Six people. 600 square feet. A dual-arm robot they're teaching to help build itself. San Francisco, California Inside Almond Robotics: Building America’s Robot Factory I sat down with @saba_khalilnaji, Co-Founder & CEO of @almond_robotics, to talk about making factory automation accessible to more businesses. Our conversation started on the factory floor. Then drilling was about to begin, so Saba took us into the stairwell, with a quick look at the mobile version of Axol along the way. Before Almond, Saba spent six and a half years at DoorDash, watching the company grow and learning what it takes to deliver reliably at scale. Now he's applying those lessons to manufacturing. The problem: automating a factory task can cost six figures, with extensive custom engineering. Change the product or process, and that solution may need substantial rework. Almond builds Axol for a new generation of integrators using AI and human demonstrations to teach robots new tasks. The ambition: give those teams the tools to get a deployment running in a week. We cover: › What DoorDash taught Saba about speed, ownership & scaling › What visiting factories in Chicago revealed about demand for automation › The rise of the “neo-integrator” › Making robot training data easier to collect › Teaching Axol to help manufacture its own parts › What it takes to build robots at scale Saba on what factories actually look like: “Factories today are just like rooms. With people and machines, and people are sort of like the glue between the machines.” That is the opportunity: helping factories automate the work between machines, even when the parts and orders keep changing. Inside Almond: › Six-person team building robots in San Francisco › Axol already shipping to customers › Mantis handheld grippers for collecting robot training data › AI agents supporting internal inventory and supply chain work › Axol sanding metal parts used in the robot itself › Next milestone: hundreds of Axol robots deployed Full conversation with Saba below. This podcast is sponsored by @CoreWeave . 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Inside Almond’s factory (01:02) A sneak peek at the mobile Axol (02:51) Soldering at nine & building robots in the garage (09:33) Winning a robotics competition, then failing at autonomy (11:46) Why Saba chose bioengineering at Berkeley (14:58) Joining DoorDash & staying for six and a half years (18:18) How bureaucracy slows a startup down (20:16) Making decisions & living with the consequences (22:20) Leaving a stable job to build a company (29:40) What factory visits revealed about automation (33:43) Validating demand before building hardware (34:48) Axol & the rise of the neo-integrator (38:35) Why deployments are the north star (40:16) Building America’s robot factory (42:20) The supply chain lessons that come with shipping (43:08) Teaching a robot to help build itself (45:10) How U.S. sourcing shapes the robot (46:09) Advice to his younger self (47:38) Why “Almond”?