The Shawn Ryan Show #292: Brett Adcock – Humanoids, Flying Cars, and the Future of Human-Centric AI

Guest: Brett Adcock (Founder/CEO, Figure AI, Archer Aviation, Cover, Hark)
Air Date: March 30, 2026

Episode Overview

In this jam-packed episode, host Shawn Ryan sits down with entrepreneur and engineer Brett Adcock, whose companies are shaping the cutting edge of robotics, aviation, security, and AI. Adcock and Ryan walk through the entire arc of Adcock's career: from rural Illinois farm kid to building billion-dollar tech companies. They discuss humanoid robot safety, the path to flying cars, advanced school security tech, the future of consumer AI devices, and end with honest founder advice and a hands-on humanoid robot demo in studio.

Key Topics & Insights

1. Humanoid Robot Safety, Adoption, and the Home (03:35 – 13:38)

• AI Safeguards: Adcock addresses a Patreon question about how Figure ensures robots don’t become dangerous.

  "We have a safety strategy both intrinsically. We want the robot hardware and the robots around humans to just be safe all times. ... We're always monitoring it... not there yet where I feel comfortable enough to let loose and say, here, here's a robot, or my kids are there and I feel okay." – Brett (05:35/07:21)

• Testing at Home: For months, Figure's prototypes live in Adcock’s home under supervision. His children are already attached, suggesting emotional bonds are real.

  "My kids wanted it there... they're not getting rid of this guy." – Brett (08:30)

• Robot in Every Home?: Adcock predicts:

  "Honestly, in our lifetime, we will be fortunate enough for every human to, I think, have a humanoid, like, almost like a phone and car." (08:41)

2. AI "Bubble," Exponential Productivity, and Synthetic Humans (09:31 – 14:57)

• No Bubble, Just the Beginning: Adcock sees AI as at the “start line” and sees an age of abundance coming.

  "You basically have these little mini humans that can do human like work and they can think and use computers and machines. ... the greatest increase in productivity we’ve ever seen. ... a true age of abundance." – Brett (11:11/11:32)

• Liberating Human Attention: AI and robots will free people from "busy work": ordering food, booking, laundry—delegated to AIs.

  "I want all that stuff to be in my operating System and like, a human in a box." (12:09)

  "We’ll do that in like 24 months... all this stuff so good that you won’t go order food anymore, or book stuff..." (12:46)

3. Brett Adcock’s Founder Journey — From Farm to Tech Billionaire (17:22 – 25:56)

• Rural Roots: Grew up in a town of 700, 3rd generation crop farmer. Obsessed with computers as a kid, hustled online businesses for pocket money.

• Family Trajectory: His brother Colby is also an AI founder in defense, living just a block away now.

• First Big Win — Vettery: Building an AI-driven recruiting platform that upended the painfully human-centric headhunter model, sold for $110M after high-stakes risks and years of near-bankruptcy.

  "I was like completely dead broke and put everything out ... they came in at $110 million. ... At the time we were doing like 20,000, 30,000 interview requests a week with no humans..." (24:38/25:59)

4. From Talent Matching to Flying Cars — Archer Aviation (28:24 – 53:13)

• Electric, Vertical Takeoff Aircraft: Motivated by sci-fi and urban traffic, Adcock taught himself aircraft design with university partners. Built Archer Aviation; took it public within 3 years; now a $6B company.

• Hard Tech Fundraising: VCs dismissed hardware; Adcock risked nearly all his Vettery earnings to self-fund until public raise via SPAC.

• Certification Bottlenecks: Aircraft tech is ready, but FAA safety standards (1-in-1-billion-hour fatality) are the barrier.

  "The challenging part with Archer is that we are governed by the federal airspace... the process moves at the speed of the post office." (44:19)

• Urban Skyways: In 20-30 years, expects cities to have “vertiports” - not personal backyard flyers, but Uber-style pooled air travel with high redundancy/safety.

