Building Hard Tech in Hard Markets: Kyle Vogt on Cruise, Twitch, and The Bot Company

Kyle Vogt joins Sarah and Elad on this week’s episode of No Priors . A serial entrepreneur, Kyle co-founded Twitch, transforming live streaming, and later Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company acquired by GM for $1 billion. Now he’s taking on AI-powered home robotics with The Bot Company. In this episode, Kyle shares his journey building transformative tech companies, the challenges of scaling autonomous systems, and why he believes home robots are the next frontier. They also discuss the parallels between AVs and robotics, overcoming consumer skepticism, US vs. China manufacturing, and the policies needed to foster a competitive robotics industry. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @KVogt Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:29 Founding Cruise 3:12 Tesla vs. Waymo approach 4:44 Scaling autonomous vehicles 10:03 The Bot Company 16:35 Deploying robots in the home 17:56 Parallels between robots and AV markets 20:51 Personifying robots and overcoming consumer skepticism 25:00 Timeline on consumer robots 26:47 Chinese vs. US manufacturing 29:15 Fostering a competitive domestic robotics industry 34:00 Lessons from Cruise & personal philosophies