September 17, 2025 • 28 mins
Ever wondered how early childhood experiences can shape a career in cutting-edge technology? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Tessa Lau, a trailblazer in the realms of computer science, robotics, and entrepreneurship. From her first lines of code on a RadioShack color computer to her pioneering work at Dusty Robotics, Tessa's story is a testament to the transformative power of passion and innovation. Discover how her time at IBM Research and Willow Garage set her on a path to make a tangible impact through robotics, including a life-changing project to assist individuals with disabilities. Tessa's journey is a captivating blend of personal anecdotes, professional milestones, and a relentless drive to push the boundaries of what's possible.
In this episode, we also explore the formidable challenges and exhilarating triumphs Tessa encountered while bringing groundbreaking technology to the construction industry. Learn about the intricacies of Savioke's robot elevator programming and the strategic alliances Dusty Robotics has forged to navigate the complex landscape of technological adoption in construction. Dive into the future of nanorobotics in healthcare, where tiny robots could revolutionize medical treatments and extend human life. Finally, Tessa shares her visionary insights into automating the BIM coordination process and the potential personal benefits of emerging technologies over the next 25 years. This episode offers a fascinating glimpse into the future of robotics and its transformative potential across multiple sectors.
Contact the Future Construct Podcast Produced by BIM Designs, Inc!
- BIM Designs, Inc.: minority-owned, US-based, union-signatory preconstruction technology firm, offering turnkey BIM modeling, laser scanning, coordination management, and other VDC solutions to the AEC industry.
- Schedule a free consultation: sales@bimdesigns.net.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Welcome to the Future Construct podcast.
I'm your host, Mark Oden, andtoday I have the honor of
speaking with Tessa Lau, arenowned computer scientist,
roboticist and entrepreneur, andalso a prior guest of Future
Construct from season one.
Tessa is the founder and CEO ofDusty Robotics, a company
revolutionizing the constructionindustry with its innovative
robotic solutions.
(00:43):
With a PhD in machine learningand extensive experience in
artificial intelligence, Tessahas been at the forefront of
robotics development, from herwork at IBM Research and Willow
Garage to her pivotal role indeploying delivery robots at
Savioke.
Her groundbreaking work atDusty Robotics is transforming
how we approach constructionprojects.
Thank you for all your manycontributions in the AEC space
(01:05):
and welcome to the show, Tessa.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Thank you, mark, happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, let's go ahead and get started.
I want to, as I always love todo, start in the early childhood
years and think about what youraspirations were then.
So, tessa, can you tell usabout your earliest memories of
being fascinated by technologyor robotics?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, so I started off in computers.
I got into robotics much later,mid-career, but my early
technology memories were oflearning how to program
computers.
So my dad got us a RadioShackcolor computer.
I remember it had 64 kilobytesof RAM, which was a lot back
(01:43):
then, and we had a subscriptionto a magazine that had like
source code listings in it and Iwould dutifully type in all of
those lines of code into thecomputer and it would do
something magical.
That you know, this seemsreally, really cool.
(02:03):
I could make this device dothis thing just by typing at it,
and so that's what launched meinto a career in tech and
eventually into robotics.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's fantastic.
Thank you so much for sharingthat, Tessa.
Yeah, I think that's incredible, 64 kilobytes of RAM being a
lot.
That's just you know.
It's funny how fast it allmoves really in the end.
So, staying in the childhoodtheme, what were some of your
dreams and aspirations and did?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
you always envision yourself in technology, or were
there?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
other, you know, were there other dreams astronaut,
firefighter, whatnot?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I wanted to be a pilot for a while.
I wanted to be an author for awhile because I really love
writing and I just neverimagined I would be a CEO or run
a technology company.
It was just like so far out ofthe realm of what little kids
like me could do that I justnever imagined anything like
(02:53):
this.
Well, I can see theautobiography coming in another
10 years or so.
I've got a lot of stories builtup so eventually they'll come
out Well, good, good.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Were there any specific events or influences
during your childhood that setyou on this path and into
technology?
And you know you mentioned the,you mentioned the computer that
your dad gave you.
Any other specific milestonesor events?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I mean, the only other thing I remember really is
is just like, uh, what got meinto technology and I think a
lot of kids too is video games.
Uh, and I don't think peopleappreciate the impact that
gaming has on the technologiststhat we have today.
Right, oftentimes that'speople's first uh touch or first
(03:39):
way to interact with anythingtechnologically cool.
Video games always push theenvelope of what's possible, and
so I remember, like, having an8-bit nintendo back in the day
that I just thought was thecoolest thing, right, um,
because all of these games thatcame out for it were just like,
so advanced for the time.
And that's what got me intoprogramming, because I wanted to
(04:02):
build my own.
And so I think a lot of kidsprobably share that same path.
You know, they want to createsomething cool, they want to
tell a story, they want to buildsomething that no one's ever
seen before, and that's what gotme in for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Very cool.
Yeah, certainly for me too.
I can relate Video games iswhat drove me into building
computers and learning basicprogramming and scripting and
eventually you know websitedevelopment and everything was
all because of.
You know video games and thecommunity that was built around
it.
