#292 Brett Adcock - Shawn Ryan Meets a Humanoid Robot

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Shawn Ryan** (0:30)
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**Shawn Ryan** (0:50)
Brett Adcock, welcome to the show.

**Brett Adcock** (0:53)
Thanks for having me on.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:55)
I've been looking forward to this for a long time. The robotics guy.

**Brett Adcock** (0:59)
Yeah.

**Shawn Ryan** (0:59)
Let me give you an intro here real quick before we get started. Brett Adcock, a serial entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Figure AI, building general purpose humanoid robots for labor automation, founded Vettery, an AI driven talent marketplace, which was acquired for approximately $100 million. Co-founder of Archer Aviation, developing electric vertical takeoff and landing EVTOL aircraft. Found cover in AI security company using NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory technology to detect concealed weapons in K-12 schools. That's amazing. In late 2025, you launched Hark, a new AI lab self-funded with 100 million to build what you call human-centric AI. You've raised billions in venture capital and Time named you one of the 100 most influential people in AI in 2024, married and a father of three children. And before we get too far into it, we always start off with a gift.

**Brett Adcock** (2:24)
Thank you.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:25)
He didn't give you any tips on that, did he?

**Brett Adcock** (2:30)
All right, I gotta hit one.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:37)
What do you think?

**Brett Adcock** (2:38)
They're great.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:39)
You can leave this guy here if you want to.

**Brett Adcock** (2:41)
This guy's staying.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:42)
That is the coolest thing I've ever seen as far as giving somebody a gift on the show. That was awesome.

**Brett Adcock** (2:49)
Yeah.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:50)
That was awesome.

**Brett Adcock** (2:51)
I got you another gift.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:52)
Oh, some love gifts.

**Brett Adcock** (2:54)
You can keep here, put on the shows.

**Shawn Ryan** (2:57)
Thank you. Yeah. No way.

**Brett Adcock** (3:04)
Yeah, little robot.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:05)
That is awesome. Thank you.

**Brett Adcock** (3:08)
Yeah, no problem.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:10)
Very cool. Well, Brett, we've got a lot to talk about here. So, man, how many companies are you running now?

**Brett Adcock** (3:26)
Yeah, man, I'm not sleeping. I have too many.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:28)
I'll bet.

**Brett Adcock** (3:29)
Too many, just like kids and work, and just like, yeah.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:33)
That thing is amazing.

**Brett Adcock** (3:35)
Never sleeping anymore.

**Shawn Ryan** (3:36)
I'll bet, I'll bet.

**Brett Adcock** (3:37)
Yeah, what'd you think of the robot?

**Shawn Ryan** (3:39)
I think it's incredible. I can't wait to talk more about it. So a couple of things. Just one more thing to knock out here before we get into it. I got a Patreon account. It's a subscription account, and it's quite the community, and they're honestly the reason that I get to sit here with you today. So they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. This is from Steven Casey. In today's marketplace, we find that AI platforms can sometimes invent answers rather than admitting to a lack of information. Combining this in the physical realm of robotic action seems to multiply the downside effects exponentially. What safeguards are in place that we can put our trust in to prevent the potential for downstream harm to humans as a result of bad programming or computing errors?

**Brett Adcock** (4:27)
Yeah. Yeah, we don't want to terminate our popping out here when we...

**Shawn Ryan** (4:31)
Definitely not...

**Brett Adcock** (4:31)
.have this work, right? I mean, I think we're chatting about this outside.
I think one thing to say, four years ago when I started the company, there was no path for humanoid robots to make it into people's homes in the next 10 years. There was no good story. There was... you had big hydraulic humanoids out there. They're all hand-coated to do certain tasks. What you really need is a cheaper electric humanoid that you basically can use neural nets, use basically an AI-first strategy with. There was just none of that existed. I think we're thankful now, looking back, it feels like we somehow pulled 10 years of the future forward. We have electric humanoids at a reasonably price that can do useful human work with neural nets. It's just an incredible place to be in, giving those questions, which is like, how do we make this work now at scale in a safe way? Because that's the spot we want to be in, not trying to make this work for 20 years.