and a wonderful person, and um I couldn't do uh most of what I do it if if she wasn't uh as deeply supportive as as she is.

SPEAKER_05 36:38

So I think that's a that's a trend. Um some of the the most successful people that we've talked to uh are are successful because they got a good woman who's keeping everything, or vice versa. Right, right. It takes a pair. Um yeah. And is she the same as you or the opposite of you?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Uh that's a good question.

SPEAKER_05 37:01

Because mine's the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Like she's definitely not she's definitely not the opposite.

SPEAKER_05 37:06

It may be complementing strengths and weaknesses, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Yeah, she like the I think the biggest where we're the most different is in our risk profile. Like she is not a risk taker, and I am like, you know, white knuckling every risk I can.

SPEAKER_05 37:24

Um so yeah, but if you have two of you, if you have two risk takers, the whole thing like it's fun for probably six weeks and then it all burns down, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:31

Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_05 37:33

Yeah, we my wife, my my wife's name is Erin. Um, we're we're always talking about like, man, it'd be kind of cool to like you know get a private pilot's license or whatever. And I would be the guy that you want in the seat, like when you're flying into a storm and you got to fly blind and whatever, but I would never remember to put gas in it or like higher pressure. But she would she would be able to file the flight plan, she'd make sure the maintenance was done and we had gas and she'd know the insurance and all that shit. But then she'd probably just like pass out if there was like an emergency landing. So um good to have those complimenting strengths and weaknesses. So let's say you're like, hey, we're gonna do this business, and then the did you get funding, or how did how did you start?

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Yeah, so we so uh I I I asked Brent about about doing this business, and he was like, Hell yeah, let's do it. That was March of 2020. Uh oh, yeah. Uh and I'd love to be for those of you young people. Right, yeah, that's the beginning of COVID.

SPEAKER_05 38:38

Oh my god, yeah, what was it? Like March 19, I think was like okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Right. So uh so I looked over to Brandt and I was like, dude, the playing field just got level. Everyone is zooming. There is no there like personal connection is now like we could do this all from North Carolina. Uh and so we did. We got into uh Y Combinator. Uh we raised our first round uh all all all over Zoom.

SPEAKER_05 39:07

Would you would you recommend Y Combinator uh for people who have an idea?

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah, I think it's getting better for hardware. Um it was when we joined, there weren't many people who had joined before and could really really guide the path, like you know, sh provide any guidance from a hardware perspective. Um but it it's it's you know it's also growing really fast and and you know certainly has had its fair share of controversies over the last couple of couple of years, but generally like a very good uh community of people that you can talk to and say crazy shit, and they'll either like they'll think about it, they won't just tell you no because you're crazy.

SPEAKER_05 39:54

Yeah, that's cool. Any any tips for people that want to get in?

SPEAKER_01 40:00

They like all all of the tips uh that are public are true. I think that's the biggest piece of advice. Like a lot of a lot of the people who apply kind of get into their own head and like, oh well, they're telling me this advice, so clearly it's not the right advice. I need to like go second order. Nope. Uh it's just like uh take take their advice, um uh and and listen to it. Like they they do mostly care about the people. Uh the the ideas change so frequently, the business changes so frequently that they really just want to see you and your co-founders are cohesive uh and and and trying to do hard stuff, right? And then they'll put you in a room with a bunch of other smart, ambitious people, and cool stuff happens, right? Like, I gotta meet uh Phil Johnson, who's doing the uh the space data center stuff. I saw him like a year before this whole thing exploded and everybody was talking about space data centers, and it's like, dude, this is a genius idea, right? Like good luck. Uh so it like there are just a bunch of really cool um connections that you make and and smart people that you talk to.

SPEAKER_05 41:17

I think the what do you call it, the thread, the through, what do you call that? I don't know. I'm looking Dom. Uh whatever. The the connecting thing for this whole like chat that we've had for 40 minutes or whatever is like you keep surrounding yourself with really, really cool people. Like everywhere you've gone, you know, uh you you're surrounding yourself with with geniuses and risk takers and all kinds of stuff, whether that's a you know, uh NASA or or Duke, when you go to you know, go learn from the best of the best, and then uh you know, why combinator, there's like super smart people that are giving you advice. So um if you think you're the smartest guy in the room, uh it's not gonna work out well for you. But if if you go and appreciate everyone else's genius, then I I think it's gonna make you a better person.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Yep, yep, yeah, yeah. I just I you know I just want to learn. So I always I I just keep trying to find other other people to teach me stuff that I that I haven't learned yet.

