Aditya Agarwal did not plan to work in robotics. He got rejected from his first-choice major, joined a student club to keep his parents off his back, and stumbled into one of the fastest-growing fields in tech. Now he is Head of Robotics at Medra, a company building physical AI scientists that let researchers run experiments remotely at speeds a traditional lab cannot touch.

"Even the companies that have made the most progress haven't deployed at the scale of laptops, cars, or phones. So if you have experience scaling hardware products, that is super valuable at an early-stage robotics company."

What we get into: why the PhD requirement is mostly gone, how AI is shrinking the hardware development timeline, and the cheapest way to start building with robotics today if you cannot afford to go back to school or take a step back in your career.

Timestamped Highlights

01:19 The accidental path into robotics that actually worked

03:04 Whether you still need an engineering degree for hardware roles

04:48 Master's degree vs. early-stage startup: what gets you there faster

10:57 How AI is replacing the guesswork in hardware configuration

15:51 How to start learning robotics at home without spending much

18:38 Why rigid hiring processes are costing robotics teams good candidates

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