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PODCAST

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu

The show for founders building real deep tech. Each episode features founders, executives, and builders in AI, robotics, and hardware — breaking down how they build, scale, and learn. Hosted by Ilir Aliu | 22Astronauts. Whether you’re building now or just curious — tune in.

technology

All Episodes

01:01:40

Ep 98 | Discipline Is a Transferable Skill (w/...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2026/02/04

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

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00:56:35

Ep 97 | Why Robotics Keeps Rebuilding the Same...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2026/01/29

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

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01:08:18

Ep 96 | Talent Didn’t Save Me, Consistency Did (w/...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2026/01/22

Steve Xie is the founder and CEO of Lightwheel AI, building the simulation and synthetic data layer powering the next generation of embodied AI and humanoid robotics.In this episode, Steve shares a rare founder journey that starts far from robotics. From studying physics at Peking University, struggling to stand out, and rebuilding confidence through sheer consistency, to a PhD at Columbia and an early failed startup built out of love for his dog. A detour that taught him the cost of building

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00:59:54

Ep 95 | The Hard Part Is Not Training Robots. It Is...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2026/01/14

I talk with Animesh Garg,Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech and one of the leading voices in robot learning today:We talk about growing up in India, building his first autonomous vehicle on a $280 budget after being rejected from a CMU program, and how that failure pushed him toward Berkeley, Stanford, and eventually NVIDIA Research. Animesh shares why he avoided computer science early on, what drew him to mechatronics, and how curiosity rather than planning shaped his entire career.ORBIT and Isaac

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00:54:10

Ep 94 | What Made Us Strong Is Now Holding Us Back...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2026/01/08

In this episode, I talk with Prof. Dr. Marco Huber, Professor for Cognitive Production Systems at the University of Stuttgart and Scientific Director for AI at Fraunhofer IPA.Marco shares his journey from a middle-class upbringing with no academic role models to becoming a leading figure in applied AI for manufacturing. We talk about discovering computer science through a single physics teacher, why he almost went to vocational school, and how a mix of personal drive and mentors shaped his path.We

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00:55:20

Ep 93 | Scaling Is Harder Than Building The First...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/12/18

Stefan Dörr-Laukien is the co-founder and CEO of NODE Robotics, a Stuttgart-based company building the software layer behind scalable mobile robot fleets.In this episode, Stefan shares how his path into robotics did not start with founding ambitions, but with curiosity for how machines work. From studying mechanical engineering at TUM to hands-on autonomous driving research at BMW and years at Fraunhofer IPA, his motivation was always the same: building systems that work in the real world, not just

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00:46:30

Ep 92 | New Opportunities Grow From Every Failure (w/...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/12/11

I talked with Stephan van den Brink, founder and CEO of MANUS™, the company behind some of the most advanced data gloves used in robotics:Not only robotics: teleoperation, motion capture, and embodied AI. Manus started as a small student project and grew into a deep tech company trusted across the robotics world.We talk about Stephan's path from studying law and economics to discovering he was meant to build things, not file documents. He explains how the first Manus glove was built in evenings and

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00:55:05

Ep 91 | The Real Truth Of Autonomy Lives In The Stats...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/12/04

In this episode, I talk with Harald Schäfer, CTO at comma.ai, where he is leading one of the most interesting autonomy efforts in the world:They work on end to end driving and generative world models is changing how small teams can compete with billion dollar labs.We talk about his path from electrical engineering in Belgium and Santa Barbara to joining comma as one of the earliest engineers. Harald explains how he helped turn a hacker project into a focused engineering team that ships reliable

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00:49:44

Ep 89 | Business Masterclass: Selling First Before...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/11/20

Albane Dersy turned down Goldman Sachs to build Inbolt, a robotics company now deployed in factories across the world. Her story is a masterclass in execution:In this episode, we talk about how Albane grew up in Paris, pushed her way through the French prep school system, and found her path into entrepreneurship after a semester at Wharton opened her eyes to what was possible. She explains how she met her two co-founders during the X EC program, and how the first version of Inbolt had nothing to do

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01:02:56

Ep 90 | Why are you not throwing yourself into this?...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/11/20

Dr. Hendrik Susemihl, CEO and Co founder of GoodBytz, shows you how fully automated kitchens can solve the labor crisis in food service and still serve better, fresher food at scale.We talk about his path from taking apart PCs as a teenager, to building large automation systems at Fraunhofer, to becoming CTO at NEURA Robotics. Hendrik explains why he walked away from a safe leadership role after his father’s heart attacks, how going plant based changed how he sees food, and why he became obsessed

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00:51:50

Ep 88 | Always a Bit of a Generalist, Never Only One...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/11/13

In this episode, I talk with Jon Miller Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of Ultra, about how to actually get robots deployed in warehouses:We walk through Jon’s journey from tearing apart electronics on a tiny New York City workbench to Harvey Mudd, early YC startups in 3D printing, and building one of the first highly automated factories at Voodoo Manufacturing. Jon explains why those painful years with “last generation” robots convinced him to start Ultra and focus on one thing first e commerce order