Yeah, that was a huge part ofmy childhood and eventually
graduated out of it myself.
But you know, I appreciate somuch and now I feel behind the
(04:37):
times, right, I mean, like yousaid, video games are always
pushing the edge of technologyand moving it forward.
So, yeah, I'm proud ofeverybody in that space.
Well, so you've grown up sincethen and you've had a remarkable
career journey, and you knowyou've been at, as mentioned,
ibm Research and Willow Garage.
What are some particularlychallenging moments at either of
(04:57):
those two spaces and how didyou overcome it?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
challenging moments at either of those two spaces,
and how did you overcome it?
I think one of the.
I want to tell the story abouthow I get into robotics, because
that kind of like blends thehow I got to where I am with
some of the challenges.
So my first job out of schoolwas at IBM research.
I spent 11 years there doingresearch in human computer
interaction and and AI and andafter what felt like a whole
(05:23):
career at IBM, I wanted to dosomething different and so I
decided to get into robotics.
And the reason I got intorobotics as opposed to anything
else was because I heard aboutthis project at Willow Garage
that was called Robots forHumanity and the intent of the
project was to work with thisperson with disabilities.
(05:45):
He was a quadriplegic, bound toa wheelchair, couldn't move his
hands or anything other than alittle bit of a finger and his
eyes, and they were allowing himto program a robot to help
himself with activities of dailyliving.
And that kind of blew my mind,because I've worked in software
pretty much my entire career upto that point and all of the
(06:08):
things that I built.
I built a lot of things, butthey were living behind a screen
, they couldn't touch the world,and so that really inspired me
to get into robotics, because Irealized that robots can
actually touch the world.
They can actually make thingshappen in reality, not just
virtually.
And so I got into robotics.
It was a really tough learningcurve Like there's a lot to
(06:30):
learn about robotics, and I kindof had to like start from
scratch and learn a lot ofthings you know from, from the
basics, but it, you know, led meto the point where I am today,
and so it's definitely worth it.
But it's overcoming thatfeeling of like you're starting
from zero again.
You're starting as like acomplete noob in a new area, a
(06:51):
new domain where everyone elseknows a lot more than you do.
There's a lot of impostersyndrome in there.
There's a lot of fear thatyou're not going to be able to
catch up, but when you pushthrough it you can actually make
some really interestingprogress.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And congratulations on your perseverance as well.
I'm thinking about the PhDcomponent to what you have, and
you know that's just an envelopeof saying you know, hey, I can
take uncharted territories andlearn so much about it.
So congratulations on that,tessa.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
So prior to Dusty Robotics, you were also the CTO
at Savvy Oak, where you deployedover 75 delivery robots in the
hospitality industry, so I'dlove to learn more about the
experience there and also whatwas the most rewarding part of
that experience for you.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So Savvy Oak came out of Willow Garage.
So, as Willow was shutting down, so Willow was the premier
research lab for robotics at thetime and they ran out of money,
decided to shut down, and anumber of us at Willow decided
to start a new company, savvyOak, to commercialize some of
the technology that we developedat that research lab.
(07:59):
And so we settled on hoteldelivery, because we've all
stayed in hotels you all need to, you know, have left your
toothbrush at home and you needa little emergency delivery in
the middle of the night.
And so we thought that thatwould be a good thing to build,
because it would make use of thenavigation capabilities that
that we were developing forrobots at that time.
And you know, with our roboticsarrogance, we thought, with our
(08:21):
, uh, robotics arrogance, wethought, oh yeah, navigation is
a solved problem, so it shouldbe really easy to build this
robot, right?
Uh, yeah, no.
So, um, we, uh.
One of the biggest things thatI learned there is that when you
try the first time, you try tobring a technology out into the
world, the first time you try tobring a technology out into the
(08:41):
world, the hard parts come whenyou actually get the 20% at the
end, right?
So 80% of it's, you know,pretty straightforward.
It's like the middle of theroad use case it's that 20% that
can kill you.
And so for us at Savio, that 20%was dealing with the elevators.
(09:02):
Because if imagine you're in ahotel and you need to get from
the front desk up to the room,typically that revolves an
elevator trip, right?
And so one of the things I'mmost proud of at Savioke was
doing the human robot elevatorinteraction programming a robot
to take the elevator like ahuman does.
And if you think about it, it'skind of complex, right?
When you walk into an elevator,you turn around to face the
(09:24):
door, so in order for our robotsto and you have to sometimes
wait for other people to get offbefore you can get off, or if
you're in the front and someonebehind you needs to get out,
right, maybe you have to stepoff the elevator and get back on
.
We've all been in thesesituations, right?
And so, if you think about howcomplex those situations are,
it's really hard to program arobot to know what to do in all
(09:46):
of those different situations.
And so that was, you know,watching our robots take
elevators and behave politely,despite the amount that guests
have been drinking on thatelevator.
That's been a real, that was areal success for us, I think,
and I was really proud of that.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That's fantastic, and so where did that end up going?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So Savio, rebranded as Relay Robotics, still going,
and so I left after five yearsbecause I wanted to pursue other
dreams.
But I wish them the best ofluck.
They're still plugging away atit.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Very cool.
Thanks for sharing that story.
