This episode will change the way you see American manufacturing and showcase why it's both more vulnerable and more adaptable than you may think. Saman Farid, CEO and founder of Formic, sits down with Chuck Templeton to pull back the curtain on a pressure point hiding in plain sight: hundreds of thousands of U.S. factories are running behind schedule or turning down orders, not because they lack machines or materials, but because they simply can't find people to run them. Saman introduces Formic's "robotics as a service" model, a subscription-based approach that lets manufacturers deploy robots to factories without the massive upfront capital investment, and explains why this is the unlock that the industry needs. He breaks down where AI in robotics actually stands today, why the Tesla vs. Waymo training data debate maps directly onto the future of physical AI, and why the next decade of American manufacturing isn't about replacing workers. It's about making factories more efficient and profitable, making manufacturing jobs safer and more sustainable, and rebuilding the industrial pyramid from the ground up.

Chapters

4:50 — The Two Big Misconceptions About Robotics

7:40 — Why American Factories Are Stuck in the Past

10:10 — The Labor Crisis Quietly Killing Manufacturing

13:00 — Why Factories Are Turning Down Business

16:30 — Full-Service Robotics: The Subscription Model Explained

21:10 — The Three Waves of Robot Technology

32:10 — The Waymo vs. Tesla Playbook for Robot Training Data

35:10 — Financing a Robot Fleet: Building a Smarter Capital Stack

41:40 — Will Robots Take Jobs? What the Data Actually Shows

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