
Building a Robot People Actually Want
From What's Your Problem? by iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin Industries
April 30, 2026 · 41 min · Season 1 · Episode 176
About this episode
Aaron Edsinger discusses the challenges of building affordable home robots that solve real problems.
Aaron Edsinger left his job as director of robotics at Google to start a company called Hello Robot. Aaron’s problem is this: How do you build an affordable robot that people can use to solve real problems at home? The result is a robot that looks nothing like a person. In fact, it’s closer to a Roomba with an arm. In this episode, Aaron explains: Why home robots have barely progressed since the Roomba Why simpler robots can be more useful than complex humanoids Why the physical world is so much harder for AI than language How robot safety is fundamentally a physics problem Connect with us: Follow Jacob Goldstein on LinkedIn , X and Instagram Email us at problem@pushkin.fm Follow Pushkin on Instagram , LinkedIn or X Listen to Jacob’s other show, Business History To listen to the show early and ad free, sign up for Pushkin+ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
People in this episode
Host: Jacob Goldstein
Guest: Aaron Edsinger
Topics covered
- robotics
- home technology
- AI challenges
- affordable robots
- robot safety
- entrepreneurship
Keywords
- robotics
- affordable robots
- AI
- home technology
- robot safety
- entrepreneurship
- Roomba
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Google, Hello Robot, Pushkin, iHeartPodcasts
Products: Roomba
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