So starting Dusty Robotics fromscratch, securing funding and
building a great brand andreputation is no small feat.
Since you were last on our showin season one, what were some
of the biggest obstacles you'veencountered at Dusty Robotics
and how have you navigated them,Tessa?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, so I was on your show a couple of years ago
and in a startup, each monthfeels like a year, so it feels
like a really long time ago.
We've made some amazingprogress since then, but also
solved a number of reallysignificant challenges.
I think the thing I'm mostproud of of having worked
(11:03):
through is hiring a really,really good team.
I think the team is what makesthe startup.
It's what gets me out of bedevery day to come to work and
work with this group, and myteam is the one that's actually
doing most of the work andactually solving those hard
problems for me.
One of the things I realized isthat, as CEO, my job becomes
(11:25):
less and less Over time.
It becomes less doing and itbecomes more judgment and vision
and managing, and so right now,the hard parts of my job is
making sure I have the rightpeople in the right roles to do
the right things for the company, and so that's an ongoing set
of challenges.
(11:45):
We're constantly looking forgood talent and defining what we
want them to do and bringingthem in, and so I would say some
of the biggest challenges I'vehad are, essentially, designing
the organization to accomplishthe goals that I have for the
company and then finding theright people to fill those roles
inside the organization, andI'm really, really happy with
(12:05):
what we've been able toaccomplish there.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And likely.
I'm proud of you, tessa, andI'm proud of your team as well.
You know what the impact I'veseen you make in the industry
over the last two years from theoutside in has been
astronomical.
You know it's been amazing forme to sit in SMACNA association
meetings and then talk about thetraining that's about to be
delivered to union members,about Dusty Robotics and that
(12:29):
there's.
The speed at which you've beenable to move in this industry
and help bring positive momentumand positive change in this
industry has been reallyawe-inspiring from the outside
in.
So I just want to say how proudI am of you and your team for
the progress that they've made.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, well, I'd love to give a shout out to our head
of training, marshall Hawley.
So a lot of that work has beenhis idea and his doing, and so
I'm super happy to say thatwe're now working with several
unions, not just in Californiabut all across the West Coast at
this point, and Marshall hascreated a fantastic curriculum
(13:05):
for them to use to teach totheir membership, and that's
part of the way we're scalingthis up.
We can't personally touch everysingle person who's going to
use and operate our system, andso the way for us to scale
ourselves is to work through theunions, get their trainers on
board to teach our product, andMarshall's been fantastic at
getting all of that off theground and going.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, so cool to see from the outside in Tessa.
It's just amazing, yeah, andwell done Marshall as well.
So, speaking of theconstruction industry, it
definitely has a perception ofbeing relatively slow to adopt
new technologies.
What do you see as the biggestbarriers to technological
adoption and construction, andhow is Dusty Robotics addressing
and breaking down thosebarriers?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
I think the biggest barrier is that stuff just
doesn't work.
Let me expand a little bit onthat.
So, building a product is hard,and building a product that
people want is even harder, andif you can manage to do both of
(14:09):
those, then you can win, andthat's what we've done.
And I think the reason whyconstruction tends to be very
suspicious of new technology isbecause they've probably been
promised a lot of things thatdon't actually pan out.
The products don't actuallylive up to the promises, or
(14:32):
maybe the product doesn'tactually do what construction
companies need it to do, and soI think one of the reasons we've
gotten so far as we have isbecause we listen really closely
to what our customers need.
We really understand their painpoints.
We hire from the constructionindustry, so we have a lot of
that expertise in-house and wehave a philosophy of building
(14:57):
something that's 10x better thanwhat the industry is doing
today, and if it's not 10xbetter, then it's not meeting
our goals for that product.
So what that means is thatanything that you get from Dusty
is guaranteed to give you a 10ximprovement, and for most of
our customers that means 10xspeed, accuracy and much better
(15:17):
communication as well.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Very exciting, yeah, and I hear what you're saying
when you're saying you know, hey, is the product of need, Is it
exactly what I want?
And then is it going to performand deliver to the expectations
that I have or that have beenset for an environment that's
(15:40):
mission critical right, andthings need to work.
Things need to produce missioncritical right and things need
(16:02):
to work, things need to produce.
So, in your opinion, speakingabout other technologies in the
AEC or architecture, engineeringand construction space, what do
you see outside of roboticsthat appears most promising and
more trending towards?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
you know, towards adoption in the next few years.
Yeah, and I just want tounderscore what you just said,
because that is so true, right,part of the reason why it's hard
to get new technology intoconstruction is because the risk
profile in constructionprojects is just so painful in
(16:41):
the layout business, right?
So I hear a lot of layoutstories and I've heard stories
about construction companiesthat go out of business because
they made a mistake in layout,right, and that's a big deal.
If you can kill your companybecause of just this tiny little
thing, that's huge.
And so people are very riskaverse, right, because a mistake
can cost them not just theirjob, but it could cost them
their company.
So I totally get why people arenot willing to take as many
(17:05):
risks in construction, and sothat's why our philosophy is
trying to minimize that risk,right.
In fact, we're giving youtechnology that decreases your
risk it doesn't increase it,right.
