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ROS Goss
ROS Goss is powered by the team at Dwight & Company — a specialized sales and marketing agency that lives at the intersection of automation, robotics, and storytelling. We work with everyone from massive integrators to stealth startups, helping them grow with the right strategy and messaging.
So why a podcast? Honestly, we never planned on doing this. But after years in the industry, we kept hearing incredible stories — not just about technology, but about the people behind it. And we realized those stories needed a place to be told.
ROS Goss is where we share the human side of a very automated industry. We’ll talk about innovation and thought leadership, but also mentorship, customer success, and the relationships that make this industry tick. We’re sitting down with some of the most inspiring voices in automation to have real, honest conversations — the kind we don’t always make time for, but really should.
This isn’t just about robotics and automation. It’s about the people building it and we want you to meet them.
ROS Goss
Get Smart on Robotics Fast: A Crash Course
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Almost everyone selling, marketing, or hiring into robotics today came from somewhere else, and the industry is moving too fast to fake your way through it. So we sat down with one of the most trusted voices in the space to talk about how outsiders can actually get up to speed.
Eugene Demaitre is the Editorial Director of Robotics at WTWH Media, where he oversees editorial across The Robot Report and Automated Warehouse websites. He helps run the Robotics Summit & Expo and RoboBusiness events. Gene has attended robotics events and visited deployments worldwide, and he has spoken with many of the top experts to learn where the real signal lives.
We get into the map of the industry, the trade groups that matter, the vocabulary that gives people away, and the disconnect between what vendors talk about and what buyers actually care about. Eugene shares which publications and voices he would point a newcomer to, which events earn the travel budget, and what separates the people who build real fluency from the ones who stay stuck at surface level.
If you are new to robotics, leading people who are, or trying to sell into the space without sounding like a tourist, this one is worth your time.
Welcome And Why Gene Matters
SPEAKER_00Hi everyone, my name is Mandy Dwight, CEO and founder of Dwight Company, a specialized marketing and sales strategy agency for automation and robotics companies. I'm also the ha the host of Ross Goss, the podcast that you are listening to, watching right now. Today I'm joined by a longtime industry colleague, Eugene Demetra, who is the editorial director of robotics at WTWH Media. I've known Gene for a long time. He has run editorial at the Robot Rapport Automated Warehouse and is really one of the go-to people in this space for understanding the industry, the trends that are coming, where to look for accurate information. So I've known Gene for a while.
SPEAKER_01Madame, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be on your turf for Gene.
SPEAKER_00I was joking with Gene, and this is probably our third take of this intro, just because I had to do it over so many times because Jean is is actual media. Jean is a professional, and I'm just a woman who runs a marketing agency for robotics, and you know, Jean actually does for us.
SPEAKER_01So Yeah, but you're a professional too on the other side of things. Uh and I think it's it's right that we've had a good long working relationship where a lot of times people think that the press and marketing and PR are in opposition. And really we're all colleagues. We're trying to get the message out, we're trying to help the industry at the end of the day. And I don't want people to
Robotics Summit Takeaways And Trends
SPEAKER_01think that we're somehow antagonists because that's not true.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I had this idea. Well, first of all, I saw Gene um last week at Robotics Summit, which was really, really awesome. I enjoyed every moment of it. So thanks for putting that together.
SPEAKER_01Well, thanks for coming. No, we were very pleased with this year's Robotics Summit Nextpo. It was our seventh year.
SPEAKER_00Wow, sadly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's uh time flies.
SPEAKER_00I know.
SPEAKER_01Uh but in that time it's grown from a few hundred people to now several thousand people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh and we were really pleased with uh not only the attendance, but also uh I think we had really great speakers. Yeah, you know, I think the exhibits on the show floor were always busy. That was really nice to see. And last but not least, there was amazing networking going on during and around the event. And we were not the only thing in town that week, right? We had Boston Tech Week or Robotics Invest. And so we were very gratified to see so many, you know, people that we already know, like yourself, but also a lot of new folks, a lot of students, a lot of startups, a lot of investors coming into the industry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, I thought it was interesting that it was Boston Tech Week. And being such a robot person, somebody had to tell me it was Boston Tech Week. I go, why are all these people Boston Tech Week? I'm like, Don't you mean robotics summit and robotics invest? And like, no, also that.
SPEAKER_01Well, we were happy to be part of that tech week, and and certainly there were a lot of events beyond robotics going on in Boston. Um, but we were grateful that people came to us and you know, uh hopefully they'll keep doing that as as the show grows.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and I think, yeah, I I would definitely like if you guys could co-host, because I was nervous, like it was the day after a holiday. Um, you know, were you gonna get the people? But it seemed like the turnout was amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, turnout was amazing. And we're gonna be you know a week after Memorial Day again next year at uh Heinz Convention Center because uh the manino of the BCEC is gonna be in renovation or something.
SPEAKER_00It needs it.
