Ep 113 | Why Robotics Needs Physical Benchmarks, Not Simulation (w/ Ali Ansari, CEO Micro1)

Edward Mehr, Co-founder & CEO of Machina Labs .Ed's interest in manufacturing started as a kid, walking through the appliance and automotive plants his father ran. Years later, a shop floor visit at SpaceX pulled him out of pure software and into hardware. He worked at SpaceX, joined Relativity Space as the fourth person on the team to lead 3D printing, and co-founded Machina Labs in 2019."If your interface is only digital, the computer will learn to do it at some point."Machina Labs builds factories around its RoboCraftsman platform, robotic cells that use AI to form and finish metal parts without dedicated tooling. The same floor can make aircraft components in the morning and missile components in the afternoon.In this episode, Ed and Ilir talk about why he left university several times for internships at Sony, Microsoft and Google, what SpaceX taught him about picking up new disciplines in months, why he handed Machina's first experiments to former interns instead of specialists, and why he sees convincing smart people to bet on something unfinished as the core of a founder's job.𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑This podcast is brought to you by CoreWeave providing the specialized cloud infrastructure that powers physical AI and large-scale model training.Machina Labs: https://machinalabs.aiEdward Mehr on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edward-mehrEdward Mehr on X: https://x.com/EdwardMehrIlir on X: https://x.com/IlirAliu_Ilir on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilir-aliu22Astronauts: https://22astronauts.vc/Hosted by Ilir Aliu𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒0:00 Machina is the factory2:47 Growing up in his dad's factories ("it looks like a casino")6:47 The SpaceX visitor badge that pulled him out of software9:04 Teal collar: why AI pushes work back into the physical world10:59 A school built around shop class, then QBasic and IRC16:31 Choosing computer engineering17:26 Leaving school for Sony, Microsoft and Google21:01 He never planned to start a company23:07 Hard problems attract smart people27:01 What SpaceX changed about learning new disciplines29:43 Spotting manufacturing as the bottleneck33:04 Generalists vs. specialists36:00 Why interns proved robotic sheet forming could work38:32 Engineers look for flaws, and that can stop new ideas39:38 Joining Relativity Space as employee #441:09 Why Falcon 9 got taller but never wider43:04 The founder's real job: making believers47:04 Machina today: high-mix factories and the RoboCraftsman48:57 A future where things look different again

With Neil Nie, Co-founder & CEO of Verne Robotics.Neil came to the US as a kid and grew up in a small town in rural Massachusetts, writing software mostly on his own. As a high school runner he built a workout tracking app for his coach when the first Apple Watch came out, and with a friend he built a self-driving golf cart. He went on to do robot learning research with Shuran Song at Columbia and with Jiajun Wu in Stanford's SVL, spent about a year on Apple's fitness tracking team, and left his PhD at Berkeley to start Verne in summer 2025 with a friend from high school."If you have an arm that can only carry three or four kilograms, certain applications, especially in industrial settings, are simply not going to make sense."Verne builds dual-arm mobile robots for manufacturing and logistics and owns the whole stack, from pre-training and post-training to the controllers on the robot. Customers today range from semiconductor supply chains to packing operations for contractors serving the US defense industry.In this episode, Neil and Ilir talk about his mother's advice to turn down an Apple salary after college, why research still matters when AI can answer most questions, how Verne got into YC without a single customer, why he thinks industrial robots don't need legs, and why he wants customers to build on Verne's robots the way developers built on the App Store.𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑This podcast is brought to you by CoreWeave⁩ providing the specialized cloud infrastructure that powers physical AI and large-scale model training.Verne Robotics: https://vernerobotics.comNeil Nie on X: https://x.com/neil_nie_Neil Nie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilnieIlir on X: https://x.com/IlirAliu_Ilir on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilir-aliu22Astronauts: https://22astronauts.vc/Hosted by Ilir Aliu𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒0:00 What Verne Robotics builds2:54 First-generation immigrant with entrepreneurial parents3:43 Building a self-driving golf cart in high school4:06 Columbia with Shuran Song, Stanford with Jiajun Wu6:57 A workout app for his track coach8:29 A year on Apple's fitness team10:04 Alone in rural New England, then the robotics club13:00 Should you still do a PhD when AI does research?14:50 "Back then robotics just didn't work at all"15:45 His mom's advice: skip the Cupertino salary18:42 There are no shortcuts23:03 Starting Verne and dropping out of the PhD23:47 Why the company is named after Jules Verne26:01 Robots that help businesses make and ship more28:21 Selling into manufacturing as a first-time founder30:58 Getting into YC with zero customers33:20 The Pareto frontier of what robots should do34:16 Windows XP vs. the App Store: customers as robot developers38:14 The questions critics ask: vertical integration, deployment, form factor41:54 Why legs are optional and payload is not43:17 Design and public perception45:00 What's coming next