So that's just how I thinkabout construction technology
adoption.
So you asked what othertechnology is coming down the
(17:25):
line.
Everyone's talking about AIthese days, and I'm sure that's
actually going to make a hugeimpact in construction.
I'm actually tracking somereally interesting use cases
applications for it, the twothat I'm really excited about
right now.
One of them is generative AIfor modeling.
And so Hypar and TestFit are thetwo ones that I'm super
(17:49):
interested in there, becausethey're basically helping
architects and designers anddetailers create better designs
by using AI to generate thestarting point for those designs
, in some cases, maybe even likea full-on, fully populated out
3D design, and so that's goingto save a lot of time.
(18:10):
It's going to eliminate a lotof errors that happen during the
design phase, so I'm reallyexcited about that.
And then the second area thatI'm really excited about is
companies like Trunk Tools thatare using AI to create a
conversational interface to yourconstruction documents.
So, instead of yoursuperintendent having to pull up
Procore and scroll through alot of different documents in
(18:31):
order to find the informationthey need, they can just ask a
question of like a chat GPT typeAI, and it searches through all
those documents for you, givesyou the right answer, saves you
a huge amount of time.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Very cool.
Yeah, thanks for sharing thoseinsights and also specific
companies to look after.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Looking ahead and coming back into robotics, what
are your to ask the question ofwhat robots are you using?
Because we don't ask do yourtools use electricity?
And it's kind of taken forgranted that they do, and it
becomes a foundationaltechnology that just gets baked
into every single product.
The same way, there's a batteryand electrical power on your
(19:24):
power tool right, there's goingto be robotics embedded in your
power tool.
And so the way I see thatplaying out like, if I think
about my life right now, youknow I drive a Tesla, which is a
big self-driving robot.
It's like a car, but it's gotsensors and it can take a lot of
decisions on its own and getsbetter over time and it's on
(19:46):
track to becoming fullyautonomous for this one
particular use case right, I'mnot going to get it to build a
house for me, but for that oneuse case that it's designed for,
it's doing that really, reallywell and it's using robotic
technology in order to do that.
Another example is my Nestthermostat.
It's got sensors and knows howwarm the house is, knows when it
needs to turn on the heat orturn on the AC, and it acts in
(20:10):
response in order to deliver acertain outcome that I want it
to, and so those are allcharacteristics of robotics that
are using technology that wasoriginally developed in the
robotics field, and we'restarting to see those in
everyday products today, and somy future of robotics is that
(20:31):
you're not gonna see necessarilya humanoid robot wandering
around doing all these things,but the technology that you
already use on a daily basis isgoing to start incorporating
robotic features in it, andthey're going to be little
robots.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Very cool.
Thank you for sharing thatvision of the future.
I think of my mind also goes tosort of nanorobots.
Where are your thoughts on that?
I was just reading an articlethat that could sort of you know
, nanorobots could help organs,you know, stay healthy and have
humans live for a long time.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Do you see a correlation any of that, or is
that too far away?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I admit I find the concept of having little robots
like crawling around in mybloodstream.
I find that kind of creepy.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, you're not the only one.
The author of the article saidsomething very similar.
It's like is that going to beaccepted?
But yeah, I'm very curiousabout the world of nanorobots
and how far away humanity mightbe from that concept.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, I am excited about the surgical robots.
One of my friends just hadheart surgery right, and they
don't open your heart anymore.
They they send a little deviceup, you know, into your artery,
through your arteries, in orderto do whatever it is they need
to do on the inside, and that'slike so much easier to heal from
(21:47):
right.
It's much less invasive andthat's possible because of the
precision of those littlerobotic devices that can more
autonomously perform certainactions inside the body, and so
that's exciting yeah I'll getsick at some point.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
We're all going to need medical care, and the
better that is, the better weall are absolutely and for them
to not have to do the open heart, the open, open chest portion
of the of the surgery I meanthat you know, probably saves
months of recovery.
Um well, how do you, uh, how doyou envision dusty robotics
evolving over the next few years, and at what impact do you do
you feel like you will have, orhope to have, on the
(22:26):
construction industry over thenext few years?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So I think Dusty is in a really interesting space,
because where we've started,which is this problem of layout,
is this kind of criticaljunction right now where the
digital world meets the analogworld of the field, and where I
want Dusty to go.
My vision for Dusty is becausewe've started in the middle.
Here we have the opportunity toboth go upstream of where
(22:53):
layout happens, as well asdownstream of where layout
happens, and so if you thinkabout what happens upstream,
well, where does the file comefrom that our robots print?
Right, that's an output of thedesign process, of the BIM
coordination process.
There's a lot of people workingtogether in order to create
that data that our robots printon the ground, and right now,
(23:15):
all of those processes are stillvery manual.
I still see people schleppingfiles around on a USB key or in
email.
I still see phone calls beingmade to coordinate and discuss
things, and so how can weautomate that?
That is a process that we'relooking into as a company right
now.
We're starting to build sometools that help streamline that
(23:37):
BIM coordination process inorder to get all the trades on
board and all of the informationlined up in the right way so
that when you actually do go toprint it.
You're confident that that'sexactly what you want to build.
