The notion that all hardware is a commodity business is going to be flipped on its head this decade Unitree's IPO filings show that it has ~60% gross margins, higher than most AI labs Durable, high quality robots are going to be supply constrained. Developer and skill ecosystems will create moats around certain robot platforms. Companies that can create an amazing product will command brand premiums The force of capitalism is expanding beyond bits

It’s always surprising to me that a chunk of the investment community is still skeptical of Humanoids and Figure The same was true for reusable rockets and SpaceX until more recently But this is what creates great investment opportunities. Fun interview with Jose.

The US just banned Chinese robots. In our interview from last month, Andrew Kang mapped out the exact playbook - EV tariffs first, robots next. "We want to build things in America, and to do that, we can't be relying on robots from other countries." "I'm not saying I necessarily agree with that, but I think it's kind of clear where the government's going here."

In 2009 we had a too big to fail tailwind for established companies In this era of government, we have a too important to not succeed mandate for smaller companies Golden era for venture capital and entrepreneurs in critical industries

The @FCC 's Title III equipment certification power under the Communications Act gives them authority over devices that emit or use radio frequency—WiFi, cellular, proprietary wireless comms, spectrum-based sensors. If a humanoid robot contains any wireless capability, it falls under FCC jurisdiction as RF equipment. The FCC can refuse to certify non-compliant equipment, which effectively bans it from importation and domestic sale. The FCC has deployed this authority increasingly for national security purposes. The Huawei ban and more recent actions restricting Chinese telecom equipment used this framework: the FCC denied equipment certifications based on national security findings, invoking Section 309(j) of the Communications Act and emergency authority. They could theoretically do the same for Chinese robots with RF components—certifications denied on the grounds that the equipment poses risks of espionage, surveillance, or critical infrastructure vulnerability. If this news is true, it will be interesting to see whether the FCC follows this playbook.

"FCC plans to announce restrictions Tuesday barring imports of new Chinese humanoid and quadruped robot models, along with new Chinese power inverters, according to U.S. officials" If it wasn't clear enough, the USG is putting its full weight behind the domestic robot industry

The best favor you can do for yourself is to learn about the history of robots, how they are designed, and how that design is evolving to enable these machines to be intelligent

Robots are the GPUs of physical labor Scaling domestic production of robots will be just as important as the domestic production/deployment of GPUs @howardlutnick @evanbeard @standardbots

I've just finished writing a 6,000 word Investment Memo on @standardbots It will be published at @RoboStrategy soon, covering: - The birth of the robot arm - A typical robot arm’s hardware and software architecture - How Standard Bots is reinventing the arm from first principles