  "You’ll have cities being transitioned... you can live outside of cities and get to cities really fast." (50:48)

5. Humanoid Robots: Solving General-Purpose Human Labor (53:25 – 92:25+)

• Why Humanoids?: The physical world is built around human shape; the "holy grail" is a generalized machine for all tasks.

• Technical Challenge: Human-like hands and joints create astronomical complexity:

  "There are more states in the robot than atoms in the universe... you just can’t code your way out of this problem…" (57:32) "Controller is running for balance... over 200 times a second to make sure we can just balance…" (57:37)

• Neural Network Breakthrough: 2023 demo of a robot making coffee using pure neural nets—no hand-coded steps—was a major inflection point.

  "That was the first moment... hot damn, this is going to really work." (66:48)

• Industrial Deployment & Self-Improvement: Figure robots operated 10+ hour shifts at BMW for months, handling logistics, folding laundry, and more—swapping in/out autonomously for charging and faults.

  "We have robots running now in 24, 7 shifts without stopping, without any faults, for like, days and days." (74:29)

• From Code to Neural Nets: The switch removed 100,000+ lines of code for full autonomy:

  "We had to basically refactor everything into a neural network. ...What you saw today was just a robot that we can put now back in, say, the factory... that will run only on a neural net." (74:30)

• Societal Impact & Pricing: First wave will be business/industrial, eventually homes for "like $500/month" lease.

  "Every home in 10 years? ...maybe not every home, but pretty close..." (87:33)

6. In-Studio Figure 3 Demo — The Humanoid Arrives (95:55 – 106:41)

• Stats: 130 lbs, 5'6", 40+ joints, 5th-gen hands with tactile and camera sensors, soft foam exteriors for safety.

  "All this walking and all robot movements are done through a neural net. There's no code helping us do this." (98:34)

• Capabilities: Can fold laundry, unload dishwashers, pick up 40 lb boxes, walk/jog, push recovery, shake hands safely. Charges in 1 hour, runs for 4–5 hours; can swap in shifts autonomously.

• Manufacturing at Scale: Figure produces a new unit every 90 minutes in California; future roadmap targets >1 million robots/year.

  "You sell over a billion phones a year easy... it’s gonna be like a robot for every human." (102:37)

• Dexterity Frontiers: Next-gen hands targeted for full human-like finesse. Already outperforms humans in balance.

7. OpenAI, Microsoft, and AI Race for Robotics (106:41 – 113:47)

• OpenAI Backstory: Adcock’s Figure partnered with OpenAI/Microsoft, but found their outputs slow and less effective compared to Figure's internal AI team.

  "We just ran circles around them... in robotics you gotta run the robot... see how it does that day.” (110:46)

• Split & Autonomy: Eventually “fired” OpenAI, keeping AI stack development entirely in-house.

  "I got a call one day ... 'we're thinking about doing robotics work internally.' I was like, this is over.” (111:11)

8. Ethics, Security, and Military Uses (113:56 – 117:49)

• No Military (for Now): Figure draws a line for now, focusing on business and consumer applications.

  "We've decided not to do military stuff today... The robot’s not like a car—it can walk upstairs, open doors... gotta be very careful with it." (114:01)

• Customer Perception: Major companies demand CEO-level approval before announcing humanoid partnerships, signaling the sensitivity and responsibility involved.

9. Advanced School Security — Project Cover (132:20 – 156:46)

• The Problem: U.S. school shootings spiked to >300/year, mainly from unplanned, hidden-carry incidents.

• Technology Solution: Cover uses millimeter-wave/terahertz radar (originally for military standoff detection) to passively detect concealed weapons at a distance, including in backpacks or pockets, without slowing student flow or traumatizing students.

  "If you know a kid has a gun, you can go take it away... majority of shootings are unplanned ... this tech sees them as clear as day." (136:41/136:49/138:29)

• Progress: Self-funded, transitioned million-dollar hardware to $7-chip, expecting in-school pilots by end of year. Plans to scale beyond schools: airports, hospitals, venues.

