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Paul Mikesell

Founder & CEO, Carbon Robotics · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveengineerLinkedIn ↗carbonrobotics.com ↗

Paul Mikesell leads Carbon Robotics, an agricultural robotics startup that develops AI-driven, high-powered LaserWeeders to eradicate weeds without chemical herbicides. He previously co-founded distributed storage pioneer Isilon Systems and database company Clustrix, followed by engineering leadership positions at Uber and Facebook Reality Labs.

10statements → 5claims → 2claims resolved → 3.6/5average certainty → 2.2/5average debate potential →

1 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

3 predictions · 2 assertions · 3 opinions · 1 insight · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Paul argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
Mikesell: Carbon Robotics Is the Only Commercial Laser Weeding Company
“We are the only ones doing it. We're the only ones who have a version that is commercial and works”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 38:51 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show

Their most notable contradicted claim

Prediction Didn’t hold up
Mikesell: Carbon Robotics will likely IPO within one to two years
“We seem like we're on the path, you know, where we keep doing what we're doing. We'll probably have an IPO in the next. You're too, you know, we'll, we'll, yes, we'll have a billion dollar outcome here that looks more likely every day.”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 50:07 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
0% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

Everything Paul Mikesell said on A Product Market Fit Show that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Mikesell: Uber was more innovative under Travis Kalanick
“And this was in the Travis Kalanick days, which, in which Uber was, I think, a lot more innovative and a lot more willing to try new things, right?”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 5:04 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show
Opinion
Mikesell: San Francisco Tech Became Derivative 'SaaS for SaaS' by 2018
“I felt like San Francisco was getting kind of played out. Honestly, I was, I wanted to find something else interesting to do. Everything seemed like it was kind of a copy of a copy of a copy. Some other, you know, SAS for SAS companies doing SAS”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 9:44 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Mikesell: Future startups will feature a higher proportion of hardware companies
“So I think we're at the point now where everything from now on is going to have to be more of a combination of software and hardware. We're, I'm not saying that there will be no innovative pure software companies. Of course there will. What I'm saying is there…”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 33:13 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Mikesell: Carbon Robotics will likely IPO within one to two years
“We seem like we're on the path, you know, where we keep doing what we're doing. We'll probably have an IPO in the next. You're too, you know, we'll, we'll, yes, we'll have a billion dollar outcome here that looks more likely every day.”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 50:07 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show
Opinion
Mikesell: Farmers are highly innovative and eager to adopt robotics
“And what I learned through this process was that farmers are a really strong business people. They have to be because all the ones who aren't have gone out of business. And even some of the ones who are really good have gone out of business, right? It's a toug…”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 15:05 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show
Insight
Mikesell: Good startup ideas go unfunded due to poor storytelling
“And there are a lot of good ideas that never get funded, not because there's something wrong with the idea, just because the founders never figured out how to tell the story appropriately.”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 19:11 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mikesell: Herbicide production and use drive major greenhouse gas emissions and farmer health risks
“All of these chemicals have some negative health effects for people and the long-term negative health effects for farmers, because farmers are the ones Or exposed to these chemicals in the largest degree, right? They spend their whole careers exposed to this s…”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 23:33 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show
Assertion Supported
Mikesell: Carbon Robotics Is the Only Commercial Laser Weeding Company
“We are the only ones doing it. We're the only ones who have a version that is commercial and works”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 38:51 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show
What-if
Mikesell: Carbon Robotics would have died without ditching self-driving autonomy
“If we hadn't decided to decouple the autonomy from the laser weeding, if John May hadn't felt strongly enough about that idea to come tell me why that was important, or I had dismissed his advice on that, and we'd probably be a dead company right now.”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 50:40 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Mikesell: Carbon Robotics will ship 100th LaserWeeder and cross $150M revenue
“We will ship number 100 in, what is it now? July. So in the next probably six weeks, number 100 will go out the door. Yeah. And you know, they're a million and a half dollars. So, you know, we're, we'll cross a hundred and fifty million in, in, in revenue in, …”
Paul Mikesell Jul 15, 2024 ▶ 51:12 He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales before ship... · PMF Show

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
He built a farming robot that shoots weeds with lasers— then closed $10M in pre-sales befo Jul 15, 2024 44m
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