Opinion
China's massive new 3D printing factories produce low-quality parts
“China is investing in the three D printing space. They are building, you know, huge factories full of these conventional machines. They don't have our technology. They don't have the ability to, you know, they can go make A hundred laser, whatever number laser…”
Assertion Contradicted
Freeform built the world's fastest and highest-volume metal 3D printer
“We've built the fastest, highest volume metal printing platform on the planet.”
Insight
Metal 3D printing resembles semiconductor fabrication more than traditional metal machining
“When they buy a machine, why are they disappointed? Because they don't know how to use it. It's, so it's more akin to like semiconductor fabrication than like subtractive, you know, metal manufacturing.”
Opinion
Traditional metal 3D printers yield roughly one usable part out of five
“Metal printing at least had its roots in something more real that I think there was potential there, but we were clearly so far away from You know, where we needed to be because the behind the scenes customers are buying these million dollar machines and then …”
Opinion
SpaceX's Raptor engine brought the first real rocket innovation in decades
“We were doing things with Raptor that, you know, we were inventing, we were, you know, innovating in the rocket space for the first time in decades, truly. People think rockets are super complicated, but really the technology hasn't changed much in a long time…”
Opinion
3D printing enabled SpaceX's Raptor, history's highest-performing rocket engine
“Printing enabled Raptor, which I would argue is the mo one of the most amazing and high performance rocket engines ever in the history of humanity.”
Insight
Metal 3D printing enables truly automated lights-out factories unlike CNC machining
“The unique thing about metal printing is this is actually possible. CNC machining and other subtractive methods that there's no way to do, to truly do that. There's just, they're just today. There is not.”
Disclosure
Freeform's roadmap includes vertically integrating into finished manufacturing end products
“The vision for Freeform was always to be more than just a metal printing company.
You know, I think the concept, at least at the beginning in my head was let's dominate the enabling manufacturing technology.
Then let's, let's solve the, how do I go from the pr…”
Disclosure
Freeform delivers turnkey finished parts instead of selling 3D printing machines
“The business model is we just provide turnkey parts, so we actually handle everything. We print them if it needs post-machining, it needs holes reamed, it needs surfaces turned, we do all of that in-house. All the metrology, you know, we'll do CMM inspections,…”
Disclosure
Nvidia recently made a substantial investment in Freeform's manufacturing data capabilities
“And that's one of the reasons why like Nvidia made a substantial investment in us recently is they saw what we were doing on the compute and data side, and they want to be a part of it.”
Opinion
Leading Freeform is more stressful than reporting directly to Elon Musk
“Truthfully, I'm probably more stressed now than I was when I was sitting face to face with Elon three times a week.”
Insight
Consumer 3D printing failed because everyday users lack CAD software skills
“Plastic printer prices dropped. People started buying them with this promise that they were going to be able to Print all these things. You bought the thing. You built it. You printed a pencil holder that you downloaded off the internet. You realize I don't kn…”
Disclosure
Freeform has seen a notable manufacturing demand uptick driven by trade tariffs
“Yeah, no, we actually have seen quite a bit of uptick since the tariff stuff is happening.”
Disclosure
Freeform's third-generation 3D printer will offer 10 to 20 times higher throughput
“What we're building now is basically the third generation of the technology. And this is the one that is the platform is quite large. Like the size of this platform is, is Is, is for what it can do. It's tiny compared to the industry, but it's pretty large and…”
