Speaker 0 00:00:04 <inaudible>
Speaker 1 00:00:07 Hello everyone. And welcome to the 83, the robot industry podcast. I would like to welcome all the listeners from all over the world from <inaudible> and Quebec, Costa Mesa, céline Michigan, and roll-on Missouri. I have two special guests for us today. I've got Carl boss who is the past CEO of soft robotics, Inc. Carl partnered with Dr. George Whitesides of Harvard university in 2013 to explore commercial applications for the groundbreaking soft robotics work pioneered by the white side research group in partnership with DARPA soft robotics was formed to commercialize this research in late 2013. And Carl joined then as the CEO, prior to joining soft robotics, Carl Hill, a variety of senior positions in global technology companies, Carl holds a B S E from Virginia military Institute and an MBA from the London business school. He began his career as a Naval flight officer in the United States Navy retiring from the Naval reserve in 2013.
Speaker 1 00:01:06 David Henderson is the founder and CEO of new scale robotics and new scale technologies. New scale was founded in 2002 to create unique motion solutions that deliver the smallest size, highest precision plug and play integration and to save time new scale robotics smart grippers are agile automation solutions for small part gauging data logging and sorting for high mix, small batch manufacturing, new skills technologies, micro motion innovations include Petso electric motors that move optics in mobile phone cameras and mechatronic motion modules called <inaudible> for medical, industrial and aerospace applications. All new scale products have embedded solutions. Both of you have innovation at your core and work with highly innovative companies. So I welcome you both to the podcast.
Speaker 2 00:01:56 Thank you, Jim. Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:01:59 This is the second podcast that Carl and I have created in a series of conversations about innovation in manufacturing and industrial automation. And this podcast today, this conversation is about companies harnessing innovation in the automation and manufacturing industry. So I'd like to start this conversation about innovation and what are some of the characteristics of innovative companies and, uh, Carl, we'll get you your thoughts on this first.
Speaker 2 00:02:25 Absolutely. Jim, and thanks again. And I, and this is a conversation you and I have had quite a bit, and I think innovative companies, one of the key characteristics is it's not something they give lip service to it. It really is part of the company strategy. And it is something that the chief executive talks about. It's something that the shareholders talk about. It's something that is across the board. And so in automation, a lot of times the innovation we complained about the it systems because the it manager or chief information officer isn't in the loop when we're trying to bring online. But when you go to these companies that really are innovating, you don't have those barriers because there's this alignment across all of the functions, all the organizations and the buy-in to bring innovation or create innovation within the company. And so that's, that's one of the key things is it's part of the corporate strategy and it's not something they just talk about as something they, they eat, breathe and live every day.
Speaker 1 00:03:21 Thank you, Carl and Dave, your perspective on some of the characteristics of innovative companies.
Speaker 3 00:03:27 Sure. Jim, thanks for having me on this podcast. Uh, you know, I see innovation is, is taking ideas and transforming them into practical reality. You know, innovation is, is a change that makes a measurable improvement in a business. And so this distinction between ideas and innovation is important. Uh, you know, ideas are, are nearly free and they're everywhere. It's taking those ideas and executing on them and growing something valuable. That's hard. And I think companies that are good at this, they have an external focus. They're looking up from their desks and their screens. They're looking out at other organizations, whether it's a competitor or a research lab, partner, suppliers, customers, or markets, um, they encourage multi-discipline teams. They, they value diversity and the, and the opportunity to have problems looked at from different perspectives. Uh, they have, they encourage a collaborative culture that values, uh, encourages sharing and values brainstorming. And finally it needs to be an action oriented culture that pursues the best and fastest path to deployment of new ideas.
Speaker 1 00:04:33 Thank you, Dave. And I agree with you. I think that fast part is really, really important because you can have all these ideas, which hopefully turn into innovations, but if you don't execute on them quickly, someone else will eat your breakfast.
Speaker 3 00:04:45 Sure.
Speaker 1 00:04:47 So who are some of these, uh, companies? Uh, Carl?