SPEAKER_01Uh so uh we'll be uh closer to downtown Boston. Yep. And again, Boston's one of the big tech hubs of the country. Yeah. Certainly for robotics. Uh so there's a reason why we have it here. Not just because I happen to live nearby, but also uh there's a lot of companies, a lot of great infrastructure that we've been part of for a long time.
SPEAKER_00No, it's so true. Well, the Heinz is is nice and easy, and it's been a while since I've been. I think the last show was the vision show I went to with the Heinz. Oh yeah. The NA3 event. Interesting.
Getting Smart Fast Without Faking It
SPEAKER_00So, you know, I had an idea to call Gene specifically because I've been getting asked, you know, I I'm new to the industry. How do I get smart on the industry like really, really quick? And and what do I do? Um, and I went back to me, you know, decades ago, sitting there saying, okay, now I'm gonna sell robots. How do I go into a room with somebody that's known automation, known robotics, known all of these things for decades? How do I play in that space? How do I sound like I know what I'm talking about? And I thought about what I did, and one of the people that I connected with was Gene. And I read what he wrote, I you know, read the WTH, uh WTWH um, you know, family of news, all of those different things. Um I said, how about I just call Gene and see if he'll talk to us about what we should do to get really smart on that.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm I'm certainly grateful that you reached out. And obviously I've you're remiss if I didn't say you should start with the robot report and automated warehouse and WTWH's family websites like engineering.com, design world, packaging OEM, they're all great. Uh but that's just the starting point, right? And I know everyone's time is limited. I know that uh it's a fast-paced world, but to really become adept at addressing the industry need, you have to learn lingo, you have to get a feel for what event concerns of the moment are. So obviously right now everyone's talking about AI. Oh, yeah. Two years ago, that might not have been the case. Or uh what industries shouldn't you really be focusing on versus where's the hype? There's a way of finding that out. Obviously, our websites are one place to start, but attending the right events, talking to folks like you. Uh there's a lot of different things that you should do in the course of learning the industry because um engineers can smell fear. They'll know. Yes, they can. They'll know right away if you're making stuff up. Yeah. And and you know, it's taken us a while to learn things too. I didn't come into the industry with an engineering background, but I had worked around IT for a long time. I worked as a journalist for a while, and so that helped. It's a matter of asking a lot of questions, and there is no dumb question. The only people say, Oh, this is stupid questions. Like, the only stupid question is the ones you don't ask.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's so true.
SPEAKER_01Because you really have to say, hey, you know, what's an AMR? It's okay to ask that. Yeah. Because odds are there's other people in the room who had the same question but were afraid to ask.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's so true. Yeah, I mean, my motto is like you find the smartest people in the room and you just hang out with those people as much as you can and just learn all the things. Like I remember early on going to like RosCon, I had no business being in that room at all. But just hearing, you know, the passion and hearing about how people were, you know, using, you know, Ross to solve very hard robotic challenges that would eventually make their way into the warehouse space.
SPEAKER_01Well, and we had Vajie as one of my keynote last week. And what's great about him and great about the Ross community is that they they're they're trying to bring people in. So they want to explain things. They will say, oh, you know, it's not just a matter of procedure calls and writing code. It's a matter of saying, okay, how do we fit into the wider revised ecosystem? Because what makes robotics different from other technology is that it is inherently collaborative. Yes. You have to get mechatronics engineers, software engineers, hardware engineers. You have to get them all to play together.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And no matter what kind of robot you're working on or what kind of use case you're working on, you have to draw through a lot of different disciplines. And that's an art. We've seen a lot of companies struggle with that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's also when it works well, it's like jabs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, people come up with new things.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01And uh it's a community that is still very open to all kinds of people coming in. And that's one of the reasons that, again, we love going to master bodies events.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're awesome.
SPEAKER_01Because you get everyone from, you know, a PhD PhD student who's already forgotten more than I'll ever learn, right? To a founder who has the war wounds of fundraising and and try to commercialize something to someone who's gone through multiple iterations, to they're really big companies that are sort of circling like sharks. It's like, okay, what's the next big thing? How do I benefit from it?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yeah. I mean, well, that is the the infrastructure, right? And I tell people all the time, like, your product is not just the product. Right. You need to be talking to everybody else that what sometimes they're competitors, right? And find out what they're interested in. You need to be talking with component suppliers, you know, like let's say you have a bin-picking robot, you need to be talking to conveyor people, you need to be talking to AMR companies, you know, all those different things. It's a very connected universe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and there's so much upstream and downstream. The days of saying, oh, we're gonna build a technology, and we're just gonna drop and it will solve everything. It's like most people don't know better now, yeah, certainly since the pandemic. And I would argue that if you think uh that you have a technology that's gonna solve everything, maybe try focusing. And so can it change. We've seen a lot of very successful companies pivot. Yes. When they start out and oh, we're gonna serve the consumer market, and then they have to go to commercial, or we're gonna do industrial inspection, but then they realize, oh, there's inventory management is another area. And so there's a lot of adjacent areas that you can really benefit from, but you're not gonna know that in a vacuum. Yeah, the only way to find that out is by meeting a lot of people, reading voraciously, and and always being open to learn, but you also have to identify what your core competences are and stick to those as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I it's interesting because Geekort and at Texas, uh not the state, the software company, you know, was on the podcast last year and he said, Mandy, the end user has gotten so much smarter.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I I think it like going back to that's why if you're working in a robotics company right now and you don't know a lot about where, like where the bodies are buried, what the past landscape is, you need to get smart on it really fast.
