I sit down with Saman Farid, founder of Formic, to get real about what it takes to deploy industrial robots in practice. We go deep into robotics-as-a-service, how we can make manufacturing more productive, and the labor reality for small/medium-sized manufacturers in the United States.

If you want a dose of robot reality beyond flashy demo videos, you will enjoy this episode.

Among the topics we discuss are:

* Deployment gap in the robotics

* Hidden labor crisis

* Robotics as a Service (RaaS)

* China vs U.S. manufacturing culture

* How Formic turns automation from CAPEX to OPEX for their customers

* Scale through coordination vs consolidation

Watch on YouTube; listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Enjoy.

Recording date: February 11, 2026

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:49 Why Factory Tours Should Be Mandatory

09:08 State Of US Manufacturing

16:36 Chinese vs American Approach To Manufacturing

18:57 The Labor Debate

25:40 Breaking Down Robotics-As-A-Service

35:37 Importance Of Geographical Density

37:47 Financing Automation

40:55 Scale Through Coordination vs Control

45:45 Challenges In Robotics Adoption

51:40 Formic Capital Strategy

56:26 Formic Longer-Term Vision

58:13 Rapid Fire

Follow Jordan on X:

* https://x.com/jrwolfe

Connect with Saman Farid:

* X – https://x.com/samanfarid

* LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanfarid/

* Website – https://formic.co/

Remember to go direct!

Jordan

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