Top of Mind with Brad Porter
He built Amazon’s robot army. Then walked away. Why? To build something bigger. Top of Mind is a weekly 2–5 minute audio drop from Brad Porter—former Amazon VP of Robotics, Scale AI CTO, and now founder of Cobot. Each short episode delivers raw, unfiltered insights on leadership, automation, and the chaos of building at the edge of physical AI. From warehouse floors to the frontier of machine intelligence, this is what it sounds like when a Silicon Valley leader thinks out loud.
Episodes
39 episodes
Robot Brains and Three Constituents of a Startup
Sunday thoughts on the brains of robots and re-pitching your investors, customers, and employees.
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8:17
Value of Solving Hard Problems
Talking today about the value of solving hard problems! Plus more insight into our robot and lessons from the field. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRMn_2lfV-I
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10:06
Exciting Progress at Cobot!
Exciting progress… Proxie now identifies its own work, tells you where it's going, and completes the task… even in congested hospital hallways!
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3:54
Best Case, Worst Case, and Likely Scenarios
Best case scenario, worst case scenario, likely scenario… how do you plan for all three.
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10:39
Rethinking Performance Management
Rethinking performance management … are you pulling the company ahead?
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3:24
Dr. Seth Teller
Dr Seth Teller was my masters thesis advisor at MIT. His wife wrote a book last year that dives deeper into his life, the context surrounding his decision to end his life, and the impact that had. It’s a deeply vulnerable book and top of mind f...
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6:06
Are We Thinking Big Enough?
Are we thinking big enough? That’s the question I’m thinking a lot about. It’s really hard to put into proper perspective the pace of the productivity gains we’re going to see from AI and robotics. We’re going to need more capital and more ente...
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7:37
Competition Drives Innovation
Competition drives innovation… in every arena! Tune in as I talk about how this applies equally to RC F5K competitions and robotics.
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5:52
Abundance in an AI and Robotically Enabled Future
The promise of robotics and AI is that we create a far more abundant future. Sharing my thoughts on what abundance enables and why our future has the potential to be far more peaceful and prosperous.
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2:52
Hard Work
The first day in a new building really sets the tone. The best way to honor and thank your employees is to make that a great experience. But you also can’t lose sight of the fact that startups aren’t about nice working spaces… they’re about fig...
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4:23
How to Succeed in Robotics Transformation
Sharing my thoughts on succeeding in robotics transformation by picking partners you’re believe can move the needle for your business and going on the journey with them!
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5:31
Upgrading My Feet - Part Toes
More on upgrading your feet! How can you tell if your shoes have enough space? I’ll show you. Video: https://youtu.be/68r6FTRGdmI
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5:00
Bonus: Lesson on Metrics
Last in my series from upstate New York. Here I share a lesson I learned at age 5 about how metrics can motivate us.
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3:10
Ambitious Culture
We don’t always talk about the importance of having an ambitious culture. Ambitious cultures can be tricky to manage. Ambitious people have ambitious expectations. They push you, they challenge you. But ambitious people in ambitious cultures ca...
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4:15
Money, Risks, and Startups
This week I follow up from last week’s post to go deeper into my philosophy on personal finances.
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7:48
Talent
In this Top of Mind, I'm talking about talent and why it’s critical to our companies, but also our country.(Recorded in June, 2025)
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Episode 20
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4:13
Lessons From My Father
I share lessons from my father that shaped how I think about leadership and physical AI.(Recorded on Father’s Day - 6/15/2025)
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Episode 18
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5:42
Gliding Into Product Market Fit
I talk about finding thermal bubbles that can help you glide into product market fit. (Recorded in June, 2025)
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Episode 17
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3:05