Speaker 2 00:04:51 Absolutely. I think there's, you know, there's a lot of examples out there, but you know, having, having been a past 3m or I think one of the things that I'd like to share about 3m is they have the 15% time that gets talked about quite a bit. And many times people say is that real? And, and they're pretty shocked when I say, look, it absolutely is, um, is you can think about the next great thing to kind of is point it's gotta be around the business, right. But if you're a manufacturing engineer, um, you could spend 15% of your time thinking about how do I innovate? How do I do something great to improve the process I'm working on the product engineers are doing the same work and then it's, it's tracked and it's rewarded. And many of the great innovations of the company were 50. Well, we call it 50% projects. And so I think that's the example of what we've just been talking about is it's, it's, it's in the fabric of the organization. It's not lip service, it's something that they do, and they bring ideas to reality, um, in a variety of ways,
Speaker 1 00:05:51 From your perspective, who are, who are they? I mean, you're, you're innovative yourself, your company, but also you work with some innovative, too
Speaker 3 00:05:58 Sure. I would highlight our partner, um, universal robots. We use universal robots embedded in our, our systems and, you know, universal robots. The, the story that I've heard is that they started out with a super question. Why can't robots make pizza in every restaurant? And, and the, you know, from that kind of thinking process, they realize, well, robots, the robot technology exists, but it's, the hardware is way too expensive. The robot software is, is way too hard to use for except by really highly skilled engineers. And the robots are dangerous when they move to be around people, they need a garden space. And so universal robots tackle those fundamental challenges by creating, looking at software and robots, the way you think about your smartphone and that is you create an app and you, they create, they, they started using a term. I don't think they coined the term, but it became popular with them collaborative robot or cobalt.
Speaker 3 00:06:59 So the word collaboration makes it very clear. Hey, you can use this robot next to people. They made a user interface that, um, is, you know, some, some users have described it as, as easy to use as a smartphone. And, uh, th then they created an ecosystem for, for companies to create apps, to work with a robot. So as a result, you know, you are a straight into a new market for cobots. They sold 50,000 as of December last year. Um, they have, um, kind of beat out the larger competitors, the larger companies that make robots have, have struggled to catch up because the mindset of thinking is so different. This program, you know, allowing third parties to install software and your robot program is, is a huge cultural barrier you get over in, in traditional Rolex companies. Um, so there's a lot of PR uh, practices. They, they have to change. So the innovation was just thinking differently about automation and bringing it, uh, to the, uh, almost democracy democratizing automation.
Speaker 1 00:08:09 Dave, I agree with you. I think, uh, uh, universal robots has done quite an interesting thing. It's even about how they sell it because they knew they couldn't sell it alone. So they have to go to a distribution model and pick a partners like you on the accessory side and then on the installation side. So it's very, very, uh, it's an exciting company. Uh, Carl, I'm going to ask this question to you. Where does innovation or the harnessing of innovation start is at the top? Is that the middle is the factory floor?
Speaker 2 00:08:38 Um, I, I do think, um, I think it could start at all levels, but I think it has to be enabled at the top. And what I mean by that is, uh, there's a great line from Ben Horowitz, the famous venture capitalist, who said, you know, traditionally big companies don't innovate because big bureaucracies are designed to kill crazy ideas. Um, and most innovation starts out as a crazy idea. I mean, you just heard from Dave, why don't robots make pizza? I, that's a, that's a crazy idea that led to collaborative robots. And so a lot of times traditional established organizations kill bad ideas because they're seen as we're going to burn resources or we're not going to make our number, or we're not going to be focused instead of saying, Hey, let's take a crazy idea and spend a little time on it. Um, three and 15% time, uh, is a great example, but you do see organizations where they understand that it, that that is how the spark works, whether it is a process engineer, um, trying to figure out how to design better fixtures, which I've personally seen, or it's a product manager coming up with new ideas for a product.
Speaker 2 00:09:42 Um, it's really that culture that allows people to entertain those crazy ideas. Um, that that I think is, is important to creating innovation,
Speaker 1 00:09:53 Carl and Dave, your perspective on where does the innovation or harnessing of innovation start.