SPEAKER_01And not only are the end users more savvy, but the entire ecosystem continues to evolve. Yes. So it's right to say, oh, I have a unique value proposition. The odds are someone else has already thought about it. And why reinvent the wheel? Maybe to build on other success or learn from what others have done because the markets are maturing. And so if you're building a warehouse robot, well, there's a lot of warehouse robots already out there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there are.
SPEAKER_01How do you make sure that you're doing something that is gonna be a game changer in some way?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. And uh now everyone's looking to AI and software as the next level. Yeah, and that's great too, but a lot of people are chasing
Terms That Expose The Newcomer
SPEAKER_01it. So you have to understand how does it fit together?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's so true. So, you know, like one qu one thing that I would always say is if somebody would ask me something, I would say, I don't know, let me get back to you. And because actually I learned that when I used to teach 11th grade English, because they my student, my teacher that taught me, she's like, they're gonna smell fear on you, and that brought me back to what you said about engineers. Um, you know, are there any terms that if you don't know it, it's a dead giveaway that you don't understand the space?
SPEAKER_01It's funny, I I was meeting with people at a trade show with a salesperson, and this is a couple of jobs ago, and they didn't know what uh AMR Thomas Moloma or AGV automated guided vehicle. They didn't know what those meant. And and that you can see the look in the person's eyes as they were talking to us, is like they registered that, right? Um, but there's a lot of terms that are commonly misused. Yeah AI is a big umbrella. Yeah. That's misused a lot. Is it machine learning? Is it genre AI? Yeah. Is it human machine interface? What are we what flavor of AI? I always ask that when I'm talking to people when I'm conducting interviews, is okay, you say you're an AI-driven X, manufacturing, supply chain, robot, whatever. And I'll say, what do you mean by that? Yeah. Are you simply doing navigation algorithms? That's great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But that's not particularly groundbreaking anymore.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? Whereas uh another term that's used a lot right now is robotics as a service.
SPEAKER_00Oh, all the time. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And do you mean paper pick? Do you mean leasing? Do you mean subscription? Uh where's that service coming from? Is it coming from the uh service provider? Is it coming from the entity trader? Is it coming from the vendor? Yeah. Right? There's so many different models that that term can be easily misconstrued. That's true. And unless you know what model, what flavor of RAS they're using, you can't then decide can they actually deliver what they're promising.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so whether you're an end user or a supplier, you have to be able to justify that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's so true. Like,
Physical AI And The Valuation Game
SPEAKER_00okay, so I'm gonna ask you about a term, and I want your honest opinion: physical AI. I mean, as a marketing person, I feel like robotics might have gotten a little bit of a rebrand. What are your thoughts on it?
SPEAKER_01It did. I I say this to someone who we have webinars and reports on physical AI, so we're on the bad line as much as everyone else. But we cover it because that's a term of art that people are using. What does physical AI mean? Ideally, it should be AI that's using real-world data ultimately to work to affect atoms and not just bits. And that's obviously where robotics comes in. Um, but we've been told many times, as we were in previous revolutions, that oh, uh, if we put physical AI in our name or in our briefing, we're gonna get a better valuation. I hear and more investment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I hear that.
SPEAKER_01And I I think that's unfortunate. I mean, it's human nature, that's how investment works.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But uh physical AI to me should be something that refers really to AI plus robotics. And if it's only AI, then it's something else. Yes. And if it's only physical, it's industrial automation or more conventional robotics, and not necessarily cutting edge that's implied by that term.
SPEAKER_00So speaking of, you know, we're in a noisy industry, very noisy. How do you know which sources
How Editors Vet Hype And Claims
SPEAKER_00to trust to find the right information?
SPEAKER_01We spend a lot of time on that. I mean, it's sometimes it's trial and error. Yeah. You get outreach from someone on social media and they have a hot tip. Well, we have to see how that plays out, but we also have to do our due diligence to make sure to validate it. We get a lot of pitches that don't go anywhere. And it's not because we're mad at the PR firm or that we don't think the company is good, but that we have to take our time. I'm very, as an editor, I'm very strict with our team. And I anytime someone says first, best, most, like we strip that out. Because with all due respect, that is not necessarily uh something that can be proven.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? We're the first human art robot company to do this. It's like odds are someone else maybe in China is doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_00Maybe on this street.