In Ep #113 of 22Astronauts, Ilir Aliu sits down with Ali Ansari, Founder & CEO of ⁨Micro1.Robotics teams still struggle to say which policy model is better, because almost nobody evaluates them on the same real hardware. Ali’s view is that measurement comes first and improvement follows. micro1 builds expert-generated training data and evaluations for most frontier AI labs, and by Ali’s account robotics is already above $100M of its run rate.Ali was born in Iran, moved to the US at ten after his family won the green card lottery, and studied CS and math at Berkeley before a short stint at Stanford. micro1 began as an AI interviewer he built to screen engineers for his own software agency and is now valued at $4B.“If you can precisely measure intelligence, you by definition have a reward model to train on.”In this episode, Ali and Ilir cover why robot models will learn from human actions the way LLMs learned from human text, how micro1 collected 100,000+ hours of egocentric household video, and why cheap hardware with heavy annotation scales better than expensive sensors. They also get into the new Malibu lab for safety evals on real arms and humanoids, how micro1 serves competing labs at the same time, and what Ali learned from the sacrifices his parents made.𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑This podcast is brought to you by ⁨@CoreWeaveYT⁩ providing the specialized cloud infrastructure that powers physical AI and large-scale model training.micro1: https://www.micro1.aiAli Ansari on X: https://x.com/aliansarinikIlir on X: https://x.com/IlirAliu_Ilir on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilir-aliu22Astronauts: https://22astronauts.vc/Hosted by Ilir AliuTIMESTAMPS0:00 What micro1 does and who Ali is2:00 Born in Iran and winning the green card lottery5:00 What the move cost his parents9:40 Raising $100M+ at 25 and staying capital efficient13:35 Why experts outside San Francisco change how people see AI16:50 The two theses behind micro1’s move into robotics21:40 From AI recruiter to training data for frontier labs25:40 Synthetic vs. human data: simple hardware, heavy annotation27:50 Why robotics needs physical benchmarks, not simulation30:15 Inside the Malibu lab: safety evals and post-training31:35 Serving competing labs without leaking information34:00 Hiring, risk appetite and a role that changes every month37:00 Mentors: Sean Rad and Joshua Browder38:50 The Sunday reflection hour

In Ep #112 of 22Astronauts, Ilir Aliu sits down with Joe Harris, Founder & CEO of Alloy Robotics. Before starting Alloy, Joe helped scale a consumer telehealth platform to a $1B+ acquisition. Now, he is bringing those high-growth scaling principles to physical AI."Reliability is measured at the action level. If every action is 99% accurate and you multiply that across 10,000 actions a day, your robot's actual uptime degrades incredibly fast."Alloy Robotics builds the "AI Robotics Engineer", a specialized data and agent platform that ingests robot logs, telemetry, and sensor streams to automatically detect, diagnose, and resolve field failures.In this episode, Joe and Ilir break down why general-purpose robotics hype collides with real-world fleet engineering, why hardware teams need SRE and agentic tooling, and how software remains the highest-leverage layer in robotics.𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑This podcast is brought to you by ‪ ⁨@CoreWeaveYT⁩ providing the specialized cloud infrastructure that powers physical AI and large-scale model training.Follow Joe Harris on X: https://x.com/_joe_harris_Alloy Robotics: https://www.usealloy.ai/22Astronauts: https://22astronauts.vc/Hosted by Ilir AliuTIMESTAMPS(00:00) Building the First AI Robotics Engineer(04:05) Don't Sell a Platform, Sell a Solution(09:38) Lessons from Scaling a $1B+ Business(14:38) Scar Tissue vs. Intellectual Learning(20:40) Why Hardware Needs SRE & Agentic Tooling(27:58) How Platform Shifts Expand Total Market Cap(34:25) The Hidden Cost of Robotics Log Data(41:10) Global Supply Chains & Re-Industrialization(51:12) The Compound Math of 99.999% Fleet Reliability