Speaker 3 00:09:59 It certainly has to start with a strategic intent and the business objectives of the company, uh, and that's the top. Um, and when you can have an overarching idea that everyone can get behind and, you know, w we were just talking about the idea of being carbon neutral as one that's, that's overarching. You know, if you're, if you're going to be a carbon neutral company, well, everybody, a company can contribute to that in some way. Um, and so when you have that overarching brand idea, strategic content, then everybody can contribute, of course not. Everybody's has the mindset and the risk profile to do that. And, and frankly you need people in the company that they really care about making sure that every day things happen the way they're supposed to happen. And that's what a lot of companies need that, and that's essential. So you have to be able to recognize that there are that, that subset of people in your company that can really contribute, and they're all coming from all departments and then allow them to make space for them, give them permission to be, be innovative and to contribute in a, in a, in a way that, you know, really, really benefits the company.
Speaker 1 00:11:10 I think I like that idea about giving them permission. Right. And I hope we will talk about that a little bit later in the podcast curl, who is doing this, like, whose job is it? Is it the application engineer? Is it the manufacturing engineer? Is it a director of it?
Speaker 2 00:11:25 I mean, I think it's, it's at all levels. Um, and I don't think you can confine it to one area. Um, but it's gotta be that to me, that area where someone could say, Hey, let me, I've got this idea, let me run with it. Um, and you know, we were talking to Dave earlier, duper for a great point. Sometimes there's ideas that you don't want to run with and people go and they, they leave and start a company. That's how Garmin the GPS company started is, um, you, Gary and men said, Hey, we've got this thing could be a big deal to aviation. We want to work on it. And their employer said, that's not what we do. And so they went and they started Garmin and, and, and that's gone, but I, I think it is enabling that area. Um, you know, almost like the Toyota production system that we talk about is anybody can stop the line if they see an error, but anyone should be able to suggest an innovative idea, um, and, and have their, their idea heard and potentially be a seed of a great idea.
Speaker 1 00:12:21 Thank you, Carl, Dave, your thoughts on, on whose job is it any way?
Speaker 3 00:12:27 I, I think it does cut across all levels. It certainly the leadership needs to come from managers and top managers and, and the also I think the sensitivity, Hey, to listen and say, Hey, you know, this is what you just said. That's really a good idea because ideas don't always, um, show their value in a vacuum. They've gotta be tested against what what's the what's the company really need. Um, of course the extremists, everyone has ideas and they run with them and you have kind of the wild West, and that's not really gonna that doesn't successful companies don't run that way. You know, I, I think, um, you know, I was thinking also about the examples of I'm from Rochester, New York and an example of Eastman Kodak, and they're tremendously innovative, um, laboratories. They came up with digital photography and frankly created virtually all the foundational thinking around digital photography in the, in the, in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 3 00:13:29 And ultimately at the highest level of the company, decided not to pursue it because chemical photography was their bread and butter. It was their cash cow. And, uh, they, they, they just couldn't do it. So it ended up of course, proliferating, and now it's all over the world. And a lot of other companies are our leaders in digital imaging and Kodak. It really isn't anymore. So, um, it's, it's a good example of where the lower level people were the most innovative, but the top level people in the company said, no, no, we're, we're a chemical company. We're not an electronics company.
Speaker 2 00:14:04 Yeah. And Jim, if you don't mind me, I think Dave is making a really great point. And I, I worked for a company where the internal motto was obsolete your product line before your competitor does.
Speaker 1 00:14:15 Yeah. And that takes a lot of guts, doesn't it? At all kinds of different levels. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3 00:14:20 Yeah. When you crank it out, billions of dollars and 80% of margin, I mean, it's really hard to cannibalize your product.
Speaker 1 00:14:26 Yeah. Uh, and of course, being in Rochester, you're currently reminded about the Kodak Kodak situation. For sure. So let's talk a little bit about the risks, the challenges and the reward in innovation and harnessing innovation. Carl, I'll let you take a stab at this one first.
