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Robotics Businesses The Almighty Buck

Boston Dynamics CEO Talks Profitability and the Company's Next Robots (venturebeat.com) 24

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat, written by Emil Protalinski: Founded in 1992, Boston Dynamics is arguably the best-known robot company around, in part because its demonstration videos tend to go viral. Now it is attempting to transform from an R&D company to a robotics business, with an eye on profitability for the first time. When we interviewed Boston Dynamics founder and former CEO Marc Raibert in November 2019, we discussed the company's customers, potential applications, AI, simulation, and those viral videos. But it turns out Raibert was transitioning out of the CEO role at the time -- current CEO Robert Playter told us in an interview this month that he took the helm in November. We sat down to discuss Playter's first year as CEO; profitability; Spot, Pick, Handle, and Atlas; and the company's broader roadmap, including which robots are next.
[...]
In June, Boston Dynamics started selling its quadruped robot Spot in the U.S. for $74,500. Last week, the company expanded Spot sales to Canada, the EU, and the U.K. at the same price point. Playter says Boston Dynamics has sold or leased about 250 robots to date and business is accelerating. [...] Compared to big manufacturing robotic companies, 250 robots is not a lot. But Playter points out it's a big achievement "for a novel robot like Spot." Other robotic startups would love to get that sort of market validation. "We're penetrating, we're establishing a market, and people are starting to see value. We're adapting Spot to be a solution for some of the industries we're targeting," Playter said.

Spot's success means the company is beating its own internal targets. "We are meeting -- actually exceeding -- some of our sales goals for Spot," Playter said. "We had ambitious goals this year, but we met our Q1 goal. We're meeting our Q2 goal. We have ambitious Q3 and Q4 goals. I think we're probably going to meet or exceed them this year. To become profitable, these products do have to become successful. They have to scale. But right now, I think we're beating plan." The company now has a roadmap to profitability. "I think we'll be profitable in about two and a half years," Playter said. "2023-2024 is when I'm projecting that we are cash positive." To hit that milestone, Boston Dynamics is simultaneously developing robots for logistics (think production, packaging, inventory, transportation, and warehousing)...
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Boston Dynamics CEO Talks Profitability and the Company's Next Robots More

Boston Dynamics CEO Talks Profitability and the Company's Next Robots

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  • You know what I wish Boston Dynamics would do? Build a bot that can carry an average adult (say 200 or 250 pound limit) in a chair on its back. Market it as a wheelchair that can literally go anywhere.

    • You know what I wish Boston Dynamics would do? Build a bot that can carry an average adult (say 200 or 250 pound limit) in a chair on its back. Market it as a wheelchair that can literally go anywhere.

      For a moment I was confused when you said an average adult, followed by a 200 - 250 pound figure. Then I realized you mean an average adult in America.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        You know what I wish Boston Dynamics would do? Build a bot that can carry an average adult (say 200 or 250 pound limit) in a chair on its back. Market it as a wheelchair that can literally go anywhere.

        For a moment I was confused when you said an average adult, followed by a 200 - 250 pound figure. Then I realized you mean an average adult in America.

        Heh. I didn't mean to imply that 250 pounds is average. What I meant was "strong enough to handle at least the 90% case," which is to say anyone within a couple of standard deviations of the mean. That said, holy crap. In 2016, the U.S. mean weight for men was 197.1 pounds, and the median was 189.4. That means half of all American men weighed more than that. 8-\

  • Automation works at the consumer level and people will buy more of it if you make it. You don't get Amazon or Microsoft rich just selling specialty robots. I'd be ALL about the high volume markets to make real money and build up toward high end robots. It's easy for the military to just say NO to your high end design and that's that. The consumer market is a lot easier to predict and has much less overhead to design and build. Robot vaccums show the market has potential, but there ain't much more than just

  • They need to go farther (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If they really want to make large profits, they need to start designing sexbots, It's a huge untapped industry.
  • If every sale is also a sale of a support contract, then it's a win, right?

    Maybe not. Robots are new. Real new. And complex. Real complex. There are only so many people who can work on them. And if you chain them to working support contracts, you may limit your growth.

    Boston Dynamics has always been an R and D company with a huge sugar daddy in the form of the DoD. I would be very impressed if they transformed into a customer-facing business, even just a little.

  • This is not for you and me. Not a 'Synth' (see:'Humans')...yet. But possibly a X company shipping warehouse workhorse. Albeit it's not about what it can do for a short moment but more about how reliable it is in a long term. And observing my robotic vacuum I am still not clear if the time gain is there...(perhaps I should stop watching it, eh ?)

    Now...if this thing is $500k and will break every other Friday...than Humans are cheaper still...(see China).

    • If one person can maintain 14 of these (1 day fix every other week), and each one can do the work of 1 person (working and not charging) 60 hours a week, it likely still has a place.

      Warehouse workers cost $900 per 60 hours in the US, that's 12k/week. If the tech + support costs 4k/week (100k / year with high overhead), 8k/week has it paying for itself pretty quick, and raising the quality of life for employees that amazon still hires.

      It's not there yet obviously, but breaking down every other week doesn't s

  • Wrap the robots in some silicon and make sexbots already!

  • Still waiting for the repercussions from when they while laughing were proudly beating their robots with baseball bats. Abuse. Assault.

    • I laughed after watching Spot slip on a banana peel. Then I felt sort of bad, even though I knew it was just a robot. I'm sure we'll all get our just desserts as smarter AIs start watching YouTube and understanding what's happening.

  • Best known robot company? (Score:3)

    by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Monday September 14, 2020 @10:21PM (#60506490)

    Come on, compared to the likes of Fanuc, Kuka or even Festo Boston Dynamics is, well, completely unknown in the places where profits are made.

  • Not concerned until they start working with mimetic polyalloy.

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