Rajat Bhageria is the Founder & CEO of Chef Robotics (San Francisco, CA), the leading physical AI company deploying AI-guided robot arms across food manufacturing and production facilities.Instead of chasing restaurant cooking hype or $15/hr fast-casual makelines, Chef Robotics pivoted to high-volume food factories (including Amy's Kitchen, Chef Bombay, Gate Gourmet, and Sunbasket), recently surpassing 100M+ servings deployed in production across the US, Canada, and Europe.After studying economics at Wharton and robotics at Penn's GRASP Lab, Rajat sold his first computer vision startup (ThirdEye) at age 20, co-founded pre-seed fund Prototype Capital, and launched Chef Robotics in 2019. Backed by $65M+ in funding (from Kleiner Perkins, Avataar Ventures, Construct Capital, and SVB), Chef Robotics uses real-world production data to build domain-specific Food Foundation Models (FFM) and world models for deformable material handling.𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑This podcast is brought to you by  CoreWeave  providing the specialized cloud infrastructure that powers physical AI and large-scale model training.Chef Robotics: https://chefrobotics.aiRajat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajatbhageria/Ilir on X: https://x.com/IlirAliu_Ilir on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilir-aliu/Timestamps:0:00 Why Chef Robotics walked away from restaurant deals to focus on food factories3:39 Growing up in Cincinnati: Reading biographies of Carnegie, Rockefeller & Edison8:33 Building computer vision for the visually impaired (ThirdEye) at Penn12:35 Basic research vs. Product execution: Why shipping matters15:14 Why cooking robots fail: "Customers don't want cooking robots, they want assembly"18:05 Expanding beyond prepared meals: Airline catering, meatpacking, and CPG kitting22:04 Selling before building: Raising seed capital from Kleiner Perkins25:34 Why every founder's primary job is persuasion and sales33:23 The "Value Investing" approach in robotics: Finding high-volume factory assembly36:08 Specialists vs. Humanoids: Why industrial plants need "Home Depot, not Costco"41:34 Learning from the 2015 robotics graveyard: Why ROI trumps generalizability46:28 Real-world production data vs. simulation: The Food Foundation Model52:52 The Goal & Bottleneck Theory: Focusing strictly on operational constraints59:20 Advice to my younger self: Category creation takes time

Almetra is turning the perception stack from self-driving cars into factory intelligence.I sat down with Silviu Homoceanu, Co-Founder & CTO of Almetra, to talk about growing up with computers in post-communist Romania, eight years inside VW's self-driving programme, and why the data most factories run on doesn't describe what actually happens on the line.Silviu learned programming by translating English menus on his father's work PC, was selling self-built accounting software at 15, and came to Germany for a PhD in machine learning. He joined VW Group Research in 2014 and spent the next eight years on perception for autonomous driving, before a question from a manufacturing colleague sent him into factories for seven months.Today, Almetra (formerly Deltia) combines computer vision, sensors and machine data to show how production actually runs instead of how it was planned. The company raised a $19M Series A led by blisce/ in June 2026 and is opening an office in Boston.We cover why factory data is often wrong, what happens when the MES reports a reality that isn't real, the 100% defect detection problem, why so many robotics startups get stuck in pilot purgatory, what reliability really means on a running line, and Almetra's move from measuring manual work to automating parts of it.Silviu Homoceanu:https://www.linkedin.com/in/silviu-homoceanu-893b7a5Almetra:https://www.almetra.ai/𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑- CoreWeave — The Essential Cloud for AI.CoreWeave sponsors this podcast.Join CoreWeave at #FullyConnected:https://coreweave.com/fully-connected-2026/agenda 👉 Free code: FCLR26𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒00:00 Meeting at the AI Campus in Berlin00:47 Who Silviu is and what Almetra does02:44 Romania after 1989 and his father's first PC06:08 A 286 at home, MS-DOS, then Linux08:04 Running a computer business at 1510:21 High school nights in the computer lab14:44 The mentor who said: study abroad16:15 Flipping burgers to see the MIT campus18:58 Romania vs Germany: theory against practice20:23 First job: cluster computing for bridge simulations26:20 Why computer networks stopped being enough28:00 The exam answer that led to a PhD offer30:47 Percentages or factors: how he picks problems36:20 VW Research comes knocking in 201439:05 The meeting with manufacturing that changed everything39:52 Seven months in factories: the data is wrong40:30 Merantix, meeting Max, and founding the company42:08 The Goal, bottlenecks, and life on a shop floor43:31 The 100% defect detection problem46:14 When the MES reports a reality that isn't real48:09 Automating stations and the robotics angle49:33 99.999% and why factories say no to startups52:47 What is actually automatable today55:07 The Series A, blisce/, and the move to Boston59:21 ClosingFollow 22Astronauts:Newsletter: 22astronauts.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/22astronautsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/_22astronauts_/

