Aram Novikov

Hardware+Software.

[𓏴𓀿𓁼𓀐𓏴 @404vish]

i was recently discharged from the icu at the sf hospital after traumatic brain injury due to a man hitting me on the back of my head with a metal pipe, completely unprovoked, in the mission in san francisco. this man is known to the police since he’s done this before to other people. afaik they will not be pressing charges or prosecuting this individual due to the state of sf politics.

[Aram Novikov @aramnovikov]

@bscholl How much thrust headroom left at M0.95?

[Aram Novikov @aramnovikov]

@bscholl Let's go 1 Mach and beyond!!!

[Aram Novikov @aramnovikov]

@bscholl Let's go to 1 Mach and beyond!!!

[Balaji @balajis]

Hardware is hard.

That’s why Elon is by far the greatest founder of all time.

Remember — countless startups die just while trying to put stationary beige boxes on desktops. Very smart people get crushed by supply chain disruptions, or China tariffs, or lockdowns, or shipping interruptions, or regulatory delays.

Not Elon. He didn’t just survive financial crisis and coronavirus. He managed to build physical things in America while fighting the state and the laws of nature at the same time.

Somehow he managed to simultaneously build not just a car company but a rocket company. Those don’t just have “moving parts”, they are a moving whole.

The difficulty level here is insane. Hardware is completely different from software. One recall, just one serious bug, can destroy your company. If you are charging $50 for something that costs $40, and you need to recall and replace a million units, you’re usually dead.

So just one of these companies — just Tesla, or just SpaceX — would be an incredible accomplishment for anyone. Even a very intelligent and hardworking person would have to live an incredibly boring, disciplined, focused life to possibly maintain the extremely low error rate needed to profitably ship such complex products.

Not Elon. He did SpaceX and Tesla while having N children by K women. While also cofounding OpenAI and Neuralink and Boring Company. While fighting and defeating countless journalists, politicians, haters, and short sellers. And of course while buying Twitter, posting all the time, and building a following larger than almost any politician.

The better you are, the better you understand how much better Elon is. If you’re good at math you appreciate Ramanujan’s greatness. If you’re good at basketball you respect how amazing Michael Jordan was. Elon is like that, for tech. Everyone in tech understands the sport we’re playing, and he really is the greatest of all time.

[Aram Novikov @aramnovikov]

@ritwikpavan Try now?

[Ritwik Pavan @ritwikpavan]

Today, I’m launching HARDWARE NATION, a community for hardware founders, investors, and enthusiasts.

The goal is simple: bring together people who are passionate about hardware—whether you’re building, funding, or just love discovering new tech.

We did a pre-launch last night and already have some of your favorite hardware founders in the group ;)

Comment👇 if you’d like an invite. Also, please RT & like to help spread the word!

[Austen Allred @Austen]

Asking customers for money feels 100x better than asking investors for money

[Aram Novikov @aramnovikov]

@gaganbiyani The "how" is missing? Is there any vision or plan on to how to get these done?

[Brett Adcock @adcock_brett]

It's now clear that truly capable hardware has been the key obstacle to advancing general-purpose robotics

To build the best AI company in the long run, there is no substitute for good hardware...it's a critical dependency

From day one, Figure went all-in on owning our hardware. And it wasn't cheap. When the company was just 6 months old, I was already funding $1M/month. If you want to build a robotics company, you must confront the complexity head-on

To achieve these hardware capabilities, Figure assembled a world class team of over 100 hardcore engineers to design the entire robot from scratch

This team designs systems from the ground up to meet high performance requirements, including motors, actuators, thermal systems, electronics, structures, sensors, firmware, embedded software, and even hands

And remember, every piece of hardware needs software - even our lights have custom firmware 🫠

There is still a lot more to go on the hardware maturity front but what's exciting is the AI progress we are making today on top of this hardware platform. If you are somebody interested in designing AI systems for robots that can learn and reason like humans come join our team

Figure will continue to build in public and share our process. Exciting updates are coming :)

[Michael Girdley @girdley]

The amount of money people spend on bicycles is nuts.

There are decent used cars at half the price -- and those come with air conditioning.

On the other hand, the target market for these are middle-aged dudes for whom $10k is no big deal.

So weird.

[Aram Novikov @aramnovikov]

@Raskalov How does it feel?

[Aram Novikov @aramnovikov]

@elonmusk This is what I get. What's wrong?

[Dr. Buzz Aldrin @TheRealBuzz]

Liftoff! July 16, 1969, 13:32 UTC – 55 years ago today – #Apollo11 launched from Earth, bound for the Moon. Years of research, testing, development, and all prior programs and missions came together to generate this moment. Neil, Mike and I may have been atop the rocket – but the entire world was right there with us on the journey. God bless America!

[ELON CLIPS @ElonClipsX]

Elon Musk: “I like manufacturing. I like making things. For some reason, that got out of fashion. I’m not sure why.”

[Austen Allred @Austen]

The Supreme Court's Chevron ruling may be most impactful things to happen to startups in a long time, in ways that people don't realize.

A thread:

[Aram Novikov @aramnovikov]

@gaganbiyani I am afraid that these opinions are not results-driven; otherwise, they would not have prevailed. There are other major factors at play. Best of luck, though.