This is Part One of the Industry Primers audio program on robotics, published by Latticework from MOI Global. It is the first of two audio programs that accompany the written primer on the robotics industry, and it is the story of the industry, told for a general audience. The account is built from documented scenes, with the people named, the dates given, and the participants quoted in their own words. It assumes no background in engineering or finance and explains its terms, from an industrial robot and numerical control to a servo motor, a sensor and a cobot, as they arrive. This episode is public.
The program runs from a patent filed in 1954 to a humanoid maker’s listing in 2026, and from Tokyo and the foot of Mount Fuji to Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Germany, to Nanjing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, and to Connecticut and California. Its people are the builders of the industry: George Devol and Joseph Engelberger, who made and sold the first industrial robot; Seiuemon Inaba, who built Fanuc out of a Fujitsu division, and his son Yoshiharu Inaba, who ran it after him; Takemitsu Takizaki, who founded Keyence; Frederic Moll and the surgeons who proved the da Vinci; Mick Mountz, who sent the shelves to the worker; Esben Østergaard, who built the cobot; and Wang Xingxing, who founded Unitree. It follows how the robot found its buyers in the countries whose factories were short of workers, and how the builders who sold more than the arm, from the controller and the sensor to the instruments used in each operation and the robots that bring the shelves to the warehouse worker, built the best records.
Part One stands on its own. It tells how the industry took its present shape, from a first robot sold below cost to General Motors to the Chinese makers who in 2024 sold most of the robots installed in their own country. The economics of the business, and the companies as investments, are the subject of Part Two and of the written primer. The records it gives are total returns with dividends reinvested, each stated with its window and its benchmark.
The program runs in twenty sections:
Ten Listeners at Most. In 1966 Joseph Engelberger, president of Unimation, the company in Danbury, Connecticut, that made the first industrial robot, lectures in Tokyo expecting ten listeners at most, with questions he and his hosts wrote out in case no one asks any; hundreds of Japanese executives come, and their questions run for more than two hours.
Gee, That Sounds Like a Robot. George Devol files his patent for a machine that can be taught to move things on December 10, 1954, meets Engelberger at a cocktail party in Connecticut in 1956, and the two choose the word “robot” to help them find customers for the machine, whose first arm a team of six builds while the patent is pending.
A Putt for Johnny Carson. In 1961 the first Unimate goes to work unloading a die-casting press at General Motors’ plant in Trenton, New Jersey, sold for about USD 18,000 against about USD 65,000 to build by one historian’s reckoning, on Engelberger’s later rule that a robot be priced at what the market would accept, and in 1966 a Unimate sinks a golf putt and conducts the band on The Tonight Show.
Twelve Million Yen. Kawasaki Aircraft, which was not on Unimation’s shortlist of seven, wins the Japanese license in October 1968 on its skill with precision pumps, completes the first industrial robot made in Japan in 1969 at JPY 12m, 400 months of a graduate’s starting pay, and by May 1980 has shipped 1,000 Unimates, the second 500 in two years against nine for the first.
The Era of the Three Cs. In 1956 Fujitsu sets Seiuemon Inaba, a precision engineer of 31, to develop control; his team builds the first numerical controls made by a private company in Japan, and in May 1972 Fujitsu spins the division off as Fujitsu Fanuc, which keeps the yellow of the division’s reports and sets out to compete on technology.
Without That Decision. After the oil shock of 1973 Inaba drops his own prize-winning electro-hydraulic motor for an electric servo motor licensed from Gettys and begins commercial production of robots in 1977, while in Sweden ASEA’s all-electric IRB 6 makes its debut in October 1973, and Yaskawa’s Motoman L-10, modeled on the Swedish arm and completed in 1977, sells 2,000 units in two years.
We Always Start Small. At the foot of Mount Fuji, Fujitsu Fanuc’s factory, a USD 38m plant in a reporter’s figure, runs on robots alone for 16 hours of every working day by 1981; the company’s sales rose almost 250 percent from 1976 to 1979 while its workforce grew 10 percent, and in 1984 Inaba moves the head office to the mountain.
A Rotten Record. In March 1982 a Ford executive counts 4,000 robots installed in America in 20 years against 16,000 in Japan in half the time; General Motors forms GMFanuc Robotics with Fanuc that year, Unimation passes to Westinghouse in 1983 for a reported USD 107m and later to Stäubli of Switzerland, and in 1987 the American industry gives its Engelberger Award to Inaba.
The Double-Feed Detector. After two failed businesses, Takemitsu Takizaki registers Lead Electric, the future Keyence, in Itami in March 1972, prices a sensor for a Toyota press shop at JPY 85,000 against die damage that could run to hundreds of millions of yen, and in 1982 sells the wire-cutting business, which earned about 20 percent of its sales as operating profit, to keep the sensors, which earned about 40.