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00:58:36

Ep 87 | Speed Is Objectively the Most Important Thing...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/11/06

Axel Peytavin, co-founder & CEO of Innate, shows you how to teach real robots with language and quick demos without being a roboticist.We talk about Axel’s path from France to Stanford and why he is betting on personal robotics you can program with prompts, code, and demonstrations. He explains Mars, Innate’s $2K teachable robot with a Jetson Orin Nano, RGB-D vision, wrist camera, 2D LiDAR, and a 6-DOF arm.We break down BASIC, their open embodied agent that plans, remembers spaces, and chains

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00:53:38

Ep 86 | It’s Not A Hardware Problem. It’s A System...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/10/29

Tom Zhang, founder and CEO of Daxo Robotics: with over 100 actuators they challenge everything we thought we knew about dexterity.In this episode, we talk about his journey from growing up in a mountain village in China to launching one of the most talked-about robotics startups of 2025.Tom shares how early life on a family orchard shaped his fascination with building and problem-solving, what he learned during his years at Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP Lab, and why he believes

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00:54:59

Ep 85 | Having A Company Is Maybe The Hardest Way To...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/10/24

Maximilian Schilling, co-founder and CTO of warmwind, is building a new kind of browser where AI works like a digital employee: clicking, typing, and navigating apps visually instead of through APIs. In this episode, we talk about his mission to make automation transparent, reliable, and accessible for every business, and how he’s building one of Europe’s most ambitious AI startups from Jena, Germany.We dive into Max’s story, from growing up in a family that both inspired and warned him against

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00:50:06

Ep 84 | Fundamental Improvement Over Incremental...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/10/16

Robots still need weeks of coding to learn one new task. Xavier (Tianhao) Chi is changing that with Mbodi AI:Mbodi helps industrial robots learn through language and demonstration. No coding, no engineers, just simple instruction. We talk about how his team is closing the gap between advanced AI research and real factory floors, and what that means for the future of automation.Xavier shares his path from growing up in Shenyang to leading Google Public DNS, one of the internet’s core services, and

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01:00:14

Ep. 83 | You Become Who You Hang Out With (w/ Ashish...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/10/09

Ashish Kapoor is building General Robotics to solve the biggest deployment problem in robotics: Getting real robots to work in the real world. In this episode, he shares how he’s doing it, and why most robotics stacks aren’t built to scale.We talk about growing up in India, studying at IIT and MIT, and how his mindset shifted from solving hard problems to finding the right ones. Ashish shares why he left research to start General Robotics, the limits of today’s robotics stacks, and how Grid aims to

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01:01:45

Ep 82 | College Is Going to Be Obsolete by the End of...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/10/02

In this episode, I talk with Brian Walker, founder and CEO of REVEL, the company building the simulation backbone for humanoid robotics. Brian’s journey started far from Silicon Valley: growing up in the Czech Republic and working on Hollywood sets like Avatar and The Mandalorian, where he helped pioneer real-time XR production.We talk about what pulled him from filmmaking into robotics, and how sci-fi inspired him to stop watching the future and start building it. Brian shares why he founded REVEL

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01:03:42

Ep 81 | Opportunities Only Arise After An Incredible...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/09/24

A Stanford physicist leaves academia to build open-source software for humanoid robots? I talked to OpenMind founder Jan Liphardt: OpenMind a new robotics company building an open-source, AI-native operating system for humanoid robots.We talk about being born in Germany, his upbringing in Michigan, early love for taking things apart, and how his path led from biochemistry at Reed to a PhD at Cambridge, then faculty roles at Berkeley and Stanford.Jan shares why he made the leap from academia to

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00:56:12

Ep 80 | You Will Die If You Don’t Do It (w/ Bob van...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/09/18

🎙️ I talked with Bob van Luijt, co-founder and CEO of Weaviate, the open-source vector database that's become core infrastructure for AI-native applications.We talk about how Bob grew up in a small Dutch town, started coding in QBasic, and built his first software company while still in school. Then came the unexpected turn: jazz. He shares how studying music (from a conservatory in the Netherlands to Berklee in Boston) taught him grit, deep focus, and how to think in systems. For Bob, writing

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00:56:03

Ep 79 | Calm Down, Slow It All Down, Let Clarity...

Building Deep Tech with Ilir Aliu ·

2025/09/07

In this episode, I talk with Vikash Kumar, Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon and founder of MyoLab.AI, where he’s building human-embodied AI systems:We talk about growing up in a small Indian town, the influence of his mother on his early learning, and how a robotics club at IIT Kharagpur set him on a 15-year path through the world’s top labs.From a PhD at the University of Washington, to OpenAI, Google Brain, Meta FAIR, and now his own company! Vikash shares how his curiosity evolved from

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