SPEAKER_01Maybe on the same street.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's one thing. You have to develop a good PS meter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, two is you have to have a lot of diverse sources.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? So if someone's telling us, oh, there's this trend, uh, like everyone's interested in drones for defense right now. Yeah. Great. Uh, but what does that actually mean for the industry? Or how does that affect procurement, or how does that affect uh the way in which we program autonomy? Right? So you have to come at it from multiple dimensions. Now that's our job, is to go through a lot of that for the audience for the readers. But um I would say it's great to take in a lot of information, but I would not take anything at face value on the first try.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and again, I'm a professional skeptic as I tell people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh so I have to be a little bit leery. But on the other hand, we see a lot of really promising startups. Yeah. We don't know how far they'll get. And and again, developing that ability to say, isn't something that maybe an investor is interested in because they're like, oh, this is where the new ideas are coming from. Yeah. Whereas if you're an end user, you don't want that risk.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01Right. You want something that's been proven. You want to talk to reference customers if they exist. You want to see case studies of actual deployments, you want to know what is their plan for scaling a fleet or design for manufacturing. How are they going to make sure that they serve this total addressable market that everybody loves to talk about? And that's another term that's often misused.
SPEAKER_00Total addressable, yes.
SPEAKER_01There are plenty of research firms that will say, oh, the total addressable market for fiscal AI is $5 trillion by 2030. How do you verify that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what are they using to come up with that number? And how are they comparing that against previous technology trends that may or may not have blown up?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. Uh everyone's like, no one saw the PC or the internet or the mobile revolutions as they actually unfolded. Right. Right? We all sort of were along for the ride.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01With robotics and automation and now physical AI, it's a similar thing. We all have an idea of where it's headed, yeah. And we can make educated guesses. But to claim that, oh, we know for a fact that we're all going to be rolling in money in five years. Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00A lot of people have said that to be Ged in my life, and it didn't pan out.
SPEAKER_01You know, even I would compare so the humanoid and AI wave, which we're seeing right now. Yeah, we are. Uh, although I think it's actually slowly. I think it's starting to level off a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um, but that wave that we've seen, I would compare it to the autonomous vehicle wave that we saw right around the time of the pandemic, where Kit were telling me five years ago, the next year everyone will have a self-driving car in your driveway. That obviously didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_01Now, five years later, yes, there are fleets of rubber taxis out in the world, all over the world. That's great. Still waiting for them to come to Boston.
SPEAKER_00But no, they're all in my parking garage.
SPEAKER_01They're mapping, they're not actually running.
SPEAKER_00They're just taking up spaces that I would like to park in, is what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01I know. Well, you see the dome and you know immediately what it is, right? The LIDAR, sensors. Yeah. Um, and again, great progress has been made, but the market turned out to be different than people assumed. They thought, oh, that's gonna go parallel with electrification. Well, electrification faltered, so that's not true.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then they're like, oh, it's maybe individual consumers. It turns out it's a lot easier to scale up with fleets, right? So Uber and Waymo are leading because of that. Uh I'm I'm in the US, I'm I'm still waiting for trucking to really catch on. But we see really promising stuff going on in the southwest around that. But to say, oh, we know where humanoids are gonna be, right now, all the humanoids that are in commercial trials are doing things that industrial robots can probably do better. I don't know. But they have to start somewhere.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they do. They do have to start somewhere.
SPEAKER_01And so where that form factor is really gonna be useful, we're not really sure yet. Is it gonna be in hospitals helping people? Maybe. Is it gonna be in the home, unloading your dishwasher, which is a lot a lot of trials lately that I've been doing? Yeah. Maybe. Uh is it gonna be more likely doing some sort of uh diverse set of machine tending activities? That's where all the automakers are looking at it. Yeah. Can we set up a wiring harness that's a good thing?
SPEAKER_00Oh, not the wiring harness with robotics. I've gotten so many of those projects on my desk. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh it's a good place to start, but is that the final destination? I I think not. Yeah. Uh I think the the promise of AI is to really make robots easier to program, easier to interact with, uh, that they're able to learn and eventually get better on their own, but we're not there yet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And I mean, the end user, right? We talked about them being more sophisticated with what they know, but also do you think that they're more risk-averse to some of these things?
SPEAKER_01Some of that
End User Risk And Choosing A Focus
SPEAKER_01depends on economic headwinds. So depending on the space that you're in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh automotive manufacturing has definitely taken a hit in those last few years. Yeah, it's starting to come back. Uh supply chain much the same way after the pandemic, everyone assumed, oh, everyone's gonna be doing e-commerce for everything all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then they took a hit because people had overbought.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so uh a lot of this is cyclical. That's the other thing when I tell people how do you learn about robots past is focus in not on the breadth of robot, because that's our job. And it's a lot from drones to AV to warehouse and factories, it's a lot to take in. But focus on if I'm in healthcare, let me mainly see what's going on in healthcare.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Uh, yeah, you want to keep an eye out for other things, but it's very easy to lose direction. And uh there are some media outlets that thrive on that, right? They they're they're more general tech. And uh, you know, I tease my fellow tech reporters that it's fine to write about robots as one piece of technology, but if you're trying to learn about robotics, don't read somebody that's gonna you know complain about robots versus jobs, or don't read about uh, oh, here's a cool humanoid that fell down and did something, right? That's not gonna help you in business. No. Uh now if you're working on humanoids, yeah, you should pay attention to that. But in most cases, it you would be much better off saying, okay. Let me learn the language of hospitals. That's what we're doing. Or why is searchable robotics so far ahead of hospital logistics? Yeah. Well, because they made certain design decisions. And there are certain companies that got involved early on. And that's how you understand the market.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's so true. That's so true. And I do think like you need to actually study the space to an extent, right? Like you there's one thing to know warehouse robotics, but you actually need to walk a warehouse in the whole flow of goods, how it comes into the building and whatnot, right? And just really deeply understand that. You know, I got a good question the other day from somebody. Um, you know, they're selling a very new product, and the end user says, I don't want to be first. What should that person say to that end user?
