Interviewee
Kiva Allgood, President, CEO, and Board Member at Sarcos Technology and Robotics Corporation, a company bringing industrial robotics and exoskeletons to life. An entrepreneur with a passion for helping teams drive business transformation to deliver value.
Transcript
Kiva Allgood: Yeah. So Kiva Allgood, I'm president and CEO of Sarcos Robotics Technology Corporation. We are headquartered in Salt Lake City, but have offices in Pittsburgh as well. We are almost 300 strong predominantly, you know, engineers, people really leading the, at the forefront of robotics technology. So I, I have been part of Sarcos, you know, family, since we invested when I was at GE, so a little over six years and have watched the company grow and was super excited to step in as CEO last December. And we're now on, on the path to really launch our three flagship products. We have an exoskeleton, which is what it sounds like it's a, a product that people can get into that helps them really recover from, for, you know, lifting capability, the ability to lift a lot more than you.
You could, without the exoskeleton, it also protects and allows people to stay in roles for a lot longer. So a lot of the jobs, if you think about riveting or construction work, it's really hard on the joints. So our exoskeleton protects them. And then we have two teleoperated products. We have the guardian XT, which is really focused on performing tax, you know, tasks at Heights. And then we have the Guardian or the Sapient product, which does the same, it's a single arm solution. So we also have a sub product that gets to explore underneath boats on the ocean floor, also with a highly dexterous pan. So we differentiate ourselves because we work in an unstructured environment, construction sites, things like airports, ports, they change every day. And our robots perform tasks with humans, like dexterity there.
Elisa Muñoz: I have seen the videos that you guys have on the website and on YouTube. And I think it's impressive. I'm curious to ask you, like, I know that you have a background in Business and administration, so why were you interested in robotics?
Kiva Allgood: Yeah, well actually I'm a science person by nature. I grew up as a science geek. I was part of the science, you know, Olympia team in high school. It's always been a passion of mine. It's kind of where I've always gravitated towards, started my career off as an IT consultant, launching some of the firsts. So I'd say, you know, I've really had a career of, you know, uncharted territories. I launched one of the first online banking platforms and products that then kind of grew from their first E R P integrations for virtual across some of the largest retail industries and then transitioned into cellular and participated as a software lead and technology lead with the launch of the first CDMA phone.
So I'd say I'm a technologist first and then became a business person, you know, pretty early in my career. I had someone say, “Hey, if you really wanna lead a large team, You need to understand the sales cycle, not just the product and development cycle and spend a considerable time managing some large retail accounts”. And that was when I kind of got the itch for really liking that full circle, really understanding what it was to understand that life cycle of a product all the way from inception to sale, to growth and really kind of double down there. But I'd say at, at, at, at the heart of it, I love those tough problems.
The technical problems to solve and robots are at kind of at the epicenter of that. If you think about a robot, it brings all of the engineering disciplines together. It won't work without software. It won't work without, you know, hardware. And it's the, the fact that you've also seen a lot of, kind of the Moore's law effect come into play. We, we have all, we went from being hydraulics to electronics and it's been all the evolution in the battery technology that has allowed us to get to where we are, sensor technology, link technology, all of those writing that really, that curve both on, you know, capability, price, performance that has enabled us to be able to launch our products now.
Elisa Muñoz: How was the process of building a prototype and then throwing all of the robotics into the market?
Kiva Allgood: Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting because exoskeletons have been around for a very long time. Sarcos has been around for 35 years. So we started our journey with our founders in unique ways. If you go to Walt Disney world, you'll see some of our robots on, on all the rides. If you go to Vegas, you'll see our robots there. And it's the human-like dexterity piece that our founders really focused on. And that's unique. Unlike our competitors that are on the top floor that get permanently mounted that repeat a task a million times a day, we have to approach the situation very much like a human. So if you're, you're, you're going up to an aircraft and, and you're trying to perform an attack with humans, like dexterity.
You need that human in the loop and that's important, but we're also in the process of taking our AI and machine learning technology and advancing the ability for these highly dexterous robots in a really diverse environment to be able to repeat a task. So what I mean by that is, is that, you know, the human is in the loop. It says, Hey, I'd like you to do this like this with humans, like DEC dexterity, and we're gonna hit the repeat button. And we now have the capability to really lean into those new use cases because people are, you know, the number one pain point we're hearing from a lot of our partners is I can't get enough people like I can't hire enough people.
And one of the industries that we're working with the average age is for skill skilled. Labor is 55 years old, and they're not able to recruit new talent clearly, you know, managing a robot, being a tele operator of a fleet of robots is a little more appealing to the younger generation than, you know, cutting trees around a power line. So we're leaning into those use cases and really trying to apply the technology in new places and spaces.