Almond is building robots for the era of physical AI.I sat down with Saba Khalilnaji, Founder & CEO of Almond, inside the company's San Francisco factory to talk about building robots, scaling hardware, factory automation, and why Almond wants to become "America's robot factory."Saba started building robots as a kid, later spent nearly seven years at DoorDash, and eventually left to work on one of the hardest problems in automation: getting robots to operate reliably in factories where the environment and tasks constantly change.Today, Almond is building Axol, a dual-arm robot designed for physical AI, data collection, teleoperation and real-world deployment.We cover why traditional automation struggles in high-mix manufacturing, what Saba learned from DoorDash, the rise of "neo-integrators," why deployments are Almond's North Star, manufacturing robots in San Francisco, and Almond's work on teaching Axol to help build Axol.Saba Khalilnaji:https://www.linkedin.com/in/saba-khalilnaji/Almond:https://www.almond.bot/𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑• CoreWeave — The Essential Cloud for AI.Join CoreWeave at Fully Connected in San Francisco, bringing together the people building the next generation of AI infrastructure and applications.Learn more: https://www.coreweave.com/fully-connected-2026𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒00:00 Inside Almond's San Francisco robot factory01:02 A first look at Axol02:12 Building robots as a kid07:50 Science Olympiad and early robotics11:56 Studying bioengineering at Berkeley14:58 From robotics to DoorDash18:19 What DoorDash taught Saba about moving fast22:37 Why he left to start a company25:10 How your environment shapes ambition29:28 Discovering the automation problem inside factories31:06 Why traditional factory automation struggles34:49 What Almond is building36:03 The rise of the "neo-integrator"38:36 Why deployments are Almond's North Star40:17 Building America's robot factory43:09 Why Almond believes in owning the full stack44:05 Teaching Axol to help build Axol46:09 Saba's advice to his younger self47:25 Why it's called Almond49:25 ClosingFollow 22Astronauts:Newsletter:22astronauts.comLinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/22astronautsInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/_22astronauts_/

Prof. Mario Krenn is the Scientific Director & Co-Founder of Feyer GmbH and Professor for Machine Learning in Science at the University of Tübingen, where he leads the Artificial Scientist Lab.For over a decade, Mario’s research has focused on using AI not just to analyze physics data, but at a conceptual level; building AI explorers that discover completely novel experimental setups, optics, and quantum hardware. In July 2026, alongside CEO Jonathan Klimesch and CTO Sören Arlt, he co-founded Feyer GmbH: a frontier AI lab for automated physical invention.As one of only 10 European teams selected for SPRIND's €125M Next Frontier AI Challenge (€3M non-dilutive seed phase), Feyer couples neural explorers with ultra-fast, differentiable physics simulators. Their mission is to autonomously invent next-generation industrial hardware (from advanced microscopy and lasers to lithography and quantum sensors) scaling Europe's high-tech manufacturing strengths.Feyer GmbH: https://feyer.aiMario Krenn: https://mariokrenn.wordpress.comIlir on X: https://x.com/IlirAliu_Ilir on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilir-aliu/Timestamps:0:00 "AI that invents industrial hardware": What is Feyer GmbH?3:08 How the Cyber Valley ecosystem turned an academic researcher into a founder5:43 Growing up in Austria: Programming operating systems at age 1011:31 Stephen Hawking, mysteries of space, and choosing physics over engineering15:01 Joining Anton Zeilinger's lab in Vienna: "What is the next to the next step?"18:33 March 2014: Writing a program to design a quantum experiment humans couldn't solve21:58 Finding solution.txt & the realization that computers can be creatively scientific28:28 Moving to Toronto & Vector Institute: Learning AI material discovery from Alán Aspuru-Guzik34:49 Returning to Europe & building the Artificial Scientist Lab in Erlangen & Tübingen37:47 Asking questions to the universe: Why physics experiments are fundamental43:35 Breaking resolution limits in microscopy & applying AI to industrial high-tech45:49 Winning SPRIND's Next Frontier AI Challenge & founding Feyer GmbH47:25 Scaling European hardware strengths: Semiconductor, photonics, and optics leadership.

