Evan Beard is the co-founder and CEO of Standard Bots, building AI-trained industrial robot arms designed to automate real factory work, not demos:In this episode, Evan shares a founder path that started in software startups and Y Combinator long before robotics. Seeing engineers at YC building giant robots convinced him this was a “cheat code on life” and he taught himself mechanical and electrical engineering to make it possible 

We talk about the early years spent building prototypes in a small apartment, running more than one hundred calls with manufacturers, and discovering the same problem every time. Companies wanted automation, but robots were too expensive and too difficult to program 

Evan explains why Standard Bots focuses on usable automation instead of chasing hype. The goal was not a slightly better robot but something ten times easier to deploy, trained through demonstration and physical AI rather than complex programming 

We also discuss surviving the near-death phase, raising funding weeks before running out of money, rebuilding electronics during the chip shortage, and learning electrical engineering while debugging exploding circuit boards remotely 

A conversation about persistence, customer obsession, and why the future of robotics will be decided by real ROI on factory floors, not humanoid spectacle.

Episode ID: 1000750385142

GUID: 3febfb36-e937-4b74-a2e1-013cb1fcae93

Release Date: 19/02/2026, 01:37:52