10. Next AI Leap — Hark: Post-iPhone Era Devices (157:41 – 163:20)

• The Problem: AI today provides generic chatbots; no lasting memory, no true sensory awareness, limited utility.

• The Vision: Hark will replace the phone/computer with AI-native hardware: multimodal, sensor- and context-rich, always-on, deeply personal.

  "The chatbot's an old interface. It's the wrong interface to AGI. You're not going to get to Jarvis with those. So we have to go rebuild all the hardware from scratch." (160:22)

• Team: Features iPhone 15–17’s lead designer; self-funded, scheduled to exit stealth as episode airs.

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Figure AI’s Mission:

  "The problem we want to solve at Figure… drop [a robot] into your home, never been, you can just communicate with it and get to start doing work." – Brett (117:54/118:00)

• On Automation Anxiety:

  "Are we going to have bumps along the way? For sure. ...But I think the spirit here for humanity to get this done... it’s going to be one of the most important technologies of our lifetime... I think we need this. Just like we need cars..." – Brett (167:27/169:54)

• On Robotics and Human Connection:

  "I want robots in the home. So don't really care... we got to make that work." (87:09)

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic | |---|---| | 03:35 | First discussion of robot safety, children at home | | 09:31 | Is AI a bubble? Transformative age of abundance | | 24:38 | How he sold Vettery for $110M | | 28:24 | Moving into electric flying aircraft – Archer Aviation | | 44:19 | Bureaucratic bottleneck: FAA certification | | 53:25 | The grand robotics challenge: general-purpose humanoids | | 66:48 | The neural net "coffee making" breakthrough | | 74:29 | Continuous industrial deployments; full neural net autonomy | | 87:33 | Path to robots in every home (timeline, pricing) | | 95:55 | Walk-around demo of Figure 3 in the studio | | 102:01 | Robot manufacturing at scale – a new unit every 90 mins | | 106:41 | OpenAI/Microsoft partnership and parting ways | | 113:56 | Military applications, ethical lines | | 132:20 | The Cover project: school security tech | | 157:41 | Launching Hark – AI-native hardware after iPhone |

Founder Advice (172:04)

"Just go. ...Harder things are easier. Doing Figure is not 100 times harder than another robot company, but the total opportunity is millions of times bigger... Hard things attract the best people and get more capital. Don't stress too much—be ambitious." – Brett

On persistence: "The great filter is that you shouldn't be doing this if you don't want it. ...If you don't quit, you won't die." (172:04)

Tone & Style

• Warm, candid. Adcock: self-effacing, plainspoken, occasionally profane, unscripted.
• Deep technical detail mixed with accessible anecdotes.
• Shawn is skeptical, curious, sometimes incredulous—in a good way.
• Emphasis on both grand vision and the relentless grind of hard tech startups.

Summary

This episode is a sweeping, up-close journey through 21st-century tech from one of its most ambitious builders. Brett Adcock goes deep into the "why" and "how" behind humanoid robots, electric flying cars, school security, and the next generation of AI. Listeners get founder war stories, technical deep dives, an emotional view on the future of work and family, and a hands-on demo that is equal parts Jetsons and Silicon Valley.

Expect to come away both awed by the pace of innovation—and appreciative of the sobering responsibility that comes with it.

Additional Memorable Moments

• On risk tolerance: Shawn: "You’ve got a huge appetite for risk, huh?" Brett: "The trick is just to not sleep and always work." (38:13/163:28)
• On military applications: "We have to be very careful. ...A robot can walk right up your stairs. ...It’s a very different technology." (114:01)
• On trusting robots: "It will be safe when I feel comfortable putting a robot around my kids." (92:25)

This summary covers the essence of the interview, technical highlights, strategic insights, timeline of innovations, and the human story behind Brett Adcock’s visionary work.