22Astronauts

Eliot Horowitz is the Founder and CEO of Viam and Co-Founder of MongoDB.
Viam is building the universal software platform to bridge the gap between AI and physical hardware, running everything from automated boat-sanding systems to AI sonar fleet operations.
Viam: https://www.viam.com
Eliot on X: https://x.com/elliothorowitz
Ilir on X: https://x.com/IlirAliu_
Ilir on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilir-aliu/
Timestamps:0:00 The early days of 20 megabyte hard drives1:18 Writing video games on a Radio Shack computer at age five6:24 Rockets, airplanes, and why software is the hardest part of hardware9:03 The power of iteration velocity11:35 Becoming an entrepreneur by accident: MongoDB15:00 Product vs. utility: Why MongoDB won19:10 Stepping down and tinkering in the COVID era22:41 Why I bought a $25k industrial robot arm for my New York apartment28:28 Taking a big swing: Building a universal platform34:16 From an idea to 1,000 production robots41:00 Why trying to build both hardware and software is a trap43:53 Real world deployments: Tooling for operators vs technologists47:02 The power of dogfooding coffee and salad robots in the office49:16 How LLMs will actually code the future of robotics52:14 It’s not about the product, it’s about the outcome53:36 Why nobody spends enough time on education

Evan Beard is the co-founder and CEO of Standard Bots, building AI-trained industrial robot arms designed to automate real factory work, not demos:In this episode, Evan shares a founder path that started in software startups and Y Combinator long before robotics. Seeing engineers at YC building giant robots convinced him this was a “cheat code on life” and he taught himself mechanical and electrical engineering to make it possible 
We talk about the early years spent building prototypes in a small apartment, running more than one hundred calls with manufacturers, and discovering the same problem every time. Companies wanted automation, but robots were too expensive and too difficult to program 
Evan explains why Standard Bots focuses on usable automation instead of chasing hype. The goal was not a slightly better robot but something ten times easier to deploy, trained through demonstration and physical AI rather than complex programming 
We also discuss surviving the near-death phase, raising funding weeks before running out of money, rebuilding electronics during the chip shortage, and learning electrical engineering while debugging exploding circuit boards remotely 
A conversation about persistence, customer obsession, and why the future of robotics will be decided by real ROI on factory floors, not humanoid spectacle.

Grace Brown is the founder and CEO of Andromeda, building social companion robots designed for aged care and healthcare environments:
In this episode, Grace shares a founder journey that started long before a company existed. She had been building robots since her teenage years, but the real motivation appeared during COVID lockdowns. People in care facilities were physically supported, yet emotionally isolated. The goal became simple. Build a robot people actually want around them.
We talk about learning outside the curriculum, reaching out to mentors early, and running long real-world pilots before the product was ready. Instead of waiting for perfection, Andromeda deployed unfinished systems into nursing homes to understand behavior, trust, and human reaction.
Grace explains why the hardest problem in social robotics is not intelligence but comfort. A robot can function technically and still fail if people feel uneasy around it. Design, personality, and interaction determine adoption more than raw capability.
We also discuss building a company as a young founder, hiring commercial leadership early, and how moving into the US startup ecosystem changed the pace of decisions and iteration.
You don't want to miss this one!

Camilla Mazzoleni is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of FORGIS, a Zurich-based startup building an AI operating layer for industrial automation:
In this episode, Camilla shares a founder journey shaped long before robotics.
She grew up as a competitive alpine skier, leaving home early to train at elite level. Discipline, pressure, and repetition defined her daily life. Losing was normal. Learning how to reset and keep going became second nature.
After an injury ended her professional sports career, that same intensity moved into engineering. Camilla talks about discovering robotics through building, not theory. Working on factory floors, programming robots across vendors, and seeing firsthand how slow and fragmented industrial automation really is.
We talk about how Forgis came to life at ETH Zurich. Why hardware is not the bottleneck in factories. Why software fragmentation is. And how Forgis sits on top of existing systems as a hardware-agnostic, edge-based AI layer that upgrades how factories operate instead of tearing them apart.
A great conversation about discipline, switching paths, and why Europe’s manufacturing future depends on intelligence, not replacement.

Stephen James is the founder and CEO of Neuracore, and Assistant Professor of Robot Learning at Imperial College London:
In this episode, Stephen shares his path from growing up in Wales to spending a decade at Imperial, a postdoc at Berkeley, and eventually founding Neuracore. Not because he wanted to be a startup founder, but because he kept running into the same problem again and again: every robotics team rebuilding the same infrastructure from scratch.
We talk about what actually slows robotics teams down, why data pipelines matter more than clever algorithms, and how Neuracore aims to become the infrastructure layer that lets teams focus on deployment instead of plumbing.
Stephen also reflects on imposter syndrome, work ethic, moving between academia and industry, and why Europe can and should build its own robotics infrastructure instead of copying Silicon Valley playbooks.
A very honest conversation about building foundations, not hype, and why scaling robotics is mostly about removing friction.