Jiten Behl, accomplice at Eclipse Ventures and former chief progress officer at Rivian, thinks we’re getting into an period of main re-industrialization within the US — one the place factories run on AI-powered robots, not low-cost abroad labor.
Behl, who helped scale Rivian from a convention room thought in 2015 to a publicly traded EV maker, is now investing within the subsequent wave of business and mobility startups, together with two Rivian spinouts: Additionally and Thoughts Robotics. It’s a part of Eclipse’s bigger wager that the bodily world is lastly prepared for the type of disruption software program noticed a decade in the past.
Right now on TechCrunch’s Fairness podcast, Kirsten Korosec sat down with Behl to speak about why Rivian retains spinning out corporations, what founders within the “bodily world” want that software program founders don’t, and why automation is turning into obligatory if the US needs to compete with out Chinese language provide chains.
Take heed to the total episode to listen to about:
- Why Behl seems to be for founders who’re each “hyper-optimistic” and grounded in actuality, and why that mixture is surprisingly uncommon, even in Silicon Valley.
- How vertical integration labored for Rivian however received’t work for many startups at present.
- Behl’s prediction that autonomy will grow to be “actual and one thing we will contact and really feel” within the subsequent 5 years.
Subscribe to Fairness on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all of the casts. You can also observe Fairness on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
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