So that's one thing, and then,downstream, I'm also really
excited about other use cases.
So we have lots of ideas aboutother robots we could build.
(23:59):
I'm not going to talk about anyof them today, but if you think
about it, the BIM model is theinstruction manual for the
building that you want to build,right, that tells you exactly
what you want to build, and onceyou have those instructions
which we do because of thenature of our job that is
basically telling future robotswhat they need to do and where.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Very cool.
I'm so excited and I'm happy tosee you expanding to, you know,
the broader spectrum of theindustry challenges.
Well, tessa, as a finalquestion of the show, and a
traditional future construct, ifyou could project yourself out
25 years and wanted to have anydevice or technology that would
benefit you personally, whatwould it be and what would it do
?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
no-transcript.
Welcome to the Future Construct podcast.
I'm your host, Mark Oden, andtoday I have the honor of
speaking with Tessa Lau, arenowned computer scientist,
roboticist and entrepreneur, andalso a prior guest of Future
Construct from season one.
Tessa is the founder and CEO ofDusty Robotics, a company
revolutionizing the constructionindustry with its innovative
robotic solutions.
(00:43):
With a PhD in machine learningand extensive experience in
artificial intelligence, Tessahas been at the forefront of
robotics development, from herwork at IBM Research and Willow
Garage to her pivotal role indeploying delivery robots at
Savioke.
Her groundbreaking work atDusty Robotics is transforming
how we approach constructionprojects.
Thank you for all your manycontributions in the AEC space
(01:05):
and welcome to the show, Tessa.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Thank you, mark, happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, let's go ahead and get started.
I want to, as I always love todo, start in the early childhood
years and think about what youraspirations were then.
So, tessa, can you tell usabout your earliest memories of
being fascinated by technologyor robotics?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, so I started off in computers.
I got into robotics much later,mid-career, but my early
technology memories were oflearning how to program
computers.
So my dad got us a RadioShackcolor computer.
I remember it had 64 kilobytesof RAM, which was a lot back
(01:43):
then, and we had a subscriptionto a magazine that had like
source code listings in it and Iwould dutifully type in all of
those lines of code into thecomputer and it would do
something magical.
That you know, this seemsreally, really cool.
(02:03):
I could make this device dothis thing just by typing at it,
and so that's what launched meinto a career in tech and
eventually into robotics.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
That's fantastic.
Thank you so much for sharingthat, Tessa.
Yeah, I think that's incredible, 64 kilobytes of RAM being a
lot.
That's just you know.
It's funny how fast it allmoves really in the end.
So, staying in the childhoodtheme, what were some of your
dreams and aspirations and did?
Speaker 2 (02:27):
you always envision yourself in technology, or were
there?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
other, you know, were there other dreams astronaut,
firefighter, whatnot?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I wanted to be a pilot for a while.
I wanted to be an author for awhile because I really love
writing and I just neverimagined I would be a CEO or run
a technology company.
It was just like so far out ofthe realm of what little kids
like me could do that I justnever imagined anything like
(02:53):
this.
Well, I can see theautobiography coming in another
10 years or so.
I've got a lot of stories builtup so eventually they'll come
out Well, good, good.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Were there any specific events or influences
during your childhood that setyou on this path and into
technology?
And you know you mentioned the,you mentioned the computer that
your dad gave you.
Any other specific milestonesor events?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I mean, the only other thing I remember really is
is just like, uh, what got meinto technology and I think a
lot of kids too is video games.
Uh, and I don't think peopleappreciate the impact that
gaming has on the technologiststhat we have today.
Right, oftentimes that'speople's first uh touch or first
(03:39):
way to interact with anythingtechnologically cool.
Video games always push theenvelope of what's possible, and
so I remember, like, having an8-bit nintendo back in the day
that I just thought was thecoolest thing, right, um,
because all of these games thatcame out for it were just like,
so advanced for the time.
And that's what got me intoprogramming, because I wanted to
(04:02):
build my own.
And so I think a lot of kidsprobably share that same path.
You know, they want to createsomething cool, they want to
tell a story, they want to buildsomething that no one's ever
seen before, and that's what gotme in for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Very cool.
Yeah, certainly for me too.
I can relate Video games iswhat drove me into building
computers and learning basicprogramming and scripting and
eventually you know websitedevelopment and everything was
all because of.
You know video games and thecommunity that was built around
it.
Yeah, that was a huge part ofmy childhood and eventually
graduated out of it myself.
But you know, I appreciate somuch and now I feel behind the
(04:37):
times, right, I mean, like yousaid, video games are always
pushing the edge of technologyand moving it forward.
So, yeah, I'm proud ofeverybody in that space.
Well, so you've grown up sincethen and you've had a remarkable
career journey, and you knowyou've been at, as mentioned,
ibm Research and Willow Garage.
What are some particularlychallenging moments at either of
(04:57):
those two spaces and how didyou overcome it?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
challenging moments at either of those two spaces,
and how did you overcome it?
I think one of the.
I want to tell the story abouthow I get into robotics, because
that kind of like blends thehow I got to where I am with
some of the challenges.
So my first job out of schoolwas at IBM research.