Johannes Haux is the Co-Founder & CEO of kausable (Heidelberg, Germany), a deep-tech AI startup building reasoning-first causal foundation models.Instead of memorizing internet-scale text patterns or relying on millions of trial-and-error attempts, kausable’s models (based on the Prior-data Fitted Network / PFN approach) learn abstract cause-and-effect structures from synthetic data—enabling them to adapt to entirely new physical environments in-context from just a handful of examples.After working in computer vision under Prof. Björn Ommer at Heidelberg University (alongside the future Black Forest Labs founders) and serving as Head of AI at AskUI, Johannes co-founded kausable with Dr. Benjamin Herdeanu (CTO) and Gregor Ramien (COO). The company recently raised a €12M seed round led by UVC Partners and Entourage, backed by top-tier angels from OpenAI, DeepMind, Black Forest Labs, and Neura Robotics.kausable: https://kausable.aiJohannes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhaux/Ilir on X: https://x.com/IlirAliu_Ilir on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilir-aliu/Timestamps:0:00 Building foundation models in the Cyber Valley deep-tech ecosystem1:25 Working in Prof. Ommer’s lab & meeting the future Black Forest Labs team3:48 Early startup lessons at Sysmagine & AskUI4:09 Why internet-scale LLMs aren't enough for general-purpose physical intelligence4:52 Discovering Prior-data Fitted Networks (PFNs) & founding kausable7:00 "I was a bad student": Why structure and habits matter more than raw talent12:19 Wanting to be a movie director before choosing physics at Heidelberg18:37 Quitting academia right before COVID lockdowns & taking the entrepreneurial leap27:38 Why community & ecosystem matter for European deep-tech startups29:26 How humans actually learn vs. brute-force reinforcement learning in robotics32:01 In-context learning: Adapting to distribution drift & new sensors without retraining33:47 TipPFN & predicting critical transitions: Seizures, blackout risks, and physical dynamics37:37 Michael Black's perspective: Why Europe is a strong launchpad for disruptive AI41:37 Exploratory tech vs. concrete customer problems: Making the "faster horses" bet47:17 Moving from a research lab to early design partners50:36 "Don't fake it, but think big": Advice for European deep-tech founders

Nic Radford is the Co-Founder & CEO of Persona AI (Houston, TX) and former Founder/CEO of Nauticus Robotics (NASDAQ: KITT) & Lead of NASA’s Robonaut 2 and Valkyrie humanoid programs.With nearly 30 years of experience building humanoid robotics (from human-rated space manipulation at NASA Johnson Space Center to subsea autonomous robots) Nic brings a veteran, unfiltered perspective to the commercial humanoid market. Together with Co-Founders Dr. Jerry Pratt (CTO, ex-IHMC & Figure AI) and Jide Akinyode (COO, ex-NASA & Nauticus), Persona AI is building modular industrial humanoids for heavy, labor-constrained industries. Rather than chasing general-purpose home helpers or $15/hr warehouse sorting, Persona targets skilled industrial trades—starting with autonomous welding humanoids for shipbuilding in partnership with HD Hyundai and POSCO.Persona AI: https://persona.ai/Nic on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolaus-radford/Ilir on X: https://x.com/IlirAliu_Ilir on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilir-aliu/Timestamps:0:00 Why the commercial humanoid robotics market has it completely wrong3:17 Growing up in rural Indiana & fixing mechanics out of necessity5:31 Decathlon, severe arthritis & learning "tenacity squared" as a founder8:16 CB radios, 286/386 PCs, and entering the early Internet at Purdue12:35 The 2000 Wired cover that sparked a 30-year humanoid obsession15:23 Getting lost at NASA JSC and stumbling upon Robonaut 123:18 Camping in the Texas desert: Building amateur rockets during the early SpaceX era25:25 Why networking is the lifeblood of deep tech partnerships28:00 Storytelling for VCs: Why presentation skills are learned, not innate30:50 From 15 years at NASA (Robonaut 2 & Valkyrie) to becoming an entrepreneur35:47 Taking space tech underwater: Building Aquanaut & taking Nauticus public on NASDAQ36:41 Partnering with Jerry Pratt to start Persona AI37:36 Why general-purpose "Me-Too" robots face an ROI dead end38:37 Targeting skilled trades: Why shipbuilding and heavy industry need humanoid welders41:46 GM assembly lines & the brutal reality of automotive cycle times44:42 The home humanoid myth: "Can we all just stop this? There is zero ROI."48:34 First-time founders vs. Veteran founders: Tech obsession vs. Cash flow & GTM49:50 Raising a $42M pre-seed & closing a $100M+ seed round51:20 Delivering humanoid welders to HD Hyundai in 24 months52:35 "Look what we built in 90 days": Calling out fake startup timelines