Speaker 2 00:14:42 Well, I mean, I think the, the important thing is, um, you know, there's the, the risk is you, you, you, you, you make a large, right. You know, for those of us that can remember new Coke, right. Um, I think at the time new Coke was the most market researched consumer product in the world. And it, it, it was a complete disaster. Um, and there's numerous books written on why that was. But I think that's always the fear when people think about innovation is how do we know we're going to get this right? Um, and so I think companies that do it very well, know how to, to, to manage those risks and move quickly to know whether it's good or bad, the reward is you can build amazing copies. You can solve big problems. Save mentions. Companies are saying we're going to be carbon neutral, but we don't know how to get our supply chain, our manufacturing to be that. So we're going to innovate, we're going to figure it out. Um, those are, those are pretty substantial wins, um, across the board. And so I, the thing that I always tell people is you can't have innovation without risk. And so you've gotta be comfortable with the risks if you really want to drive into innovation.
Speaker 1 00:15:50 Thank you, Carl. Um, Dave, your thoughts on risks, challenges and rewards innovation.
Speaker 3 00:15:55 Yeah. The, the phrasing comes to mind is, uh, we need to fail faster. And so the, you need to think about your idea and bring it forward in a way that you can, either you can show that it has, you know, can be move forward or not in a relatively short timeframe. You need to think in terms of weeks and months or not quarters and years. And, uh, you know, that that's, I think the way you reduce risk is you take the ESU who fail faster. And, um, you know, we have great tools. These, and what's really exciting is these kinds of, the kinds of tools are available now to help you fail faster, are available to everybody. And it's, it's certainly solid modeling, computer modeling, computer analysis, uh, and for example, FEA analysis, um, 3d printing, additive manufacturing are incredible tools to try something very, very quickly and determine, Hey, is this got merit? Can I, I can, I can, I can print it and I can show it to a couple of customers. Do they like it? Or are they telling me I I'd never buy that? And you can know that in weeks instead of months or quarters.
Speaker 1 00:17:06 Thank you, Dave. I agree with you. I think that these, the tools today are just exceptional. So if we talk a little bit about the characteristics of the CEO or the management team and companies that are successful in harnessing innovation, Carl, you've worked with some of these people who are they in? What are they like?
Speaker 2 00:17:25 They're they're they're drivers. Um, you know, a, um, someone I know who was, uh, a very successful innovative CEO, um, I, I, you uses the phrase, asymmetric results require asymmetric input and asymmetric efforts. And, and I think that is very, very important is that innovation is, is by no means easy. And so you, you have to understand that it's going to be hard. It's going to be difficult. They've made a great point about if it's not working, you got to fail fast and put it down. Um, but, but real problems that are meaningful or are going to be hard to solve. And so I think you have to have that culture of understanding. There's going to be bumps in the road. There's, it's going to be difficult, and you're gonna, you're going to have to come together to find the right way to solve these problems and figure it out.
Speaker 1 00:18:14 Thank you. And, uh, Dave, your thoughts on that, about, um, the characters, if the CEO or the management team in companies that are successful.
Speaker 3 00:18:21 I think first of all, you know, personally, you have to model for yourself and get rid of the idea of not indented here. And so be open to anybody's idea. Um, and then, and then somehow push that down through the organization, uh, so that everyone has, has the effect is expected to listen and to consider, you know, not just their own ideas, but everybody on their team or everybody that that's associated with their team. And then also you have to have a culture where failure is not something to be, uh, turned into blame and recrimination and maybe punishment it's it's, it's it's, it has to be a point of learning and possibly even celebration. If you, if you, if you, if you figured it out quickly that it wasn't going to work, but, but you know what almost inevitably, when you do that, when you have that open non incriminating process, two or three other critical ideas come up, the, the multiplication of ideas and other new new innovations will come out of that failure. And frankly helps clarify your strategy as a company. You know, you, you, when you down slightly, sometimes he'd call it down some new down select to the idea that works. You, you need to kind of recognize, Hey, the other two ideas you tried, they weren't failures, they were essential milestones to get to the proper decision. So it's that attitude of, of, uh, you know, failure is part of the process and not something to be avoided at all costs.
Speaker 1 00:19:52 Oh, I liked that. I liked the failure is part of the process for sure. And that's where, uh, Carl and our warmup, uh, we chatted a little bit about, about 3m and about the post-it note example of, uh, uh, of a failure that turned into a, probably a billion dollar industry.
