How Boston Dynamics is turning robots into a real business

Good morning. Boston Dynamics has spent years proving that robots can do extraordinary things. Its next challenge is making them economically viable at scale, which takes a sales operation, cost control and reliable deployment.

That was the message from Amanda McMaster, Boston Dynamics’ CFO for six years, who served as interim CEO from February until Rohit Prasad took the helm Oct. 7. “Inbound demand at some point dries up,” McMaster told Fortune’s Ellie Austin at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit last week. “You need a proactive sales motion.”

When the company was early in its commercial journey, McMaster helped build its operational systems, sales leadership and the service infrastructure customers need to get value from robots.

Spot, the company’s four-legged robot, costs about $100,000 for the base platform and up to $300,000 depending on payloads, she said. It conducts inspections and equipment readings in semiconductor manufacturing, food and beverage production, and public safety. Intel is one of Boston Dynamics’ largest Spot customers. Through the Orbit software platform, customers can search their facilities “almost like a Google Street View,” McMaster said.

She argues that robots are augmenting human labor, not replacing it, by taking on “dull, dirty, dangerous work.” Workers, she noted, are even naming the robots.

Atlas, the humanoid, is a more ambitious test: whether Boston Dynamics can manufacture and deploy advanced machines at scale while bringing costs down. McMaster’s playbook: “Control your cost and then get to scale fast.”

Roughly 70% of an Atlas robot’s bill of materials is actuators, the components that enable movement, and Hyundai Mobis will produce them at cost, McMaster said. Owner Hyundai has also committed to about 50,000 robot deployments across Hyundai Motor and Kia facilities, providing what she called “planning certainty” and “cost target certainty.”

As interim CEO, McMaster faced a different test. About two weeks in, she reorganized the entire company. “We have been very slow to make it,” she said. Her approach: “Rip the Band-Aid off.”

McMaster said the CFO role “was my dream job.” But serving as interim CEO “opened my eyes to what I’m capable of.” The board gave her a say in the final candidates, and Prasad, a former Amazon SVP and head scientist for Alexa and artificial general intelligence, is “going to be phenomenal,” she said.

Prasad inherits deep robotics expertise, an industrial parent and a growing commercial foundation. His challenge will be to pair them with advanced AI to build machines that work reliably in the real world.

Watch a video of the interview, which includes a demonstration of a Spot robot.

Sheryl Estrada
Sheryl.Estrada@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com