Three people who've done it will tell you how to get a robot past the prototype stage
Adrian Macneil, John Mackey and Boris Sofman bring hard-won scaling lessons to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Register before 25 September to save up to $200.
Key points
- TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 will host a session on scaling startups from prototype to production.
- Speakers include Adrian Macneil of Foxglove, John Mackey of MBRYONICS, and Boris Sofman of Bedrock Robotics.
- Tickets cost up to $200 less if purchased before 25 September 2026.
Getting a prototype to work in a lab is one problem. Getting it to work reliably, thousands of times, in the real world is a different one entirely. That gap kills more hardware and robotics startups than any competitor does.
Three leaders who've navigated it are joining TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 for a session on going from prototype to production. Adrian Macneil is co-founder of Foxglove, a developer tooling company for robotics teams. John Mackey leads MBRYONICS, which works on physical hardware development. Boris Sofman is CEO of Bedrock Robotics, a company focused on autonomous vehicle software for industrial settings. We reported on Bedrock Robotics on 26 August, when the company had already put fully autonomous excavators to work on US construction sites with no operator in the cab.
Between them, these three have seen the unglamorous work up close: supply chains, unit economics, software reliability at scale, and making a robot perform its job on the thousandth cycle the same way it did on the first.
What will they actually talk about?
The session covers the practical leap from a working demo to a product that ships. That means the decisions founders get wrong early, the cost structures that only show themselves at scale, and the difference between a one-off build and a repeatable manufacturing process.
For anyone building in physical AI, meaning AI that controls machines in the real world rather than generating text or images, this is the hardest part of the business. Hardware can't be patched overnight. The honest answer from operators who've already burned cash on that lesson is worth more than most conference sessions.
The Real World AI Stage at Moscone West, which AI2Day covered on 2 September, is where this session sits, alongside robotics, autonomous systems and other physical AI topics.
Should you register now?
Yes, if you're planning to attend. The early-registration discount of up to $200 ends 25 September 2026.
For early-stage founders in robotics or any AI that touches the physical world, a session built around where experienced operators actually lost money is faster than losing it yourself.
