Brett Adcock is the founder and CEO of Figure, a humanoid robotics company valued at $2.6 billion that has raised nearly $2 billion in funding. Previously, he scaled software company Vettery, sold it, then founded and took public electric aircraft company Archer Aviation. He currently runs three companies simultaneously: Figure (humanoid robots), Cover (school security systems using NASA technology), and Hark (AI lab developing next-generation models and devices).

The conversation covers Figure's rapid scaling from startup to production, Brett's decision to end the OpenAI partnership after determining his team was superior, and his vision for humanoid robots addressing nearly half of global GDP represented by human labor. Brett discusses the technical challenges of achieving autonomous operation, his vertical integration strategy designing everything from motors to AI models, and his goal of deploying robots that can work 7-10 hours daily without human intervention.

Beyond Figure, Brett explains his acquisition of NASA's terahertz imaging technology for Cover, which aims to detect weapons in schools from standoff distances, and his stealth AI lab Hark focused on personalized intelligence and next-generation AI interfaces. The discussion reveals his extreme work schedule, strategic decision-making around partnerships, and ambitious timeline for bringing humanoid robots to mass market.

The $30 Trillion Humanoid Robot Market Opportunity

"The meta problem in robotics is be able to solve a humanoid robot. If you can solve this, it'll build the biggest business in the world by a large factor. A little under half the world's GDP is human labor" - Brett frames the total addressable market at $30-40 trillion in annual wages.

Figure targets producing thousands of robots in 2024, with record March production planned to triple by May, ultimately aiming for one million units annually.

"We have like so much commercial demand. It's like it's hard to we have like just overwhelmingly amount of we could I think I could like put you know so so many robots into commercial customers today if they were all ready" - Brett on market demand exceeding current production capacity.

Ending the OpenAI Partnership After Outperforming Them

"OpenAI led our series B a couple years ago. They brought in Satia and Microsoft" - The partnership began with OpenAI leading Figure's Series B funding round alongside Microsoft.

After a year of collaboration on language models for humanoid robots, "our team internally that was designing these models were running circles around OpenAI. We were just way better at this. So, I fired him" - Brett terminated the partnership due to superior internal capabilities.

Brett's team came from robot learning backgrounds spanning over a decade, giving them advantages in testing on robots, training models, and understanding the full robotics stack compared to OpenAI's approach.

Vertical Integration Strategy and Technical Challenges

Figure designs "basically every part within there the rotor stator everything um the sensors the structure the kinematics the joints uh we like this you know the batteries" - comprehensive vertical integration approach.

"Getting the robots to do the things we showed you today has almost killed me" - Brett describes the extreme difficulty of achieving current capabilities, with early Figure One robots faulting after one hour of operation.

Figure Two improved to daily faults, while Figure Three now runs all day with weekly faults across the fleet, demonstrating rapid iteration and improvement in reliability.

The goal is "7 to 10 hours of work successfully without failures with like to know like with no human intervention and do that every day forever" - the benchmark for commercial viability.

NASA Technology Acquisition for School Security

Brett acquired NASA Jet Propulsion Lab's terahertz imaging radar IP for his company Cover, which can "detect weapons underneath clothes and in backpacks and bags from like uh 10 20 you know 5 10 20 meters away."

The technology was originally "designed for the Iraq Afghanistan war to find like bomb vests and other explosives" and addresses school shootings that have "gone up 10x the last 10 years."

Cover plans to deploy prototypes to first schools in beta by end of 2024, targeting 130,000 K-12 schools nationwide with the detection system.

Extreme Work Schedule and Multi-Company Management

"The trick is just not sleep" - Brett's approach to managing three companies simultaneously, eliminating social activities to focus solely on family and work.

Brett self-funded Figure initially, reaching "a million a month of burn in four months" with a 40-person team assembled in five months, working "100 hours a week just trying to make it work."

His schedule involves being "at the office last night till like midnight, but like I I I come home every night to have dinner with my kids" at 6 PM, then returning to work after bedtime.

Hark, his stealth AI lab with 50 employees, came out of stealth two weeks prior, developing "really highly personalized intelligence" and next-generation AI devices beyond traditional computers and phones.

Security Measures and Competitive Intelligence Concerns

Figure maintains strict physical and digital security due to "very high IP risk," including tinted windows and restricted access areas throughout the facility.

"One day we're like uh looking up and we're like uh it was in this office and we look out the corner of the window at the top and there's like a drone sitting there looking in the office" - Brett discovered surveillance attempts at their Bay Area location.

The company implemented comprehensive security measures after the drone incident, recognizing the competitive intelligence risks in the Bay Area's "honeypots spines" environment.