Jeff Cardenas

Assembling the Leadership to Power the Next Generation of Humanoid Robots To bring humanoid robots 🤖 like #Apollo into everyday use, you need more than great technology: you need leaders who have scaled it before. As we prepare for our next phase of growth, we’ve bolstered our executive bench with veterans from the world’s most innovative tech giants like Waymo, Boston Dynamics, and Amazon. Read more in @Forbes: forbes.com/sites/johnkoet…

Michael and Susan Dell surpass $1 billion in giving to The University of Texas at Austin 🤘 Their latest investment builds on their legacy, launching the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research and an AI-native UT Dell Medical Center, while expanding support for scholarships, student housing, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center. Learn more: utex.as/4vyVP14

I’ve been sharing clips from my Forbes interview each week. In this one, I talk about why I decided to move to Austin, a decision that came after some thoughtful encouragement from Michael and Susan Dell in 2019. Austin fosters a unique culture of interdisciplinary collaboration. Because it attracts such a broad mix of people (artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, physicians, professors, technologists), the depth and diversity of talent here is astounding. Since arriving in early 2020, Breyer Capital has backed over 20 Texas-based companies, including @ZenBusinessInc, @colossal, and @basepowerco. I’m honored to support this community through my work with The University of Texas at Austin. I was humbled to receive the Presidential Citation Award from the University in 2024, the highest recognition from the University (UT does not grant Honorary Degrees). I am proud to serve on the Dell Medical Advisory Board, the President’s Innovation Advisory Board, and the President's Commercialization Advisory Board. Each year, Breyer Capital is honored to host, alongside UT, the Annual Healthcare and Life Sciences AI Summit, bringing together leaders from academia, technology, and medicine to explore how collaboration can accelerate progress. I couldn’t be more excited to continue investing here in Texas and trying to be as positive an influence as possible in our exceptional Texas communities. 🤘 🤘🤘

New Gemini Robotics 1.5 models will enable robots to better reason, plan ahead, use digital tools like Search, and transfer learning from one kind of robot to another. Our next big step towards general-purpose robots that are truly helpful — you can see how the robot reasons as it sorts laundry in the video below.

We’re making robots more capable than ever in the physical world. 🤖 Gemini Robotics 1.5 is a levelled up agentic system that can reason better, plan ahead, use digital tools such as @Google Search, interact with humans and much more. Here’s how it works 🧵

Stoked to have invested in Apptronik's Series A My second humanoid investment and one of my largest investments ever Commercializing humanoids at scale is one of the worlds most difficult technical challenges, and takes an incredibly experienced and multidisciplinary team to get it right Over the past 9 years the team has accumulated deep hardware/control systems experience and their partnership with Google brings them S tier AI experience to be able to soon deliver fully autonomous, durable robots to do real world work These robots are going to cook (literally)

📣MuJoCo announcement 📣 Thrilled to share that @GoogleDeepMind has unveiled MuJoCo-Warp at @nvidia's #GTC25! 🚀 We've expanded our open-source MuJoCo simulator with MuJoCo-Warp, leveraging NVIDIA’s Warp framework for incredible acceleration. This marks a significant step in making high-performance simulation more accessible.

Today AI-powered humanoid robots are taking a big step forward: Apptronik and @GoogleDeepMind are partnering to build the next generation of humanoid robots with Gemini Robotics. Built on Gemini 2.0, Gemini Robotics enables Apollo to understand natural language and perform real-world tasks in environments it has not seen before. With Apollo's high degree of dexterity, playing board games and packing picnics are just the first steps in our mutual goal to create general-purpose robots that will help humans in every facet of life. youtu.be/ikZeU3wKVjM?fe… #HumanoidRobots #ArtificialIntelligence #Robotics #EmbodiedAI #AI

After investing in their Series A round, the ARK Venture Fund is proud to offer investors access to @Apptronik! Download SoFi and gain access today. Current holdings and additional information, subject to change: ark-funds.com/funds/arkvx

I am excited to announce Iris, an intelligence and investment company. In the coming months, we will share intelligence, investment opportunity, and more. And of course, we will invest in the future. Stay tuned. We are in building mode. If you want to join the party, we are always looking for the others. Join the list, or reach out: hello@irisinvest.io Onward, and upward. irisworld.io

Meet Gemini Robotics: our latest AI models designed for a new generation of helpful robots. 🤖 Based on Gemini 2.0, they bring capabilities such as better reasoning, interactivity, dexterity and generalization into the physical world. 🧵 goo.gle/gemini2-roboti…

As @texas_robotics prepares to welcome its first cohort of undergraduate students this fall, visionary venture capitalist @bgurley is investing $5 million in the new degree program. “Providing the financial resources to expand and strengthen Texas Robotics will ensure it attracts the most talented students — those with the greatest potential to become our nation’s future innovators and disruptors," said Gurley, who earned an MBA from @UTexasMcCombs. Texas Robotics is already attracting top talent to the Forty Acres — the program received more than 3,500 applications for an estimated 50 slots in the inaugural class. Believed to be the first undergraduate program in the country to allow applications from entering freshmen, Texas Robotics will offer experiences in research, hands-on learning and competitive activities. Read more about Gurley's transformational gift: utex.as/gurley-gift

Early stages of advanced AI reasoning w/ @Apptronik ‘s Apollo humanoid. Link to video in comment

Awesome opportunity to work in the epicenter of the Austin entrepreneurial ecosystem.

And that’s a wrap on NVIDIA #GTC24! Thanks to our hosts and collaborators at NVIDIA, as well as all the attendees who stopped by to meet Apollo in person. Check out Apollo’s keynote highlights in 30 seconds here. #apptronik #humanoidrobot #NVIDIARobotics

Mercedes begins piloting Apptronik humanoid robots tcrn.ch/3IF1OKM

It was an honor to host @BillGates at our lab in Austin. Thanks Bill for graciously spending so much time with our team and including Apptronik in Gates Notes gatesnot.es/4b49Jhv

As we look to the future, and beyond Earth, we see Apollo leveraging its modularity and dexterity to become a key element in space missions and extraterrestrial settlements, ensuring astronaut safety and efficiency. iotworldtoday.com/robotics/human…

In a recent @BostonGlobe article, @jeffcardn envisions a workspace where robots like Apollo shoulder the most burdensome tasks, enhancing human work. We're committed to pioneering a future where technology propels the workforce to new heights. bostonglobe.com/2023/10/05/bus…

Are you heading to @sxsw 2024? Our very own @jeffcardn and NASA's Shaun Azimi have been selected to present the session "How Humanoid Robots Expand Our Potential In Space & On Earth." 💫 panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/136934?_g…