Why is hardware still dramatically harder to build than software?

This week we sat down with David Stålmarck, Co-Founder & CTO of Atech, one of the most exciting early-stage hardware startups coming out of Scandinavia right now.

Backed by Lovable, Nordic Makers, Emblem, and scout-linked capital connected to Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, Atech is tackling a problem that has existed for decades: while software has gone through massive abstraction waves, hardware development is still constrained by complexity, tooling, and long iteration cycles.

In this conversation, we explore whether hardware could go through a similar transformation to software, and what happens if building physical products suddenly becomes dramatically more accessible.

We talk about:

• Why hardware never experienced the same abstraction wave as software
• The biggest bottlenecks in modern hardware development
• Why "Hackathon Maxxing" and Building in Public is Key
• Building a software-like UX for physical products
• The role of AI in hardware development
• Physical AI, robotics, and the next computing wave
• Working with Lovable and lessons from modern developer tools
• The realities of building a deep-tech startup in Europe

Many thanks to David for the highly technical and thoughtful conversation.

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