Matt Leitch

Thank you to all who followed me based upon a comment I made about my experience as a helicopter pilot! To intro myself a bit more, I flew UH-60s and was in the Army for 7 years with a combat deployment to Afghanistan. My last UH-60 flight was almost 10 years ago! Now I’m much more focused on my lovely wife, daughter, and son on the way! I don’t tweet often, but it will most likely involve faith, aviation, or robots!

People often ask what skills matter most for running a robotics field ops team. Honestly? Not what you'd expect. It's: clear written communication, comfort with ambiguity, and the ability to stay calm when something breaks in a customer's facility at 2am. The technical stuff you can teach. The rest you can't.

Deploying robots into real warehouses isn't a software problem. It's a change management problem. The teams that struggle aren't the ones with bad tech — they're the ones that underestimate how much human coordination it takes to make automation actually stick. The robot is 10% of it.

@markbdelaney Surprised "% of days they wear a quarter-zip or vest" isn't in the assessment, honestly.

After a multi-month engagement with a top consulting firm, we have completely revamped our candidate assessment process for senior leaders. Here is a taste of what has changed: - Do they play golf? If not, then they honestly are just not going to cut it as a business leader. This is a really simple filtering mechanism with yes/no criteria that we assess will reduce time spent with unqualified candidates by up to 63%. - How many times is AI mentioned in their LinkedIn profile, posts, and resume? We are looking for a LLMPWC (LLM Per Word Count) density of at least .08 to ensure that we are only working with leaders who are on the cutting edge. - What is the color of the background on their LinkedIn profile headshot? Shades closer to #0A66C2 (LinkedIn blue) have a stronger correlation to "drive results" and "move the needle". We found that gray backgrounds were too middle-management (not sure what that says about me?). - We've replaced behavioral interviews with a single question: 'Tell me about a time you led a transformation.' If the answer is under 20 minutes, they're out. - After meeting in-person, we will evaluate candidates on the HFI (Handshake Firmness Index). Anything below a 7.4 suggests the candidate may not be ready to "lead from the front' and "take ownership" in a boardroom setting. We're confident these changes will position TWG at the forefront of evidence-based executive search. Reach out if you'd like a copy of the full 214-page methodology deck (retainer required) or would like to identify candidates using our new and improved methodology.

@aarondfrancis That was a wild ride of emotions!

As is tradition, here is a small sample of my bloopers from this new free course. It's hard work being normal

@emilypont Very cool project!

We are launching a big project today with MIT — The Electricity Price Hub! You can view monthly electricity prices per kwh and avg. bills for every major utility in the country going back to Jan 2020. electricity.heatmap.news

@BenJames_____ What’s the setup? Super interesting!

I made myself a mini fax machine. Dedicated phone number, instantly prints anything you text it.

You're busy on Zoom calls this morning, but right now a crew of brave American astronauts are having breakfast on the day they're going on the first crewed deep space mission in 54 years. Brushing your teeth and thinking "I'm heading to the moon today" must be a weird feeling.

MIT just published research showing a new robot traffic management system achieved 25% higher throughput in warehouse simulations — just by improving how robots yield to each other. No new hardware. No new sensors. Just smarter coordination logic. Orchestration > raw capability. news.mit.edu/2026/ai-system…

@markbdelaney Block sensors, confuse sensors, destroy mobility.

NGL A robot coming in with an assault rifle is freaking terrifying. Also VERY hard to defeat, especially in close quarters.

@regyperlera How might one get access to this beta! I love this product idea!

Two years later, I'm building the home dashboard I've always wanted. A single place for: - Household finances - Mortgage, insurance, & property tax details - Equipment, services, & maintenance reminders - Home improvement project tracking - RAG powered search Beta opens soon 🏡

@DonShift3 From NOAA?

Did you know the federal government will freely provide real-time satellite photos of where you live?

@markbdelaney And the Old Guard soldiers are outstanding!

If you haven't visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and seen a changing of the guard, it's a must- have trip. 100 years straight, it's been guarded. Through blizzards, hurricanes, across political administrations, through wars. True testament to American values. 🇺🇸

@Benioff @adcock_brett @Benioff Was this demonstration teleoperated (i.e. a human operating the robot behind the scenes)? Would be good to clarify this.

Figure 03. Impressive. 🤖🦾🦿@adcock_brett

@palmettoarmory Incredibly well done @palmettoarmory!

Politicians in Virginia are racing to pass an "assault weapons" ban that could take effect July 1st, and we're doing something about it. At Palmetto State Armory, we're not just building firearms, we're maximizing freedom. 🇺🇸

The sheer overconfidence in the replies here…

@crccpa1855 @themindslayer86 @MadLu_ @dmbkparker My brother, landing a plane is 10x easier than flying a helicopter with no experience for any length of time

@themindslayer86 @MadLu_ @dmbkparker You guys are talking about flying through weather, going long distances. I'm talking about a circus ride, up and down. I'll do it any day of the week... and twice on Sunday.

Do you think if I put you in a helicopter you could successfully takeoff and land? No instruction. You can watch as many YouTube videos as you want before we go.

@ClintFiore @dmbkparker I’m a former helicopter pilot and I don’t have the audacity to answer yes with certainty either!

@dmbkparker no. maybe 1 inch off the ground and back down but if I had to climb to 100 feet or more I'm ded without training and I'm a fixed wing flight instructor

Speed tape is great! But that’s a lot of speed tape…

Some robotic implementation takeaways from this: Simplified autonomy - no need for complex navigational sensors Cost - this is a cheap robot! Simple, cheap tech makes scalability so much easier Scaling - this is a very simple reinforcement learning perspective. One POV!

@jon_barron Parents everywhere are willing to pay anything for this in their playrooms.

There's an engineer on YouTube building his own room-scale laundry-picking UFO catcher robot out of QR codes and string, it's one of the most compelling robotics demos I've seen in a while.