I spent 11 years there doingresearch in human computer
interaction and and AI and andafter what felt like a whole
(05:23):
career at IBM, I wanted to dosomething different and so I
decided to get into robotics.
And the reason I got intorobotics as opposed to anything
else was because I heard aboutthis project at Willow Garage
that was called Robots forHumanity and the intent of the
project was to work with thisperson with disabilities.
(05:45):
He was a quadriplegic, bound toa wheelchair, couldn't move his
hands or anything other than alittle bit of a finger and his
eyes, and they were allowing himto program a robot to help
himself with activities of dailyliving.
And that kind of blew my mind,because I've worked in software
pretty much my entire career upto that point and all of the
(06:08):
things that I built.
I built a lot of things, butthey were living behind a screen
, they couldn't touch the world,and so that really inspired me
to get into robotics, because Irealized that robots can
actually touch the world.
They can actually make thingshappen in reality, not just
virtually.
And so I got into robotics.
It was a really tough learningcurve Like there's a lot to
(06:30):
learn about robotics, and I kindof had to like start from
scratch and learn a lot ofthings you know from, from the
basics, but it, you know, led meto the point where I am today,
and so it's definitely worth it.
But it's overcoming thatfeeling of like you're starting
from zero again.
You're starting as like acomplete noob in a new area, a
(06:51):
new domain where everyone elseknows a lot more than you do.
There's a lot of impostersyndrome in there.
There's a lot of fear thatyou're not going to be able to
catch up, but when you pushthrough it you can actually make
some really interestingprogress.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And congratulations on your perseverance as well.
I'm thinking about the PhDcomponent to what you have, and
you know that's just an envelopeof saying you know, hey, I can
take uncharted territories andlearn so much about it.
So congratulations on that,tessa.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
So prior to Dusty Robotics, you were also the CTO
at Savvy Oak, where you deployedover 75 delivery robots in the
hospitality industry, so I'dlove to learn more about the
experience there and also whatwas the most rewarding part of
that experience for you.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So Savvy Oak came out of Willow Garage.
So, as Willow was shutting down, so Willow was the premier
research lab for robotics at thetime and they ran out of money,
decided to shut down, and anumber of us at Willow decided
to start a new company, savvyOak, to commercialize some of
the technology that we developedat that research lab.
(07:59):
And so we settled on hoteldelivery, because we've all
stayed in hotels you all need to, you know, have left your
toothbrush at home and you needa little emergency delivery in
the middle of the night.
And so we thought that thatwould be a good thing to build,
because it would make use of thenavigation capabilities that
that we were developing forrobots at that time.
And you know, with our roboticsarrogance, we thought, with our
(08:21):
, uh, robotics arrogance, wethought, oh yeah, navigation is
a solved problem, so it shouldbe really easy to build this
robot, right?
Uh, yeah, no.
So, um, we, uh.
One of the biggest things thatI learned there is that when you
try the first time, you try tobring a technology out into the
world, the first time you try tobring a technology out into the
(08:41):
world, the hard parts come whenyou actually get the 20% at the
end, right?
So 80% of it's, you know,pretty straightforward.
It's like the middle of theroad use case it's that 20% that
can kill you.
And so for us at Savio, that 20%was dealing with the elevators.
(09:02):
Because if imagine you're in ahotel and you need to get from
the front desk up to the room,typically that revolves an
elevator trip, right?
And so one of the things I'mmost proud of at Savioke was
doing the human robot elevatorinteraction programming a robot
to take the elevator like ahuman does.
And if you think about it, it'skind of complex, right?
When you walk into an elevator,you turn around to face the
(09:24):
door, so in order for our robotsto and you have to sometimes
wait for other people to get offbefore you can get off, or if
you're in the front and someonebehind you needs to get out,
right, maybe you have to stepoff the elevator and get back on
.
We've all been in thesesituations, right?
And so, if you think about howcomplex those situations are,
it's really hard to program arobot to know what to do in all
(09:46):
of those different situations.
And so that was, you know,watching our robots take
elevators and behave politely,despite the amount that guests
have been drinking on thatelevator.
That's been a real, that was areal success for us, I think,
and I was really proud of that.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That's fantastic, and so where did that end up going?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So Savio, rebranded as Relay Robotics, still going,
and so I left after five yearsbecause I wanted to pursue other
dreams.
But I wish them the best ofluck.
They're still plugging away atit.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Very cool.
Thanks for sharing that story.
So starting Dusty Robotics fromscratch, securing funding and
building a great brand andreputation is no small feat.
Since you were last on our showin season one, what were some
of the biggest obstacles you'veencountered at Dusty Robotics
and how have you navigated them,Tessa?
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, so I was on your show a couple of years ago
and in a startup, each monthfeels like a year, so it feels
like a really long time ago.
We've made some amazingprogress since then, but also
solved a number of reallysignificant challenges.
I think the thing I'm mostproud of of having worked
(11:03):
through is hiring a really,really good team.
I think the team is what makesthe startup.
It's what gets me out of bedevery day to come to work and
work with this group, and myteam is the one that's actually
doing most of the work andactually solving those hard
problems for me.
One of the things I realized isthat, as CEO, my job becomes
(11:25):
less and less Over time.
