Top of Mind with Brad Porter
He built Amazon’s robot army. Then walked away. Why? To build something bigger. Top of Mind is a weekly 2–5 minute audio drop from Brad Porter—former Amazon VP of Robotics, Scale AI CTO, and now founder of Cobot. Each short episode delivers raw, unfiltered insights on leadership, automation, and the chaos of building at the edge of physical AI. From warehouse floors to the frontier of machine intelligence, this is what it sounds like when a Silicon Valley leader thinks out loud.
Lean Into Uncertainty
All-in bets… uncertainty can be fun, if you have conviction in your thesis!
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Change Is The Only Constant
Will AI force CEO’s into early retirement?
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How Do We Evaluate Physical AI?
Malik test? What are the evals in physical AI?
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Changing Nature of Leaderboard
The leaderboard can change quickly…
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Insights On Physical AI and Performance Reveiw
Deployed Podcast, insights from Generalist's research drop, and thoughts on performance review processes.
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Bottlenecks In An Age Of Unbounded Intelligence
On Deployed this week, Jeff Wilke spoke about bottlenecks. In today’s Top of Mind, I extrapolate further to where the bottlenecks emerge in an age of unbounded intelligence.
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China vs U.S. Robotics
What's the hardest problem in robotics? My thoughts after a busy NVIDIA GTC week!
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Most Scarce Resource in Robotics
The most scarce resource in robotics right now?
Real world deployment experience.
This week, I announce our new podcast, “Deployed” as well as talk about lessons in scaling robotics, as well as bottlenecks in AI and the idea that token rationing may be coming.
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Designing for Trustworthiness
Trustworthy, useful, adaptable have been our bedrock principles for our robots since day one. Today I go deeper on how we think about designing for trustworthiness.
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Technology and War
The Anthropic/DoW negotiation was hard to miss this week. Reflecting on current events, technology, policy, and values. I also touch on the proposed National Commission on Robotics Act.
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Striving and Recognition
Reflecting a bit on striving and recognition… why aligning striving with joy and identity is the path to success and recognition.
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How to Think About Investments
We’re in a build phase now, AI, robotics, infrastructure… pays to pay attention to the great capital allocators.
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Design Matters
Thoughts on design and shout out to the team and our supporters! Oh, and go Seahawks!
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Cobot's Strategy
This week I go a bit deeper on our thesis when we founded Cobot and how we’re progressing… enjoy!
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Celebrating My Grandmother
Cold here in Cedar Falls! Wishing you all the best!
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More Lessons From My Grandfather
Broadcasting this week from Cedar Falls, Iowa!
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Physical AI … Are You Ready?
The transformation in physical ai is coming, are you ready?
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Positioning to Ride the Wave in 2026!
2026 is here! We can see the swell forming ahead of what will be the biggest change in the nature of physical work since the advent of the wheel. Get ready everyone!
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Growth and Risk Taking
Sharing my thoughts on growth and risk taking! Happy New Year everyone!
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Responsible Innovation in Robotics
Discussing responsible innovation in robotics with Gaurab Bansal of Responsible Innovation Labs (RIL) at the EDGES 2025 Summit in San Francisco. [Recorded in October 2025]
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What do we value most in a post-AGI world?
What do we value most in a post-AGI world? Thoughts on the Industrial Revolution and what’s coming.
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Energy Matters!
Energy Matters! Thinking about the pace of your business during the holiday season.
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Innovation and Investment in Robotics with Alfred Lin and Kate Rooney
Discussing innovation and investment in the future of robotics with Alfred Lin (Sequoia Capital) and Kate Rooney (CNBC) on the stage of the 2025 HumanX Conference
Why now for robotics?How to think about investment in the robotics space?Why not humanoids?How automation will create more jobs?Why the future is robotics!Video
Sequoia’s Series A in Cobot
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Value of Reconnection and Reflection
The value of taking time and space to connect and reflect.
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Boldness and Energy
Talking about boldness and energy and how it relates to organization change, return to office, and our daily lives.
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Robot Numbers
Numbers, robot numbers, deployment numbers. What do they mean, what’s important? It’s easy to get lost in big predictions, but the only numbers that matter are the ones produced by real robots doing real work. Proxie’s numbers are proof of that, so I’m excited to share. Enjoy!
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Freedom to Build
Reflecting on the Freedom to Build.
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Robot Brains and Three Constituents of a Startup
Sunday thoughts on the brains of robots and re-pitching your investors, customers, and employees.
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This Week in Humanoids
By popular demand, my take on this week’s humanoid announcements.
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Value of Solving Hard Problems
Talking today about the value of solving hard problems! Plus more insight into our robot and lessons from the field.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRMn_2lfV-I
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Exciting Progress at Cobot!
Exciting progress… Proxie now identifies its own work, tells you where it's going, and completes the task… even in congested hospital hallways!
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Best Case, Worst Case, and Likely Scenarios
Best case scenario, worst case scenario, likely scenario… how do you plan for all three.
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Rethinking Performance Management
Rethinking performance management … are you pulling the company ahead?
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Dr. Seth Teller
Dr Seth Teller was my masters thesis advisor at MIT. His wife wrote a book last year that dives deeper into his life, the context surrounding his decision to end his life, and the impact that had. It’s a deeply vulnerable book and top of mind for me right now. But I do want to put a WARNING that if this isn’t a topic you want to hear about; I won’t be offended if you don’t turn in this week.
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Are We Thinking Big Enough?
Are we thinking big enough? That’s the question I’m thinking a lot about. It’s really hard to put into proper perspective the pace of the productivity gains we’re going to see from AI and robotics. We’re going to need more capital and more enterpreneurs to really capitalize on this opportunity.
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Competition Drives Innovation
Competition drives innovation… in every arena! Tune in as I talk about how this applies equally to RC F5K competitions and robotics.
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Abundance in an AI and Robotically Enabled Future
The promise of robotics and AI is that we create a far more abundant future. Sharing my thoughts on what abundance enables and why our future has the potential to be far more peaceful and prosperous.
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Hard Work
The first day in a new building really sets the tone. The best way to honor and thank your employees is to make that a great experience. But you also can’t lose sight of the fact that startups aren’t about nice working spaces… they’re about fighting for your early customers and succeeding with them.
Happy Labor Day everyone!
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How to Succeed in Robotics Transformation
Sharing my thoughts on succeeding in robotics transformation by picking partners you’re believe can move the needle for your business and going on the journey with them!
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Upgrading My Feet - Part Toes
More on upgrading your feet! How can you tell if your shoes have enough space? I’ll show you. Video: https://youtu.be/68r6FTRGdmI
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