#106 130 Million Meals made by Robots: Rajat Bhageria of Chef Robotics

(00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:54) - Rajat's heroes and influences (00:05:21) - Introducing Chef Robotics (00:07:22) - Why food manufacturing is a massive opportunity (00:08:11) - Industry graveyard: why previous food robots failed (00:13:24) - Manufacturing over restaurants as go-to-market (00:14:50) - Current customers and what the robots make (00:16:07) - High-mix vs low-mix manufacturing (00:18:52) - Labor shortage and the reality of the job (00:20:55) - The research phase before starting Chef (00:24:24) - Building the early team (00:27:05) - The complexity of food manipulation (00:28:48) - Stealth mode and lack of competitors (00:31:15) - Ghost kitchens around the world (00:33:33) - Long-term vision and expansion strategy (00:37:23) - Where value accrues: hardware vs software vs models (00:43:03) - Impact on consumers: cheaper and safer food (00:46:50) - The future of home cooking (00:51:21) - Specialized robots vs humanoids (00:54:55) - Urgency as founder job number one (01:04:51) - Where to follow and get involved Links: Eric Jorgenson LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/erjorgenson Twitter / X — https://x.com/EricJorgenson Website — https://www.ejorgenson.com/ Rajat on X - https://x.com/RajatBhageria Rajat on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajatbhageria/ Chef Robotics - https://www.chefrobotics.ai/ To support the costs of producing this podcast: >> Buy a copy of the Navalmanack: www.navalmanack.com/ >> Buy a copy of The Anthology of Balaji: https://balajianthology.com/ >> Buy a copy of The Book of Elon: https://www.elonmuskbook.org/ >> Sign up for my online course and community about building your Personal Leverage: https://www.ejorgenson.com/leverage >> Invest in early-stage companies alongside Eric and his partners at Rolling Fun: https://angel.co/v/back/rolling-fun >> Join the free weekly email list at ejorgenson.com/newsletter >> Text the podcast to a friend >> Or at least give the podcast a positive review to help us reach new listeners! Important Quotes from the podcast on Business and Entrepreneurship There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes. - Naval Ravikant You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important. Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP. That can be through stock options if you work at a tech company. That’s a fine way to start.