Speaker 3 00:20:08 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:20:10 In our,
Speaker 1 00:20:11 In our warmup talk, we also talked about a big company going carbon neutral. So this is kind of an interesting segue into, um, a company that's doing something innovative that everybody can participate in. And Carl, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 00:20:26 I think these are, these are some of the things I, you know, just me, you know, we once can, we we've had these conversations many times is I think a lot of times people think innovation and they, you know, they think Steve jobs and Apple, but I think there's very important innovations. Um, and you know, during the warmup, we were talking about frozen dinners, right. Um, which you wouldn't think is the most innovative area, but really building packaging for frozen dinners. It's something that the market wants. It's something they can have a positive impact on our, uh, our garbage supply chain and what we're putting in landfills. Um, but it's something that requires hard work to get it right. And so it's interesting to see companies that are really innovating around how do we do sustainable packaging for all the right reasons. And they're able to differentiate their projects, their, their products, and they're able to, to satisfy their customers and maybe bring in new customers who traditionally wouldn't be familiar with the brand. And so I think the innovations and all steps of, of how we make and ship and consume products is very important.
Speaker 1 00:21:27 Dave, we were talking a little bit about, you know, when you, when you do get like a takeout dinner or you get dinner delivered, uh, that we have a lot of excess packaging, but it almost, when you start doing a big change in a company where it's like, Hey, we're going to be carbon neutral. That that is something that everybody can share.
Speaker 3 00:21:46 Yeah. I think that's right. And it's very accessible. You know, I don't beyond the dinners. I, I was thinking about, you know, the last Christmas season and I bought a lot of stuff online and it all came in boxes and cardboard boxes and cardboard boxes certainly recyclable, but then sometimes insiders this, this massive of plastic that you have to do something with. And, you know, the recrimination, I feel that I got my stuff and I got it in two days, but boy, now I got to put this in my garbage stream because it's, it isn't really recyclable some of the, some of the, um, some of the expandable or the packaging, this will little bubbles. So yeah,
Speaker 1 00:22:27 It'll stay around for 300 years. And I think that's, those are those innovations that, uh, that are going to drive, uh, packaging and shipping and stuff for years to come. So let's talk about following the money or the resources needed for harnessing innovation and Carl, what are some of your thoughts on following the money?
Speaker 2 00:22:45 I mean, I think that is the, it gets back to, you know, the common theme we talked about is w w what's the strategy of the company and what's the leadership of the company, because if it's something like a packaging innovation, obviously, uh, there's a variety of reasons you would do that, um, innovating in your key markets, innovating to solve customer problems. Um, you know, the more meaningful innovations as far as product innovation goes is where there's, there's a huge problem that just hasn't been solved out there. Um, and, and directing that innovation to those problems, I think is, is probably the most important thing, whether it is delighting a customer with a new product feature, whether it is solving an environmental challenge, like the packaging we were just talking about. But I think that is, that is the key to getting it right.
Speaker 1 00:23:34 What is your perspective on following the money or the resources that are needed for harnessing innovation?
Speaker 3 00:23:40 Yeah. I think that if you have an idea and you passionately believe it's, it's, it's the future, and it's going to be a great business outcome for the company, you should be able to make the case in a step-by-step way that, Hey, I need to re resources to do that. Um, and one of those things I w I found is, you know, we have, we recognize, Hey, if we just had this particular product where we could really sell a lot of it, and my response has been, you know, to that kind of statement, well, let's go find a customer. You know, let's get a customer to at least pay for part of this. And we had a success in 2020 where we, we said, we want to go this direction with the product, but we're not going to do an IRO let's. And we've actually found a customer that was willing to fund about 50% of that, and actually make a significant long long-term purchase. So I think part of the following the money idea is to, is to never get ahead of your customers and your markets, and always look for that validation. And frankly, when you do that, it's, it's, it's much easier to make the decision to invest.
Speaker 1 00:24:46 No, I think this great idea, and I think you're right too, is that, that balance between making sure that you do have an end customer is so critically important. So we haven't really talked about this, but what about maybe the report card? So the return on harnessing innovation, Carl, what is your thoughts on, on that?