I had someone say, “Hey, if you really wanna lead a large team, or run a business, you need to understand the sales cycle, not just the product and development cycle and spend a considerable time managing some large retail accounts”. So that’s what I did.
Elisa Muñoz: You mentioned the guardian XO, and your two main products. I saw the videos, but I did not see any kind of wires. Does it work with batteries or does it have a power source?
Kiva Allgood: Yeah, great question. That's one of the biggest advancements. So if you think about robotics in general, you, you, you started off where everything was tethered, where everything was hydraulic, and we've really ridden that technology curve to now we're battery operated so that we can go into those constrained environments and we're tether free.
Elisa Muñoz: What would you say has been the biggest technical challenge that you guys have managed to solve or that are currently solving?
Kiva Allgood: Yeah. Well, we've got a few definitely on the exoskeleton. One of the challenges is human gate is really, I mean, ask anybody who works in robotics, it's a hard thing to solve, right. And so we've been working really hard on stability. So the ability for the exoskeleton to right itself. So if it gets bumped into, with the human inside or, or with no one inside that it has the ability to go, oh, I'm gonna stand still. So the team was able to effectively put that software solution in play at the end of last year. So that was a huge milestone for us on the XO. We're also in the process of a weight reduction with the XO as well on the XT and the SAP. It's the ability to do that, supervised autonomy.
So be the ability to, to teach at a task and then say, you know, repeat that. So those are two very, I would say, unique to Sarco milestones, technical milestones over the last year.
Elisa Muñoz: Okay. And I mean, how long did it take you guys in order to build the first prototype?
Kiva Allgood: Yeah. Well, we have prototypes of all of our products right now. So they're being tested. We actually just completed a, a, a big test in the, the per mean, right near vent store, California. There's some great videos online called rep tech. So highly encourage you to take a look. It really showcases almost all of our products. The part of that that was super fun was these are missions or, or oriented, right. In the sense that you get in the field and they say, they don't tell you exactly what they're gonna ask you to do. So it's you, you have to be ready for just about anything.
So obviously we had some pre-planned scenarios, but now they're, they're asking us to do new tasks, whole tools that we've never held before. And these aren't small tools. So when you're cleaning the side of a, a ship and, and taking all of the material off of it, these are laser ablation tools. These are, you know, scales. So they stake a lot. They vibrate a lot, a lot. They have really unique handles. And so really excited that they threw a whole bunch of stuff at us across the board. And we were able to perform both above the line. So both on the skip itself, and then also below the line with our subsea product.
So we have products out that they're, that's currently in field and testing and our, you know, our goal, you know, the sooner people start to use our product, the more we'll learn and then be able to integrate that feedback into the product. So that's been a big part of how we've designed all of our products. We're doubling down in three really specific places, the tarmac of the future. So everything around aviation, helping flights take off during electrical storms, because humans aren't allowed on the tarmac is a good example in a port. So think about anything about ship building, ship maintenance, and then anything at height. So like I mentioned, you know, it's dangerous when you put a human inside of a truck and you lift them up and now they're doing their work. So we've really leaned into those three segments.
Elisa Muñoz: Like any other company in the industry, has the supply chain been a problem?
Kiva Allgood: Yeah, no, you're a hundred percent correct. Because you know, again, I said, we've tried to be creative, we've changed some designs and to use more cost or commodity like products versus customized solutions. And we've tried to make sure that we're, you know, not single sourced in certain things, but when you're pushing the technological envelope, when you're really being the first to bring something very unique to the market, you have some additional constraints than someone who has a kind of commercial commercial product today. So, you know, we have a, a new, not new, but you know, part of my leadership team are folks that come from the industry that have, you know, supply chain and production backgrounds and we've been leaning into, you know, contract manufacturing as well. So more to come on all of those fronts.
Elisa Muñoz: And last, but at least I wanted to ask you, do you have any advice for future entrepreneurs, and women in the industry?
Kiva Allgood: Yeah. The best advice I can give to women in the industry is, you know, I believe in yourself. So I mentor a lot of women and not too long ago, you know, I had a, a great friend who had this brilliant idea to, to do a startup. And she's like, I don't know if I'm ready to be a CEO and I'm like, you're ready. Like you just need to try and surround yourself with folks that will lift you up and will believe in you and will advocate for you. And also will be honest with you. So I think, you know, one of the things that I did early in my career is make sure I had people who weren't just my friends that, that really cared enough and cared deeply enough to give me the honest truth on what I was doing well, how I could improve things that things I wasn't aware of. So, you know, find that, find that person. Who's gonna be your honest ally.
Elisa Muñoz: Amazing. Thank you for the advice. Thank you for taking the time, Kiva.
Kiva Allgood: It was my pleasure..
