We sit down with Tom Zhang, founder and CEO of DAXO Robotics, to explore how embracing complexity—not avoiding it—unlocks breakthrough robotics capabilities in the real world. We unpack why conventional wisdom about simplification is failing, how DAXO's 108-actuator robotic hand challenges industry assumptions, and what it takes for immigrant entrepreneurs to build deep tech companies that tackle critical labor shortages. Tom shares concrete insights on market discovery, pivoting fast, and building systems you don't fully understand.

• distinguishing complexity from complicatedness in robotics design
• building 108 actuators with infinite degrees of freedom vs traditional simplified approaches
• embracing emergent behavior through duplicated units rather than specialized components
• solving US labor shortages in agriculture and manufacturing
• conducting rigorous market discovery through hundreds of cold calls and facility visits
• pivoting from agricultural seasonality to faster-iterating markets
• immigrant entrepreneur advantages: outsider perspective as competitive edge
• intensity as the price of excellence when building without high signal
• learning when NOT to start a company and building conviction through rejection
• bridging academic rigor with commercial realities and iteration speed

Tom takes us from his childhood on an apple orchard in rural China to earning his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, where he asked himself one transformative question: "How do I build a robot that I can't understand?" That question—inspired by how we trust Uber drivers without understanding how their brains work—led to DAXO's radical approach. While the industry races toward simplification, using as few motors as possible, Tom went the opposite direction: 108 actuators that create emergent, adaptive behavior through complexity.

We dig into the hard lessons from DAXO's three-month market discovery campaign, visiting farms and factories across the country to understand where robotics could actually solve real problems. Tom explains why the labor shortage is more severe than people realize and why iteration speed matters more than total addressable market. He shares the influence of complexity theory, social science, and books like "The Landscape of History" and "Thinking Fast and Slow" on his contrarian philosophy.

The immigrant entrepreneur journey runs throughout. Tom discusses how starting without elite credentials or high-signal networks forced him to rely on pure intensity—talking to hundreds of people, driving to orchards, and persisting through constant rejection. Rather than viewing his outsider status as a disadvantage, he shows how it enabled the kind of contrarian thinking that questions fundamental industry assumptions.

We explore the philosophy behind building complex systems: how ant colonies, bird flocks, and human societies demonstrate that duplicating simple units creates powerful emergent behavior; why most machines are over-complicated rather than truly complex; and how social science's shift toward ecological views validates this approach for robotics.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

"The Landscape of History" by John Lewis Gaddis
"Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman

Tom Zhang:
🌐 DAXO Robotics: https://daxo-robotics.com/
💼 LinkedIn:

Subscribe to the email list to get episodes when they drop: https://subscribepage.io/believeinalienspodcast

Prefer to watch/listen on Spotify?: https://open.spotify.com/show/3bl2BohzyhJQZKc6aPIzHd?si=2fb00bf94a514718
Email us with any feedback for the show: believeinalienspodcast@gmail.com

Manan Mehta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mananm/