SPEAKER_01Well, they should have found that out maybe earlier in the conversation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You you need someone who's willing to take on a risk. Yeah. You do need that first user who is willing to uh whether they already have the scale and they're willing to take that risk, which is one reason why the V3PLs are so active.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're very active.
SPEAKER_01They try everything, but they can afford to try everything. Yeah, they're so huge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? Uh but find the right partner, that is really important. And and do that commercial partnership as early in the development process as possible. Yeah. Because you'll get some guidance. Now, I would say don't put all your ends in one basket. No, whatever, yeah. Then you develop a visible product that you can't sell to anyone else. Uh, but at the same time, you want to make sure that you have uh someone who can tell you honestly, like is what we need.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's how it has to start. And if they don't want to be first, it means they've either been burned.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Or they're afraid that you're gonna hit them up for more and more capital and deadlines inevitably slide.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01And you have to provide them assurances that you're gonna deliver within the scope of the pilot. Pilot periodatory is a thing.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it is a real thing.
SPEAKER_01And a lot of really great ideas, really great robotic startups, get stuck there because they can't figure out how we get from a research project to test and then out into the market. And and it's often that that last step as a stumbling block. I agree. But if they had worked with the industry earlier, am I solving a need that isn't already being solved by a commodity product?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Is it something that automation is the best choice, right? I mean, most warehouses and most factories are still pretty heavily manual.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01But identifying what steps in that process to automate, again, that takes time and effort. Uh say, oh, I see this person doing this, I'm just gonna automate that, that might not be the place that needs it the most.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that always happens. Like the the end user thinks, oh, the robot definitely goes here, but then you walk the factory floor and you're like, really? It's it's there.
SPEAKER_01Right. Or it might people may come back and say, well, we like this, but we want that also.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? And then you have to work with integration.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Uh that, you know, a lot of times it was, oh, we have a mobile robot, move stuff around. That's great. But what about all the other equipment that's on the floor? Or about the other people that are on the floor? And you're gonna coordinate off an entire area to experiment or to do that. Nobody wants to interrupt their live production operations for a technology test.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you got to, I think you have to sandbox some of these things until they they prove out, like even past SAT, I think, to an extent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And so uh someone not wanting to be first, that makes sense. Odds are uh that it means that they have some issues and and maybe they're not the right partner. Yeah. Or find out why they don't want to be first. Is it is it a financial risk? Is it reputational risk? I can't tell you the number of companies that we talk to, or we're trying to find out who their partners are, uh, even down to the component level. Oh, yeah. And they won't tell me. I'm like, well, wouldn't you be proud that your problem is used in X? And they're like, yeah, we would be, but we all all signed in the A's. That's a real problem in this industry.
SPEAKER_00It's their secret sauce.
SPEAKER_01They all see it as their secret sauce, but if they're gonna grow, they need to get that message out there. And I I say the component providers and the integrators are often the unsung heroes of robots because they're working behind the scenes.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And nobody wants to name them.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01It's like, well, you're not gonna achieve new partnerships or not easily, unless you get you get your name out there a little bit. And you know, we at automize sometimes the case studies that we run. It's like they're working with a major apparel retailer, or they're working with uh, you know, a gear and motor provider based in the west.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
What To Read And Why Events Matter
SPEAKER_01The industry will figure that out, maybe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But we want to protect our sources. Yeah, absolutely. And we also want to, at the end of the day, inform people on like, okay, this is how things actually work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Versus the ideal that you might have been taught in school.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's so true. So for so I um I make fun of myself. I wake up in the morning and instead of like doing normal things, I will look through industry news, I will look through LinkedIn. That's like my morning scroll. Like, I get all these newsletters delivered to my inbox. I kind of go through them, you know, and and look at what's important, what I need to know for the day, interesting things. What do you read?
SPEAKER_01A lot.
SPEAKER_00Like, what do you I mean, where do you get your information from?
SPEAKER_01So uh a variety of sources. One, uh there are the usual news aggregators. Yep. We get all the headlines, all the press releases, and we pay attention to those. We also have cultivate our own sources. Obviously, there are things that uh help with very specific, again, verticals or very specific types of technology. Uh we also um pay close attention to a lot of financial news.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh because you can tell if a company is filing for an IPO versus filing for an extension on their bankruptcy proceedings. Yeah. It essentially about the health of the industry. Yeah. Uh I've been lucky I've been around long enough that a lot of stuff just comes at me. Yeah. Unsolicited.