Held for the Long Term. Keyence, which makes no robots, kept 51.0 percent of JPY 1,169bn of sales as operating profit in the year to March 20, 2026, and money put into it at the start of 2001 grew 18 times with dividends reinvested by the day Takizaki left the board on June 12, 2026, about 12 percent a year, twice the pace of the Japanese market.
Only Twenty-Four Hours in a Day. In the eleven weeks after Third Point’s letter of February 9, 2015, Fanuc under Yoshiharu Inaba, its president from 2003, announces a new factory, creates a shareholder-relations department and doubles its payout to 60 percent of profit, and in August 2023 Fanuc ships its millionth robot, six years after its 500,000th.
Mona, After the Mona Lisa. Frederic Moll, a surgeon who kept starting companies, co-founds Intuitive Surgical in 1995 on technology licensed from SRI International, and on March 3, 1997 Jacques Himpens in Dendermonde, Belgium removes a gallbladder from a console about ten yards from the table, an operation whose report the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet refused as “very unlikely to have actually happened”.
A Cardiac Company. Intuitive is cleared for general laparoscopic surgery on July 11, 2000, Mani Menon’s team in Detroit buys a USD 999,000 system for prostate surgery after being told Intuitive was “a cardiac company”, and USD 100,000 put into Intuitive at its June 2000 listing became about USD 21m by mid-October 2026, against about USD 850,000 in the S&P 500, both with dividends reinvested.
Toothpaste. Mick Mountz, who watched Webvan pay USD 1 to pick and pack an 89-cent can of soup, designs a fleet of robots that bring the shelves to the worker; Kiva signs Staples in 2005, Amazon agrees to acquire it on March 19, 2012, and on July 1, 2025 Amazon announces its millionth robot.
From a Shipyard to a Robot City. Universal Robots of Odense sells its first cobot, an arm built to work beside people without a cage, to Linatex in December 2008, Teradyne agrees in 2015 to acquire it for USD 285m plus up to USD 65m, and in Norway SoftBank agrees in 2021 to pay USD 2.8bn for 40 percent of AutoStore, valuing its storage cube at USD 7.7bn.
Limited Essentially to Talking. China’s robot plan of April 2016 counts 17,000 Chinese-branded robots among 57,000 sold in China in 2014, Midea offers EUR 115 a share for KUKA of Augsburg, a premium of 59.6 percent, Germany’s economics minister says his options are “essentially limited to talking”, and KUKA’s boards bind Midea to an investor agreement running to the end of 2023.
All Made By Estun. Estun of Nanjing buys Germany’s Carl Cloos in 2019, Inovance grows in Shenzhen from industrial drives into robots, and by the International Federation of Robotics’ count Chinese makers supplied 57 percent of the robots installed in China in 2024: 90 percent in metal and machinery plants and 31 percent in car plants.
A Robot While at School. Wang Xingxing, who built a four-legged robot on low-cost electric motors during his master’s studies, registers Unitree Robotics in Hangzhou on August 26, 2016 with CNY 100,000 as its only subscriber, while America’s best-known legged robots pass from Google to SoftBank to Hyundai Motor Group.
Sixteen Robots in Flowered Jackets. Unitree’s humanoids dance the yangge on the Spring Festival Gala of January 28, 2025, the company sells 5,215 humanoids that year, and after its listing on Shanghai’s STAR Market it was worth about CNY 172.7bn, about USD 25.8bn, at the close of October 16, 2026; backstage at the 2026 Gala, Wang names Unitree’s biggest rival as Unitree itself.
Surely JARA Shares in This Goal. In 1997 Engelberger receives the Japan Prize in Tokyo’s National Theatre, 31 years after the lecture he expected ten people to attend, and asks Japan’s robot makers to share his goal of a robot that serves elderly people at home; at the end of 2025 about 5 million industrial robots were at work in the world’s factories.
The program runs 1 hour 35 minutes (1:35:56). The written primer and its companion deck are on the Latticework Substack at the Industry Primer on robotics. Part Two, the deep dive for professional investors, is a separate episode, available to members of Latticework: Industry Primers Podcast: Robotics, Part Two: The Deep Dive.
This audio program is published by MOI Global for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice, an offer, or a solicitation, and no security mentioned herein is recommended for purchase or sale. The publisher and contributors may hold positions in securities discussed. Figures are believed accurate as of the dates stated but are not warranted; listeners should verify all data against primary sources before relying on it. Nothing herein constitutes legal, tax, or accounting advice.
Transcript
The transcript is available for download to members only.
