Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Cheap computing and 3D printing drastically reduced hardware startup costs by 2011

Jeremy Conrad · 20VC: Why Core AI Is Largely A Bunch of Nifty Tricks, Why Consumer Electronics Is The Hardest Thing To Do In Venture & Why Silicon Valley Will Dominate The Future of Robotics with Jeremy Conrad, Partner @ Lemnos Labs · Sep 20, 2017 · at 3:47

Jeremy Conrad is a partner at Lemnos Labs. He explains how modern design software, rapid prototyping, and cheap hardware components lowered capital requirements for hardware startups by 2011.

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“Today, any 500 dollar computer can run incredibly sophisticated CAD. And on top of that, the software is Free. And then you kind of add in rapid prototyping like three D printing, and you're kind of timing for your first unit, plus things like Arduino, make it so it's orders of magnitude cheaper to get up and running.”

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