SPEAKER_00You're a known entity.
SPEAKER_01And and so we get a lot of hot tips through social media. Yeah. LinkedIn is absolutely uh, in our space, a must.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it is. Um it's changed a lot, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_01It has. Uh you know, in the beginning it was mainly people looking for work.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01And and it's still useful for that. But now it's uh the one area of social media that's still relatively reputable when so many others have been discredited. Uh or become more about personality or more about arts and culture, more about politics. LinkedIn is still where it's like, okay, I just want to talk business.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I agree with that. And it's been very, you know, it's been decently rigid with that, which I appreciate.
SPEAKER_01And and again, we all promote ourselves, but we do so within the confines of, you know, appropriate. Trying to serve our audience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_01Um and then the other thing that I I we spend a lot of time doing is I go to as many trade shows as we can. Yeah, me too. Um, which by this point in the year we're starting to get a little tired of it.
SPEAKER_00I have fatigue, trade show fatigue.
SPEAKER_01I know. Well, that's why I was so grateful that you were at our show last week.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I had to, I just walked over. It was great, actually.
SPEAKER_01Going through endless airports and uh seeing the same, you know, grilled chicken and uh and bumping into the same people. Yeah. But you know what? There's no better way of face-to-face meeting a lot of people. And um, yeah, even though I tell people, oh, when you go to the really big trade shows like Automate, Comat, and Modex, uh, you're gonna be overwhelmed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Unless you know what you're looking for and you know here or there you see, it those are really big shows. Or CS. Yeah. Even bigger. Yeah. Right. Um, but they're worth going to because they're survey the landscape. Now you might not know what you're seeing at first, um, but there's no other way to hear the language physical eye. When every other presentation or every other booth has something about that.
SPEAKER_00Maybe I should pay attention.
SPEAKER_01Maybe I should pay attention.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. And it'll be another buzzword in two or three years. Who knows? Um, but you need to know that language because that's what's speaking in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I think this industry, like, I I don't know about other industries. I've been in this one too long. Like, it's a very much a face-to-face. Like, you know, you know that you're gonna see the same people, but then you're gonna bring more people into this networking circle every time you go to these events. But it's just like these events are so important to go to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's very collegial, and and there are occasional sharp elbows.
SPEAKER_00Of course, always.
SPEAKER_01Um, but I will say uh it's still a young industry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Where when I was covering client server technologies or early at cloud, like those are companies like IBM and Microsoft that have been around for decades.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? And here, if you run into a robotics company that's 20 years old, they're the evidence-free.
SPEAKER_00That's an old company at this point, right?
SPEAKER_01The majority of them are under 10 years old.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so it's still a young industry, and still the only way to learn who's out there, what they're doing, is to get out there. The other thing is that you might think, oh, this problem's been solved. Yeah. Indoor navigation's been solved. Maybe. But what about connecting it to barcode readers?
Real Warehouse Pain Points Worth Automating
SPEAKER_01What about doing inventory scanning with mobile robots or drones? What about there's so many things, and there's no single way necessary to solve some of these problems.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's multiple.
SPEAKER_01So, for example, we we do a lot with truck unloading right now.
SPEAKER_00I love truck unloading. I think it's super fun.
SPEAKER_01Like whether you're at manifest or modex, you know, there's so many different approaches right now. And it's hard to say if any one of them is going to win out. I think it will depend on the load. Yeah. It'll depend on the on the yard or the dock. Uh, but to see that evolution also in real time, yeah. It's really cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's like the next exciting thing. That's really cool.
SPEAKER_01To me, that's that that threshold, that frontier area for at least for warehouse robotics. And so we cover that pretty closely. Yeah. And the only way to learn about it is to walk the floor and say, oh, this person's uh slip revised, they're taking out the entire load at once.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01Or here's Boston Dynamics with piece of each is, right?
SPEAKER_00Like essentially pulling out the individual box. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or a couple of years ago, there are companies like Moon and Honeywell that would go in and they'd have a like a conveyor and it was suction comes at the suck the whole thing out of it.
SPEAKER_00On down a conveyor, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01And and you know, there are pros and cons to each of those approaches. Yeah. But it it's really interesting to see that people are applying the technology to serve that need.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Because if you've ever stood in a hot truck bed in Texas in the 120-degree heat, sweating and trying to unload what's essentially a giant Django puzzle.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then or trying to load it, like, is that the best you're sort of a human being?
SPEAKER_00Things people should not be doing. No. Like that's the number one that comes to mind.
SPEAKER_01Or when I'm in an airplane, we fly a lot out of Boston, and you see somebody, some poor person in the raincoat, the icing the wing.
SPEAKER_00I know.
SPEAKER_01And like, I'm pretty sure a robot could do that.
