In a recent edition of Eclipse Ventures’ Industrial Evolution podcast, Augury CEO and co-founder Saar Yoskovitz was interviewed about the future of manufacturing. The conversation focused on inspiring and supporting entrepreneurs building deep technologies. “Finding the right partners for the ride is crucial.”
“Before broken supply chains and resilient manufacturing were top of mind globally, forward-thinkers were already focused on solutions for digitizing these old-line industries,” according to Industrial Evolution podcast host Lior Susan.
In the podcast A Parallel Journey to the Frontlines of Industry 4.0, Augury Co-Founder and CEO Saar Yoskovitz talks to his old friend Lior who is one of the founding partners of full-stack technology investor Eclipse Ventures – and an early investor in Augury.
The Eclipse-produced podcast is particularly relevant for those early in their entrepreneurial journey. If you are not diving in immediately to listen, we’ve collected some of the choicest observations below.
Machines are economic engines
“When I met Saar in 2015, he talked to me about how the world of industrial is going to change in regards to machines, and how machines should have something that listened to them, so we can do something about them not breaking down. Because essentially, one-third of our economy is running on machines. My eyes were opened.” – Lior
Don’t be scared of full stack for disruption
“When solving a tough problem, it requires time and capital. And we consistently talk about this notion of full stack: if you want to disrupt an industry, you have to have a physical element. You must do more than the traditional SaaS – the stuff that investors usually like. […] If you believe and if the market is huge, you’re going to get rewarded in the end.” – Lior
What every founder needs to pitch…
“If you’re an early-stage founder, there are only two things you need to pitch. Number one is: there is a big wave coming. With or without us, this is going to happen. And then the second thing is we are the company and the team to bet on to make this future a reality.” – Saar
The data, the customers, the chicken and the egg
“There are two sides: there’s the product and then there’s the market. On the product side, we had the challenges every AI company has in the beginning. Without data, you don’t have any algorithms with no algorithms, you don’t have any value. So, you don’t have customers and therefore you don’t have any data. And we had to break out of this chicken and egg situation.” – Saar
Leapfrogging the industry
“Now we have 100 million hours of machines that we’ve monitored, and all of that data is sitting in our cloud. And we’re taking all of that and cramming it into our third generation of hardware, so it kind of feeds itself. And that enables you to move much faster than people that don’t have that combination.” – Saar
The current infrastructure is just plain wrong
“I think the most important people in this country now understand that without revamping the infrastructure, we are going to find ourself in a very tough economic place. The notion of taking something with a volume like toilet paper that costs five cents, and putting it on a boat for three months… It’s just wrong: for the environment and the supply chain. it’s wrong for the cost. But that’s what we do every day, because we were trying to save one cent.” – Lior
Machine Health will be everywhere
“Our goal was always to build the digital machine health layer that sits on top of the physical world. And over time, every machine will be connected and monitored. It’s just the question of who will get there first and when.” – Saar
Focus on the humans, not just the tech
“Look at the Gartner survey that shows that 82% of digital transformation initiatives fail. That is because everyone focuses on the technology, but not on the change management that is needed. If you just say I want to do AI, it doesn’t really help you. Show me what use case you want to solve. And then put in place a program and the change management that is needed.” – Saar
Hitting the big trends
“Augury is now in the mix of onshore manufacturing, supply chain resiliency and industry 4.0. When there are there so much mega-waves supporting your movement, good things will happen.” – Lior
Find the right investors, find the right team
“Finding the right partners for the ride is crucial. It’s also true for your team. And I look at investors and board members as part of the team. So, you want the right people around the table and the people with the patience it takes to build a category-defining company – through all the ups-and-downs and global pandemics and all the curveballs the world throws at you.” – Saar
Listen to ‘A Parallel Journey to the Frontlines of Industry 4.0’.
