I sit down with Saman Farid, founder of Formic, to get real about what it takes to deploy industrial robots in practice. We go deep into robotics-as-a-service, how we can make manufacturing more productive, and the labor reality for small/medium-sized manufacturers in the United States.
If you want a dose of robot reality beyond flashy demo videos, you will enjoy this episode.
Among the topics we discuss are:
Deployment gap in the robotics
Hidden labor crisis
Robotics as a Service (RaaS)
China vs U.S. manufacturing culture
How Formic turns automation from CAPEX to OPEX for their customers
Scale through coordination vs consolidation
Watch on YouTube; listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
Enjoy.
Recording date: February 11, 2026
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
03:11 Why Factory Tours Should Be Mandatory
10:24 State Of US Manufacturing
17:22 Chinese vs American Approach To Manufacturing
20:22 The Labor Debate
26:56 Breaking Down Robotics-As-A-Service
36:46 Importance Of Geographical Density
39:10 Financing Automation
42:02 Scale Through Coordination vs Control
46:51 Challenges In Robotics Adoption
53:05 Formic Capital Strategy
57:32 Formic Longer-Term Vision
59:18 Rapid Fire
Follow Jordan on X:
https://x.com/jrwolfe
Connect with Saman Farid:
X – https://x.com/samanfarid
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanfarid/
Website – https://formic.co/
Remember to go direct!
Jordan
P.S. Build with love