SPEAKER_00There are a lot of things, you know, like actually, yeah, airport things. I mean Lung, lungy on.
SPEAKER_01Uh I've seen some problems on your things with people movers, right? For you know, getting a wheelchair to and from a location.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a nightmare in there.
SPEAKER_01It's a challenge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We can automate some of that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and leave the human contact for where it's most valuable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I agree with that. I agree.
Building A Robotics Career And Network
SPEAKER_00Um, so we talked about talked about events. Um, so somebody calls you up and they say, I want, I'm new to robotics gene. I want to start building my career. What is the first thing that they need to do?
SPEAKER_01Aside from subscribe to the robot report newsletter, uh, the first thing they should do is they should identify what interests them the most, right? That's good advice. Uh if you're brand new to the space and you know, I talk to a lot of students, for example, and they're excited because they've seen the technologies and they have a vague notion of what's out there. They may have been in their first, you know, revised competition, or they might have taken some classes of an undergrad, and that's great, but that's a long way from being an actual member of the community or participating in the ecosystem. Yeah. So um, you know, where is your passion? And and that might be building things, that might be bringing things together. Uh, a lot of people right now are concerned about how AI affects people who are just getting into the space.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I hear that.
SPEAKER_01And so uh I would not specialize in something that's rote or routine because that's likely that automated. But on the other hand, you have to understand the basic functions. So there are plenty of educational programs. I would certainly point to the professional associations like IEEE, yeah, I agree. Uh if you're in a particular vertical industry, the industry associations may have resources. Uh, and then depending on where you're located, there are great programs through Mass Robotics, through PRN, through the various regional hubs that will help you learn about the industry. Attend meetup. There's some great meetups in Boston Area.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, all the time. All the time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I've gone to them not knowing anything about coding or the engineering side, but I learned stuff. Or uh, you know, again, I'm fortunate and I see all these things, but if you're interested in marine robotics, obviously you're not going to get hired by Woods Hole out of the game. But uh there will probably be events that you can attend and just to learn. And once you learn about what's involved, you know, oh, I really want to get involved in you know, tagging whales or anything track near migration. There are absolutely people working on that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and they can always use help. And even though it seems like a tough job market, it is a tough job market for grads right now. I agree. And I have a lot of sympathy for that, um, there are opportunities, but it's going to be dependent on you to be the one to do the homework, uh, to do the research. And even those of us who are mid-career, like you have to understand in this day and age, you have to learn that no matter what field you're in, and I talked to a lot of executives, and they've all pivoted in their careers multiple times.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like they start out as a founder, or they start out on the deployment side. But along the way, they learn other things, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh, you know, don't get intimidated by that, be open to it. But as soon as you have an inkling of the direction, follow it as far as it will take you. And then along the way, you're gonna meet contacts, you're gonna meet mentors, you're gonna meet people who maybe got into it and then got out. Uh and and that they can warn you. It's like, well, if you really want to do this, get ready because it's a tough market to break into. Right. And and that's the other thing is that uh sometimes you don't really what's the easiest question.
SPEAKER_00There is no yeah, that's a great question. There's none, right?
SPEAKER_01Uh I think revise appeals to people who like to challenge.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_01Right? It's sort of like aerospace. Yeah. You know it do it because it's easy, you know it because it's interesting. The real challenge of this century. And if you're willing to take that on, you will never be bored. Uh and that's the thing that excites me every morning that I get up, is like, okay, what am I gonna read that is brand new?
SPEAKER_00I learn every day. And also, like, you know, there is people think that it's a very closed community and that not very welcoming, and but that's actually not true.
SPEAKER_01No, you know, I think because it's still a small community, I think people are turned off by that, or they may come to a meetup and and realize everybody knows each other. Um, don't let that stop you. People, once you get past that initial, oh, you're new, uh, people are very welcoming. It sometimes you have to find the right venue perhaps. Yes. Right? So that's where a giant train show may not be the best place to start, depending on your own temperament. You might want to go to a meetup and stay. Yep. That's local. Or you might want to seek out a local robots company and see if they're giving tours or see if they're in a meet with you and say, hey, I'd really like to learn more about XYMZ. And you have to also know that some companies are more popular than others. Yep. Right? So you're trying to get for anything to fossil dynamics, that's gonna require a little bit more qualification up front. Yeah. Uh, but with what 180 companies in the just in our area.
SPEAKER_00So many.
SPEAKER_01And there's more in New York, there's more in Texas, there's more in Georgia. You know, I tell people, no matter where you are in the world, you will find robotics in the most unlikely of places.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you'll find your people, which is really exciting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Actually, a large part of our audience is in India, and and I'm very excited. That's interesting. Cool. Uh that's a big chunk of the world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that is a large innovation.