Speaker 2 00:25:05 You know, I do think this is, um, you have to measure that that return, right? Um, it, unless you're a nonprofit, right? If you're a nonprofit, then obviously you have different metrics, but it is important to know, um, how much you're spending both in, in any time, money and other resources to get things right, because in the end, the purpose of innovation is to, is to solve a problem is to, to, to, to bring something new or solve an existing problem, or make, make, make some something better. Um, and so for me, I've always been taught. You do have to track those investments. You do have to track it. Dave just made a great point, which is if you're pointed at the right market, you understand the market, you understand the market economics, then you can get to that return on investment pretty quickly. But, um, I'm a big fan of making sure you do do the numbers and you do track it to make sure that, um, you're just not spinning down, uh, down a, um, down an interesting project and you're really driving the innovation to solve that market problem.
Speaker 1 00:26:05 Thank you. And, uh, Dave, your thoughts on, um, on returning, uh, on the return on harvesting innovation, our OHI that's on calling it the turn on harvesting innovation, sorry.
Speaker 3 00:26:16 The key challenge is the timeframe. And I know in our company, I had an example where we commercialize the product in 2008 and, um, it ended up going being put on the shelf in 2012. And now in 2020 it's 21, it's actually back as a, a, a, a significant, uh, licensing opportunity for us. So that's a tenure more than tenure, tenure, um, timeframe. Um, and that's really challenging to do our allies is generally a much shorter timeframe to 10 years. Um, I was, I'm thinking about Corning glass, where they, they, um, in the sixties developed the gorilla glass, if you will, chemically etched high-strength glass and put it, got put on the shelf until, uh, you know, the last 10 years where now it's become the dominant, uh, material used in every, every glass display in the world. So how corny does a return on investment calculation for, for gorilla glass?
Speaker 1 00:27:18 And that's a, that's a good segue into kind of the whole timing of innovation and stages and Gates. Um, Carl, uh, now that we know that there's some really good examples, even locally of 10 year projects, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2 00:27:33 Um, I think it really comes down to, you know, the, you know, the tolerance for the organization, right. And how big the problem is. Um, you know, there's a lot of companies now that are trying to solve nuclear fusion. Um, you know, once again, you use data now, you know, nuclear fusion was tried in the fifties. It was really scary. It was put on the shelf, but now with the focus on, uh, carbon dioxide emissions, if you get into nuclear fusion, right, then you can reduce CO2 output from energy generation, which is, is very important, but it's a really hard problem. And so there are people were putting a lot of money into it, but they're not expecting a one-year turnaround, right. They know it's a long timeframe. Whereas if you're in a consumer electronics business, if your cell phone business is, you've got to watch a new phone every year. And so obviously getting those innovations, which are, are incremental versus transformative, like nuclear fusion, getting those done, making sure they're aligned to the customer needs and getting that ready to ship in a year is a completely different situation.
Speaker 1 00:28:40 And Dave, you, um, you had the wherewithal to put your product on the shelf going, okay. And that's a real CEO problem, right. Is to say, okay, we're going to stop on this. We're going to stop spending, we're going to put this on the shelf. So what does that feel like?
Speaker 3 00:28:54 I hurts. Um, it's, uh, it takes, you know, a lot of, uh, uh, communication and a lot of, of coaching and cheerleading to, to let people know it's okay. It's, um, it, it needs to be, uh, gone hand in hand with, this is what's next, let's put this on the shelf and let's go do this. So it isn't about, you know, let's just go sit in your hands or, you know, even tear even worse. You're gonna be laid off. It's about redirecting the team to something that's more near term that reflects the lessons learned of what you just put on the shelf. And so it's a, it's a learning experience. Um, and, uh, you know, sometimes they come back, sometimes they they're on the shelf, but they come back and I, um, I'm sometimes surprised how robust some ideas are that I talked about and, you know, 15 years ago, and I still get people calling me about this one paper I wrote. And I'm like, okay, but how much money you are? You, are you a researcher? Are you, is this a commercial opportunity? And so far it's always been just one more researcher thinking about the problem. So there's always that awareness looking up and out and saying, Hey, there's a, there's a, there's a bunch of people thinking about this problem. Like I was, but does anybody actually have a commercial, uh, future for this? And, uh, sometimes the answer is, well, not yet. It's still, it's still being, it's still gestating
Speaker 1 00:30:21 Is maybe a really interesting thing to think about too, is this whole communication thing, right? W uh, when we're, when you talked about the team, right, and now how important is that Carl, when you're going to, uh, you're, you're going to set your companies now are going to be more innovative and you've got to constantly be the communicator of that.
