The Robot Report Podcast

Teddy Haggerty is the founder and CEO of Robostore and Robo Inc., where he has helped push robotics into education, enterprise pilots, and early commercial deployments. His perspective is shaped by years of building in drones, crypto infrastructure, manufacturing, and import-export before turning his focus to robots.

The robot boom is real, but the winners may not be the ones building the flashiest humanoid. Haggerty reveals why the smartest move in robotics right now is selling the picks and shovels: the hardware, curriculum, training, and integration layer that makes robots actually usable. From high school drones to crypto infrastructure to safety helmets and now robotics, Haggerty has been building businesses at the edge of every major wave. In this conversation, he breaks down how Robo Store evolved from a distribution play into a robotics education and deployment platform, and why Robo Inc. is now pushing toward a more localized, solution-first model.

Gene Demaitre and Mike Oitzman press Haggerty on the bigger question behind the hype: what does it take to turn robotics into a real business, not just a demo? Haggerty’s answer is refreshingly pragmatic. Build for a specific job, keep the stack modular, and solve a customer problem today instead of chasing a fully general robot that is still years from mass adoption.

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On the show this week, Salar al Khafaji, CEO and founder of Monumental explains how they are building walls with a custom trio of robots that automate the process of placing mortar and bricks.

The company is innovating the construction market, selling “walls as a service”. In the interview, al Khafaji outlines the business model, and describes the solution design that uses custom mobile robots to handle all the wall materials on the construction site.

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Register now for RoboBusiness 2026: https://cvent.me/w0eRN9?RefId=podcast

Listen to the podcast for a special discount code.

Our guest this week is Eric Sivertson, VP of Security Business at Lattice.

This episode explores why physical AI and humanoids change the security conversation from traditional IT risk to real-world safety risk.

Sivertson explains how FPGAs can act as deterministic guardrails for robotic and cyber-physical systems.

We discuss why safe is not enough if a robot is also connected, how zero trust and cyber resilience apply on the factory floor, and why hardware needs to verify, monitor, and recover systems in real time.

He says traditional factory networks relied on “guns, guards, and gates,” and once OT systems connect to IT and the cloud, the attack surface expands dramatically, and cyber resilience becomes essential.

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Register now for RoboBusiness 2026: https://cvent.me/w0eRN9?RefId=podcast

On the show today our guest is John Black, CTO of Brain Corp. John shares how Brain Corp has evolved from proving autonomous navigation in public spaces to operating at fleet scale across cleaning, scanning, retail analytics, and new manipulation use cases.

He explains why the real challenge is not just making robots smarter, but building the guardrails, infrastructure, and platform reuse needed to deploy them safely and reliably in the real world.

John joins Gene Demaitre and Mike Oitzman to unpack how Brain Corp moved from proving autonomous navigation in public spaces to operating fleet scales across cleaning, inventory intelligence, and shelf scanning.

He explains why the company’s next leap is less about building one perfect robot and more about creating a platform that can support many robot form factors, many applications, and many customers at once.

You’ll discover:

Why public spaces are the hardest test for autonomous robots, and how Brain Corp designs for safety without killing productivity

How Brain OS evolved into a full-stack platform with cloud infrastructure, OTA updates, manufacturing tools, trust centers, and fleet management

Why 50,000 connected robots and tens of millions of operating hours create a data advantage smaller fleets simply cannot match

If you want a clear-eyed look at where physical AI is headed — and what it takes to make robots commercially useful instead of just impressive — this episode delivers the strategy behind the scale.

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Roby Lynn, founder and CEO of R2 Labs, shares how his team is bringing software-defined automation to industrial manufacturing.

He explains how the R2 Autonomy Controller connects PLCs, robots, vision systems, MES/ERP software, and other factory assets into one configurable platform.

The conversation explores the growing gap between legacy OT systems and modern IT tools, and how R2 Labs is helping manufacturers unify workflows, improve visibility, and add intelligence without replacing the systems they already trust.

Roby also reflects on lessons from building a company in a decades-old industry, including the importance of customer feedback, practical design, and solving real problems over chasing “cool” technology.

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Register now for RoboBusiness 2026: https://www.robobusiness.com/