It becomes less doing and itbecomes more judgment and vision
and managing, and so right now,the hard parts of my job is
making sure I have the rightpeople in the right roles to do
the right things for the company, and so that's an ongoing set
of challenges.
(11:45):
We're constantly looking forgood talent and defining what we
want them to do and bringingthem in, and so I would say some
of the biggest challenges I'vehad are, essentially, designing
the organization to accomplishthe goals that I have for the
company and then finding theright people to fill those roles
inside the organization, andI'm really, really happy with
(12:05):
what we've been able toaccomplish there.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
And likely.
I'm proud of you, tessa, andI'm proud of your team as well.
You know what the impact I'veseen you make in the industry
over the last two years from theoutside in has been
astronomical.
You know it's been amazing forme to sit in SMACNA association
meetings and then talk about thetraining that's about to be
delivered to union members,about Dusty Robotics and that
(12:29):
there's.
The speed at which you've beenable to move in this industry
and help bring positive momentumand positive change in this
industry has been reallyawe-inspiring from the outside
in.
So I just want to say how proudI am of you and your team for
the progress that they've made.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Yeah, well, I'd love to give a shout out to our head
of training, marshall Hawley.
So a lot of that work has beenhis idea and his doing, and so
I'm super happy to say thatwe're now working with several
unions, not just in Californiabut all across the West Coast at
this point, and Marshall hascreated a fantastic curriculum
(13:05):
for them to use to teach totheir membership, and that's
part of the way we're scalingthis up.
We can't personally touch everysingle person who's going to
use and operate our system, andso the way for us to scale
ourselves is to work through theunions, get their trainers on
board to teach our product, andMarshall's been fantastic at
getting all of that off theground and going.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, so cool to see from the outside in Tessa.
It's just amazing, yeah, andwell done Marshall as well.
So, speaking of theconstruction industry, it
definitely has a perception ofbeing relatively slow to adopt
new technologies.
What do you see as the biggestbarriers to technological
adoption and construction, andhow is Dusty Robotics addressing
and breaking down thosebarriers?
Speaker 2 (13:48):
I think the biggest barrier is that stuff just
doesn't work.
Let me expand a little bit onthat.
So, building a product is hard,and building a product that
people want is even harder, andif you can manage to do both of
(14:09):
those, then you can win, andthat's what we've done.
And I think the reason whyconstruction tends to be very
suspicious of new technology isbecause they've probably been
promised a lot of things thatdon't actually pan out.
The products don't actuallylive up to the promises, or
(14:32):
maybe the product doesn'tactually do what construction
companies need it to do, and soI think one of the reasons we've
gotten so far as we have isbecause we listen really closely
to what our customers need.
We really understand their painpoints.
We hire from the constructionindustry, so we have a lot of
that expertise in-house and wehave a philosophy of building
(14:57):
something that's 10x better thanwhat the industry is doing
today, and if it's not 10xbetter, then it's not meeting
our goals for that product.
So what that means is thatanything that you get from Dusty
is guaranteed to give you a 10ximprovement, and for most of
our customers that means 10xspeed, accuracy and much better
(15:17):
communication as well.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Very exciting, yeah, and I hear what you're saying
when you're saying you know, hey, is the product of need, Is it
exactly what I want?
And then is it going to performand deliver to the expectations
that I have or that have beenset for an environment that's
(15:40):
mission critical right, andthings need to work.
Things need to produce missioncritical right and things need
(16:02):
to work, things need to produce.
So, in your opinion, speakingabout other technologies in the
AEC or architecture, engineeringand construction space, what do
you see outside of roboticsthat appears most promising and
more trending towards?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
you know, towards adoption in the next few years.
Yeah, and I just want tounderscore what you just said,
because that is so true, right,part of the reason why it's hard
to get new technology intoconstruction is because the risk
profile in constructionprojects is just so painful in
(16:41):
the layout business, right?
So I hear a lot of layoutstories and I've heard stories
about construction companiesthat go out of business because
they made a mistake in layout,right, and that's a big deal.
If you can kill your companybecause of just this tiny little
thing, that's huge.
And so people are very riskaverse, right, because a mistake
can cost them not just theirjob, but it could cost them
their company.
So I totally get why people arenot willing to take as many
(17:05):
risks in construction, and sothat's why our philosophy is
trying to minimize that risk,right.
In fact, we're giving youtechnology that decreases your
risk it doesn't increase it,right.
So that's just how I thinkabout construction technology
adoption.
So you asked what othertechnology is coming down the
(17:25):
line.
Everyone's talking about AIthese days, and I'm sure that's
actually going to make a hugeimpact in construction.
I'm actually tracking somereally interesting use cases
applications for it, the twothat I'm really excited about
right now.
One of them is generative AIfor modeling.
And so Hypar and TestFit are thetwo ones that I'm super
(17:49):
interested in there, becausethey're basically helping
architects and designers anddetailers create better designs
by using AI to generate thestarting point for those designs
, in some cases, maybe even likea full-on, fully populated out
3D design, and so that's goingto save a lot of time.
(18:10):
It's going to eliminate a lotof errors that happen during the
design phase, so I'm reallyexcited about that.