Speaker 2 00:30:40 I think that's probably the most critical thing. And I, um, I, I had a friend who was a long time auto executive that joined Tesla, um, in the early days. And he will tell you today, he's like, you know, I felt this was crazy because I had grown up in general motors and Ford, and I was used to our product cycle and the speed at which we moved and Yuan Musk was just relentless and saying, we're going to do this. We're going to do it this space. We're going to do it now. And we're going to figure it out. These are electric, you know, building viable electric cars is a hard, hard problem, but we're going to figure it out. And I think looking back, I think it's shocking how quickly we got there. Um, but talking to my friend, he will tell you, it was that, that just relentless communication and focus and drive that at the top of the company that, that made everyone believe they could do this
Speaker 1 00:31:33 Important right. Is to, is to get everyone on board. Dave, you've got a small team, but a very innovative team and a communication's important to you. I know.
Speaker 3 00:31:43 Yeah, absolutely. That, um, communicating what we're trying to get to. And also when there are setbacks, okay. Let's not, as I mentioned before, it's not about what, what the reason for the failures, but what did we learned from it? How do we pivot around it? How do we overcome it? Um, and you know, I think it's a, it's continuous, it's, it's, there's absolutely a push needed, you know, in the extreme case of, of Tesla or Apple, you know, I think Steve jobs, uh, they talked about the reality distortion field around him, um, where he could sort of say, this is what's going to happen. And, you know, did it always happen? Probably not, but, but he would re relentless in saying, this is what's important. This is what we have to focus on. It need to, lots of other things go to make that happen. And that's, and that's, I think, uh, if, if there's a leader's job is it's, you can let go of this. You can, you know, I know you've latched onto this thing and you've worked on for 18 months, but you need to let it go, or you need to maybe work on it for 18 years, but you need to think differently now. And this is how you need to think about this.
Speaker 1 00:32:46 Yeah. And that's the leadership challenge right there. Right. So thank you very much for coming on to the podcast today. I hope we can do this again. Um, how do people get ahold of you, Carl? You go first,
Speaker 3 00:32:59 The best way to get a hold of me is a LinkedIn message me on LinkedIn, like contact info. If you put out a contact card on LinkedIn, you can get, get directly to me and Dave. Yeah. David Henderson. Uh, my email is D Anderson first initial, last
[email protected]. New S C a L E T H T C h.com. And I'm happy to receive your email, or you can also just go to LinkedIn also, as Carl mentioned.
Speaker 1 00:33:33 And again, thank you both. Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart automation systems, Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing, they understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing, and project management, delivering world-class custom automation on time and on budget contact one of their sales engineers to see what Earhart can build for you. Their email is
[email protected] and Earhart is spelled E H R H a R D T. I'd like to thank of acknowledge our partner, a three, the association for advancing automation. Eight three is the umbrella association for the RIA, the AIA MCMA and 83 Mexico. And these four associations combined represent almost 1300 automation manufacturers, components, suppliers, systems, integrators, and users, research groups, and consulting firms throughout the world that are driving automation forward. And then also like to thank our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions.
Speaker 1 00:34:38 They're a web development firm that offers SEO and digital social marketing, and can set up and connect CRM and other ERP tools to unify marketing sales and operations. And they're
[email protected]. And if you'd like to get in touch with me, you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn as well. We will see you next time. Thanks for listening and be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by customer attraction, industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris gray for the music, Chris Colvin for audio production, my partner, Janet, and our sponsors, a three painted robot and Earhart automation.
Speaker 4 00:35:15 <inaudible>.
