Flex's $30 billion scale made Bright Machines' startup equity financially immaterial
Lior Susan · His robotics startup raised $400M, his VC fund over $4B—& he ran both at the same time. Here's ho... · PMF Show · Nov 4, 2024 · at 23:52
Lior Susan discusses why manufacturing corporation Flex was motivated by technological transformation rather than equity upside when spinning out Bright Machines.
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“And remember, it's a thirty billion dollar revenue company. They don't care what the equity is going to be worse. It's anyhow below the line for them.”
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“And it works amazing in the first three years, and then Mike left. It got much harder with the new leadership, nothing about those people, but it's more like, I did not have the same trust I had with Mike, but yes, you a thousand percent right. It was pure tru…”
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Susan predicts iPhone and GPU manufacturing will be fundamentally reinvented
“In my lifetime, people are going to design iPhones and GPUs in a different way, and they're going to manufacture them in a different way in the way that has been done in the last 50 years.”
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“If you are going to start with two guys in a presentation, none of the largest companies in the world is going to let you touch their mass production product. So actually, if you want to create the transformation, you almost need to have a certain scale out of…”
Bright Machines agreed to un-scoped revenue commitments across Flex factories
“We almost agreed that we will partner an X amount of dollars, and then during the year we will identify through an SOW, what will be the specific needs of each of their factories. They have 200 factories around the world.”