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
32 episodes
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
China Robotics and Managing Blind Spots
This week, I talk about China robotics and mechanisms for managing blind spots
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Episode 16
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7:39
The Value of Compounding
Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, MIT Athena, Netscape, Tellme, Amazon Robotics, Cobot… I cover it all in under 4 minutes. (Recorded in May, 2025)
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Episode 15
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4:06
Scaling Robotics Foundational Model
I share some insights into how we think about solving the headwinds to building a foundation model for physical AI, share a bit about the value of getting into the field and building great partnerships, and just the value of connecting in pe...
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Episode 14
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3:15
Humanoids, Cobots, and My Grandfather's Lesson on Success
In this Top of Mind, I talk about humanoids vs cobots, and share a powerful insight on success that I learned from my grandfather. (Recorded in May, 2025)
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Episode 13
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6:36
A Robotically-Enabled Abundant Future
Today's "Top of Mind" discusses our abundant future. This is a topic Vinod Khosla spoke about that I've also been thinking about a lot. In ...
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Episode 12
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6:40
Tyranny of the 50/50 Decision
I think a lot about decision velocity, particularly how do we make high quality decisions quickly? One of the traps I see I call "the 50/50 decision". The 50/50 decision is a decision between two nearly identical options. The challenge when ...
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Episode 11
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1:58
How to Land a Robotics Internship (or Career)
I share some tips on "How to Land a Great Robotics Internship!" and building your resume to differentiate. Simulation experience is in demand. Highlight the tools you've used. NVIDIA Omniverse IsaacSim skills are part...
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Episode 10
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6:04