a16z|Nov 02, 2026 16:51
Tutor Intelligence co-founder and CEO Josh Gruenstein is putting AI robots to work in American factories and warehouses, taking on the back-breaking jobs they can't hire for.
Tutor builds its robots in Massachusetts and charges by the hour, with no upfront cost. When the AI gets stuck, a human "tutor" takes over and teaches it the task, creating training data along the way.
Josh joins a16z's Martin Casado and Raghu Raghuram to discuss how Tutor goes from a first sales call to a working robot in about three months, why so many robot startups died building for a single customer, why anyone will be able to start a business in the physical world, and a whole lot more.
0:50 Deploy robots, then build the data
2:50 Why smart robots aren't enough
4:38 The ultimate systems problem
6:45 Why robot companies go vertical
9:07 How remote humans tutor robots
11:00 Will robots outgrow their tutors?
14:54 How AI labs sped up robotics
16:57 Meet Cassie and Sonny
20:55 What factory work actually looks like
23:18 A robot for $16 an hour
25:51 When robots become coworkers
29:04 Why robot startups keep dying
31:21 When 1% cheaper flips a market
34:52 Robots cost more to run than to buy
38:18 China's automation bet may backfire
42:02 Real-world RL on a 100-robot fleet
YouTube: https://youtu.be/lXkjXSul6yg
@joshgruenstein @tutorintel @martin_casado @RaghuRaghuram
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