And then the second area thatI'm really excited about is
companies like Trunk Tools thatare using AI to create a
conversational interface to yourconstruction documents.
So, instead of yoursuperintendent having to pull up
Procore and scroll through alot of different documents in
(18:31):
order to find the informationthey need, they can just ask a
question of like a chat GPT typeAI, and it searches through all
those documents for you, givesyou the right answer, saves you
a huge amount of time.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Very cool.
Yeah, thanks for sharing thoseinsights and also specific
companies to look after.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Looking ahead and coming back into robotics, what
are your to ask the question ofwhat robots are you using?
Because we don't ask do yourtools use electricity?
And it's kind of taken forgranted that they do, and it
becomes a foundationaltechnology that just gets baked
into every single product.
The same way, there's a batteryand electrical power on your
(19:24):
power tool right, there's goingto be robotics embedded in your
power tool.
And so the way I see thatplaying out like, if I think
about my life right now, youknow I drive a Tesla, which is a
big self-driving robot.
It's like a car, but it's gotsensors and it can take a lot of
decisions on its own and getsbetter over time and it's on
(19:46):
track to becoming fullyautonomous for this one
particular use case right, I'mnot going to get it to build a
house for me, but for that oneuse case that it's designed for,
it's doing that really, reallywell and it's using robotic
technology in order to do that.
Another example is my Nestthermostat.
It's got sensors and knows howwarm the house is, knows when it
needs to turn on the heat orturn on the AC, and it acts in
(20:10):
response in order to deliver acertain outcome that I want it
to, and so those are allcharacteristics of robotics that
are using technology that wasoriginally developed in the
robotics field, and we'restarting to see those in
everyday products today, and somy future of robotics is that
(20:31):
you're not gonna see necessarilya humanoid robot wandering
around doing all these things,but the technology that you
already use on a daily basis isgoing to start incorporating
robotic features in it, andthey're going to be little
robots.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Very cool.
Thank you for sharing thatvision of the future.
I think of my mind also goes tosort of nanorobots.
Where are your thoughts on that?
I was just reading an articlethat that could sort of you know
, nanorobots could help organs,you know, stay healthy and have
humans live for a long time.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Do you see a correlation any of that, or is
that too far away?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I admit I find the concept of having little robots
like crawling around in mybloodstream.
I find that kind of creepy.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, you're not the only one.
The author of the article saidsomething very similar.
It's like is that going to beaccepted?
But yeah, I'm very curiousabout the world of nanorobots
and how far away humanity mightbe from that concept.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, I am excited about the surgical robots.
One of my friends just hadheart surgery right, and they
don't open your heart anymore.
They they send a little deviceup, you know, into your artery,
through your arteries, in orderto do whatever it is they need
to do on the inside, and that'slike so much easier to heal from
(21:47):
right.
It's much less invasive andthat's possible because of the
precision of those littlerobotic devices that can more
autonomously perform certainactions inside the body, and so
that's exciting yeah I'll getsick at some point.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
We're all going to need medical care, and the
better that is, the better weall are absolutely and for them
to not have to do the open heart, the open, open chest portion
of the of the surgery I meanthat you know, probably saves
months of recovery.
Um well, how do you, uh, how doyou envision dusty robotics
evolving over the next few years, and at what impact do you do
you feel like you will have, orhope to have, on the
(22:26):
construction industry over thenext few years?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
So I think Dusty is in a really interesting space,
because where we've started,which is this problem of layout,
is this kind of criticaljunction right now where the
digital world meets the analogworld of the field, and where I
want Dusty to go.
My vision for Dusty is becausewe've started in the middle.
Here we have the opportunity toboth go upstream of where
(22:53):
layout happens, as well asdownstream of where layout
happens, and so if you thinkabout what happens upstream,
well, where does the file comefrom that our robots print?
Right, that's an output of thedesign process, of the BIM
coordination process.
There's a lot of people workingtogether in order to create
that data that our robots printon the ground, and right now,
(23:15):
all of those processes are stillvery manual.
I still see people schleppingfiles around on a USB key or in
email.
I still see phone calls beingmade to coordinate and discuss
things, and so how can weautomate that?
That is a process that we'relooking into as a company right
now.
We're starting to build sometools that help streamline that
(23:37):
BIM coordination process inorder to get all the trades on
board and all of the informationlined up in the right way so
that when you actually do go toprint it.
You're confident that that'sexactly what you want to build.
So that's one thing, and then,downstream, I'm also really
excited about other use cases.
So we have lots of ideas aboutother robots we could build.
(23:59):
I'm not going to talk about anyof them today, but if you think
about it, the BIM model is theinstruction manual for the
building that you want to build,right, that tells you exactly
what you want to build, and onceyou have those instructions
which we do because of thenature of our job that is
basically telling future robotswhat they need to do and where.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Very cool.
I'm so excited and I'm happy tosee you expanding to, you know,
the broader spectrum of theindustry challenges.
Well, tessa, as a finalquestion of the show, and a
traditional future construct, ifyou could project yourself out
25 years and wanted to have anydevice or technology that would
benefit you personally, whatwould it be and what would it do
?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
no-transcript.
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