SPEAKER_01I always tell my American audience, it's like, we should we would ignore the rest of the world at our peril. Right? It's not just the confidential from China. Yeah. But it's the innovation from India, it's the use cases from Europe. Yeah. It's the deployments in the rest of Asia. And and again, it's a global industry, so why not take advantage of that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and learn from each other, really. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming to talk to me about this today. I mean, I always love talking to you anyway. Might as well record it because we probably would have had the same conversation at the outskirts of Robot Report. Or when I run into you and automate, that's my next trip. What about you?
SPEAKER_01Uh, I don't know what my next one is. I know we're sending my colleague Steve to automate, so you'll see him there. Oh, you're not going to I'm not going this year. Uh I went to every or not every, but I went to a lot of trade shows last year. I'm trying to split the wealth within our team. So uh because again, it we have to listen to the industry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's the better if we all do it right on my team. And that we're a small team, but we want to make sure that we have our ear to the ground. And uh so whenever you see any of us from the robot report, uh, don't hesitate to stop as it makes it hard for us to get through a show floor. Yes. But we're always happy to meet readers and listeners. We're always happy to uh share stories on or off the record.
SPEAKER_00Uh and Gene will tell you if it's off the record, he will tell you it's all I will always respect people's confidence.
SPEAKER_01We we don't want to burn our sources, but at the same time, that's how we learn. Right? I learn from talking to people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and if I'm the toughest person in the room, I'm doing it right.
SPEAKER_00That's so true.
SPEAKER_01You know, and that's fortunately that's pretty odd. Me too, as an English major. I uh I was a policy time manager, but you go down to MIT and it's like, wow, these people are are brilliant, and and I want to help them build that future that we all aspire to.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_01When robots are helping people live better lives. And uh from agriculture to healthcare to manufacturing uh and bringing manufacturing back in the US, there's so many opportunities. Yeah. You know, finding the funding is a challenge, sure. I think that's the hardest part. There are a lot of once you get into it, you're like, oh yeah, I gotta figure that out. But that's where it's all teamwork.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I agree.
SPEAKER_01And the most successful teams are the ones that have messed people together.
SPEAKER_00Well, they're diverse, right? Yeah. There's somebody that can raise the money, there's somebody that can build the product, there's somebody that's good on the customer side. Yeah. And those teams win.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and so it's not just having a good technology, although that is it helps. That's a start.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But uh you can't just rely on that. You have to have someone with business savvy. You have to have someone who is outgoing and willing to help sprint the message to the world. And uh if we can play a small role in that, we're very happy.
SPEAKER_00You do. Honestly, like uh, you know, if you're not reading robot report, you need to be reading it. It's been it's actually one of the um pieces that's been around for a long time, actually.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're we're very proud of it. It's been around for probably over 15 years now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And used to cover us at Rethink at the time.
SPEAKER_01I uh way back. I'm covering you in a couple of companies. Uh so that's so true. You know, we we do know where the bodies are buried. Yes, yes, we do. And to be fair, when when the industry does go through tough patches, we write about it as objectively as we can. I'm always cognizant of the fact that we sometimes companies have actually approached us when they have layoffs or when they have problems because they know what the objective will vote, we'll try to get all sides of the situation, uh, rather than say, oh look, this company having trouble, or it's doom and gloom, this company's having trouble, therefore the whole industry is having trouble. That may or may not be true, but uh at the end of the day, I care about the engineers who are involved, I care about the businesses that are involved, and uh I also want to see is there a lesson that we can learn from it? Yeah. And uh so it's not just about you know, floating when someone fails or jumping on their coattails when they succeed. It's really a matter of making sure that we're communicating all the ups and downs. Because it's been a while roller coaster.
SPEAKER_00It has been, and I think it's awesome how much we've learned. You know what I mean? Like I feel like uh, you know, I've been in this for over a decade, you've been in this for for a long time as well. I just feel like it's been a long time.
SPEAKER_01It's funny, I I I think I I joked on stage uh that uh Steve and I have been working on uh the uh Rogal Business event.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. For you know, I remember going to that in 2015.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and but that event's been around for going on 20. Yeah. And 20 doesn't seem like a lot in the scheme of corporate America. No. Right? And robots like dog ears. And robots, that is a very long time, you know, and and we can trace back a lot of things back to the different universities where they got started with mobile robots or picking robots or machine vision. And it's really been for us fun to see things continue to grow. And I like nothing better than when two of my friends get together. They just know each other.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So and they come up with something new. And so again, playing even a small role in this blossoming
Where To Find Gene And Listen
SPEAKER_01industry uh is really exciting for us. And if it wasn't challenging, then there would be no need for us. That's true. So there's always a need for good information, there's always a need for reliable information. And if we can help, uh know where to find us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. Find Gene's team at Automate, probably coming up next. And you know, Gene, you can find him on LinkedIn. So uh Eugene Demetra. Um, thank you so much, Gene, for being here today.
SPEAKER_01My pleasure.
SPEAKER_00And Mandy Dwight, um, CEO founder of Dwight and Company. Um, you can listen to this uh podcast episode on rosgoss.com. We're also on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, all those different channels. Um, and I will be at all these trade shows as well, as Jean mentioned. And um thanks so much, everyone, for joining us.