a16z
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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