SPEAKER_05 42:20

That's awesome. So okay, so why combinator? You you do it over Zoom, you're like, screw it, we want in. They cut you a check, and then you go start bot built, and you're you're trying to do like framing and yeah, well, okay, yeah. Yeah, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Yeah, so it we started out thinking that like physical labor was the problem that we were gonna solve in in carpentry and and home building. Um and by the end, we made a massive dent in it. But a lot along the way, uh, we realized that like a floor plan, while it looks like it should be a technical drawing, is not. It's just like made-up lines uh that are pretty. Um, my my favorite example there is like we we we had this chunk of software that would take a floor plan and turn it into a CAD model, and then from that CAD model, the robots would go and build it, right? Um and so one time I I processed this floor plan and the walls didn't come together, like there were holes everywhere around the house. And I called the architect and I was like, What what's going on with this house? And they're like, Well, I didn't like fractions, so I just got rid of them.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

And it's just like, oh, it's because the framers don't like fractions either.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Right. Well, so and that's that's the even crazier part. This home had been built 500 times, and the framers just filled it in. Um and so what we the the the part of Bop Built that continues to endure today is the part that can take a floor plan, figure out all of the material that you need uh by building a CAD model down to the 32nd of an inch of lumber. It's basically You you know this game, it's the on like online quoting tool for sheet metal. We just applied it to a house. It it takes them manually a couple of weeks to do that estimate, and we can do it in in a couple of hours.

SPEAKER_05 44:13

So was that an exit for you or it was it was an exit for me.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

The company keeps going. Uh they changed the name to benchmark.io uh and are are doing doing this uh you know plan processing and quoting part. Um but that's you know uh that that was January this year.

SPEAKER_05 44:38

Oh, okay, yeah, just recent because uh because then I want to talk about like what I'm most excited about, which is yeah, right? Okay, so so you're like cool, I've I've done this bot built thing, I survived COVID, um figured out all kinds of weird stuff with housing and framing. Uh you you exit, and then you're like, okay, what am I gonna do next? And so that's that's wreck, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 45:02

So tell everyone what rec is.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Yeah, so rec is real steel in real life. If you've seen the real steel movie, but it's it's humanoid robots with human operators uh that are doing MMA in the octagon, right? Uh, and we want parts to fly. Like that, we utter carnage. Uh I I want to single-handedly keep send cut send open with spare part orders.

SPEAKER_05 45:30

Do the bots get weapons? Or is it just fists so far?

SPEAKER_01 45:34

So far, just fists. Uh uh, we we have we have put katanas in their hands, uh, we've put machetes on their arms. The end state is is is uh you know a gundam for sure.

SPEAKER_05 45:50

Yeah, it could be anything. So uh have you ever done like uh first robotics is not necessarily combat robotics like like battle bots or whatever. Have you ever done any battle bot stuff?

SPEAKER_01 45:59

I I have never a lot of our customers. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, one of one of our guys is actually uh yeah, he's he's battling today. Um they're doing the championship right now. Um, so he's he's super into it. Um and it's you know, I love to watch I I it's one of the things I watch with my kids is battle bots.

SPEAKER_05 46:22

So so wreck is like you're like, dude, I want to I want to have MMA with robots. Um I want to see these things fight and do cool stuff. Uh are you just are you just sitting around after you're not at bot build anymore and you're like, oh, this is the next thing? Like, how did this come about?

SPEAKER_01 46:41

Yeah, so one of the one of the things, um well, there's a couple of things. One, I started getting on X again, uh, which was like, you know, when I first got on Twitter, it was like, you know, oh, I just ate a pancake, and I like quickly got out of there, right? Uh, but then I came back uh uh and people were like talking about machining and building robots and building airplanes, building rockets, and it was like, this is totally different. Um, and so there's this guy, six, who's like like YOLOing robots, right? Like he just spent a bunch of money on a robot, never touched your robot before, and like building in public with this robot. And so like I'm watching him, I'm like sending some messages, like you know, trying to help, but like I'm busy with Bob Build, right? Uh and and then he starts fighting them, and I was like, oh, that's that's really cool. Yeah, uh, so I like I he caught my eye quite early. Um, but then one of the things that that I that I've learned from doing a lot from from fundraising is like you can have the best business plan in the world, um but if you can't get people excited about it, they're never gonna go look at your math, right? And so as as as Brent was making me an ever better salesman, which is really like just dumping psychology into my brain, I realized that like the human form is deeply triggering. Like we just respond to it when we see it, we will attend to it. And so when I saw, I I was admittedly a big hater of Rec at first, was like, this is stupid, like uh like robots could be used for such better things. Uh and then Six was like, dude, have you ever watched Real Steel? And I was like, no, I'm fine, I'll go watch it with my kids, right? So I watched Real Steel, and I like the hits hit way harder than I expected them to, right? I was like, this is like watching a UFC fight. Um but when a robot gets destroyed, you just laugh, right? When when a human is like passed out on the floor, you're like, oh, I don't know about this guy. Maybe we shouldn't have let them do that. Um, so there is like uh I don't know, a bunch of really cool psychology around it. Um and I like the the the the tech is there for for entertainment and and making carnage.

SPEAKER_05 49:26

Uh I was gonna say to like today's the worst it'll be. You know, humanoids have a long ways to go, but they're they're not bad today, they're gonna get a hell of a lot better. So you might as well make them fight. Um so so what's next? What's next for Rec? Like what's yeah look like?

