Are world models the unlock for Physical AI? | Episode 19

Name: Are world models the unlock for Physical AI? | Episode 19
Uploaded: 2026-06-25T00:00:00.000Z
Description: This Week In Startups is made possible by: Paypal Today’s show: When we think of “Physical AI,” most of us conjure images of humanoid robots and self-driving cars. But there’s a

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Paypal Today’s show: When we think of “Physical AI,” most of us conjure images of humanoid robots and self-driving cars. But there’s a lot more to the category than just breakdancing Chinese bots and Waymos, from excavators autonomously digging tomorrows worksites, to a robot the size of four pizza boxes deploying to the ISS. Guest host Alex Wilhelm sits down with three founders in the trenches of the Physical AI Space: Boris Sofman of Bedrock Robotics, which builds autonomous construction equipment Jeff Hawke of Odyssey, a frontier AI lab specializing in world models for robotics and video games Ethan Barajas of Icarus Robotics, designers of the free-flying Joy robot that will join the ISS crew in 2027 Guests: Boris Sofman on X: https://x.com/bsofman Bedrock Robotics: https://bedrockrobotics.com/ Jeff Hawke on X: https://x.com/jeffrey_hawke Odyssey: https://odyssey.ml/ Ethan Barajas on X: https://x.com/ethanbarajas11 Icarus Robotics: https://www.icarusrobotics.com/ Relevant Links: Bedrock Excavators Remove 65,000 Cubic Yards of Dirt: https://www.enr.com/articles/61982-be... Odyssey $310M Series B article: https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/17/wor... Icarus “Joyride” Mission announcement: https://thedebrief.org/icarus-is-buil... PROWL: Prioritized Regret-Driven Optimization for World Model Learning: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.18803 NVIDIA Cosmos 3 report: https://research.nvidia.com/labs/cosm... ISS Columbus Laboratory Module: https://www.nasa.gov/international-sp... NASA’s Astrobee flying robot: https://www.nasa.gov/astrobee/ Voyager Technologies: https://www.voyagerspace.com/ Vast Space: https://www.vastspace.com/ Blue Origin’s New Glenn: https://www.blueorigin.com/new-glenn “Red Mars” by Kim Stanley Robinson: https://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars-Stanl... “Rendezvous with Rama” by Arthur C. Clarke: https://www.amazon.com/Rendezvous-Ram... Theo Von “This Past Weekend” podcast: https://www.theovon.com/podcast Anthropic statement on Fable/Mythos suspension: https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-... Timestamps: 0:00 The Year of Physical AI 1:28 Why everyone's bullish on world models 7:03 Physical AI is harder, but probably bigger 9:08 How to think about world models 16:00 When data becomes "adversarial" 25:00 How Bedrock powers autonomous excavators 30:48 Why teleoperation gets a bad rap 39:10 Meet Joy the space robot 41:33 Laser comms coming to next-gen stations 46:29 Why everyone hates data centers 57:33 When does Claude Fable come back? Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: ⁠ / alexwilhelm Follow Jason: X: / jason LinkedIn: / jasoncalacanis Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/ Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis Follow TWiST: Twitter: / twistartups YouTube: / thisweekin Instagram: / thisweekinstartups TikTok: / thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

Join Today