SPEAKER_01 49:44

Yeah, so we just announced our first store.

SPEAKER_05 49:46

Uh like downtown San Francisco or something, right? Yep, yep, yep. Is it gonna actually look like the image that you posted?

SPEAKER_01 49:52

Yeah, so that image that the the like AI generated parts of that image were the things inside the store. The store actually already looks like that, okay. Uh which was pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_05 50:03

That's a really cool spot.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's right on Van Ness, which is like super, super busy. Um and yeah, so that'll that that'll be the first store. Uh we're gonna we're gonna uh rent robots out of there. A ton of people are very curious about humanoids, but don't want to throw down a bunch of money. Um like we at a at a high level, like we're trying to build F1 racing, and yet no one has a car yet. Uh, and so we gotta seed the market, we've got to get people robots so that way they can go, oh, what do we do with this? And we have the answer, which is fight them in a ring, uh, because it's uh a ton of fun.

SPEAKER_05 50:46

Well, I mean, just like you said with Formula One too, like if fighting or Formula One or horse racing or whatever, it's it's it's helps you like compress evolution like really, really quickly. So a Formula One car today versus in the 60s, it's you know almost unrecognizable. Um horses are faster with horse. Sorry, I know nothing about horse racing, 101. I assume they're faster.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

I I hear they put a bigger, uh bigger block engine in the horse and it just made it go a lot faster.

SPEAKER_05 51:17

There's no replacement for displacement. Um but with robotics, like the best way to make a better robot is just beat the shit out of it and figure out where it breaks, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:25

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 51:27

And that's people can come to Rec and they can come to the store and they can see robots, they can rent robots, you're selling robots, like all kinds of different things.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Yeah, we we we sell humanoids, so we'll we'll have four models of humanoid uh when we open. Uh and then we'll be doing uh weekly fights uh that that uh in person, and then we'll be doing a weekly live stream as well. Um so it's gonna be just a ton of carnage, uh, as as much as I can can make it happen. Uh it's it's interesting. Uh fighting robots are gonna help uh re reindustrialization too. Um, because right now I've got to source a ton of parts uh from China, and it takes a couple of months to get them. Uh and if I can get somebody to manufacture that here in the US, like I'm just gonna be constantly ripping through parts, right? Like I'm gonna make them better, and then I'm gonna make the robot punch harder, I'm gonna make it kick harder, right? And so it's this nice, like uh this nice cycle.

SPEAKER_05 52:30

I'm excited for um for like uh you know a league to come out where there's weight classes or whatever, it's like run while you brung, you know, go go build something in your garage, go fight it on the weekend, and then spend a week repairing it. That's that's gonna be awesome. I I will definitely participate in that. Um so if people want to learn more about rec and what you're doing next, where should they go?

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Rek.com or the rec Twitter, which is just REK.

SPEAKER_05 52:58

How did you get a three-letter domain name? That's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

Yeah, uh, that was just money. Uh the the the uh rec uh Twitter was actually uh we did a fight for XAI and they loved it so much that they gave us the the Twitter handle.

SPEAKER_05 53:16

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Yeah, awesome. Also, Elon retweeted it, which was awesome. Uh that helped.

SPEAKER_05 53:22

Yeah. Okay, so so when when is this opening? Like when when can we start renting and buying and fighting?

SPEAKER_01 53:28

It's gonna be you can rent and buy them today. Uh it's just not from the store yet. Uh the store about two months.

SPEAKER_05 53:36

Okay. Okay, dude. That this is awesome. Um oh, I'm supposed to ask you one more thing. Sorry. Uh yeah. Uh what is what is your one piece of advice to someone listening to this podcast?

SPEAKER_01 53:47

It can be yeah, yeah. My my one piece of advice is uh it's gonna be really hard and you're gonna want to give up. Don't uh go to bed or get more caffeine and keep going.

SPEAKER_05 54:02

Cool. I love it. Um we have to do the same thing here. Usually it's usually it's a combination. Usually it's like a shit ton of caffeine because I'm like, okay, I'm gonna power through it. Then you have like a weird dream sleep. Right. And and then there's then the answer comes to you. So right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

Arnold is known for the uh the coffee nap, so that's uh it's it's effective.

SPEAKER_05 54:25

It works. All right, thank you so much for being on. Um, and then go to rec.com, r-ek.com, check everything out, go on the rec Twitter, and then this is where Dom's lovely outro will play. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Do we have an outro? Am I supposed to say something?

SPEAKER_00 54:43

Can you say like thanks for listening? Love to have your feedback. Find us uh on Insta and YouTube at SendHutsen.

SPEAKER_05 54:49

Can we just use that?

SPEAKER_00 54:50

Thanks for joining us on today's episode. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, you can email us at just gonna send it at sendkutsen.com or find us on social at sendkutsend at gym below sick. Don't forget to subscribe, download, and share your friends. Thanks again for listening. Catch you on the next episode.