For this episode, we sat down with Jenny Sharpe, Director of Workforce Development for the Pittsburgh Robotics Network, for a candid conversation about the people behind the robots. We explore why Pittsburgh’s hiring challenge is about matching the right people to the right teams (not simply finding more talent) and what’s making it harder for early-career engineers to break in.

Jenny shares practical advice on building genuine relationships, telling your story, and standing out in a sea of AI-generated applications, with a clear message: building the future of robotics is still a deeply human endeavor.

• Pittsburgh Robotics Network and PRN newsletter
• Pittsburgh Robotics Job Board
• Pittsburgh Robotics Ecosystem Profile and 2026 Report

For more information on the podcast, check out https://tradeoffs.fm
Episode: T-26-016

For this episode, we sat down with Rob Leonard, founder and CEO of Vector7, a product development, R&D, and business development consultancy. Rob is a serial entrepreneur and hardware operator who previously led the shows at Pensar and Tactile, two legendary product development firms in Seattle. He’s also an autodidactic who taught himself most of what he knows about hardware and manufacturing, and somehow still has time on the side to be a sculpture artist who uses math and CNCs to make beautiful installations that do beautiful things with light and shadow.

Rob is a fascinating person who’s career has taken countless turns over the years. His deep experience in hardware has given him a world class network and insights into the tradeoffs inherent in building effective hardware organizations and agencies that’s unmatched in the industry.

We drop a lot of names in this episode! Here are a few of the key links Rob mentions during the conversation:

Vector 7 (Rob’s consultancy): https://vector7.com/

Mathscaper (Rob’s art practice): https://www.mathscaper.com/

Mathscaper Instagram (art practice visual smorgasbord): https://www.instagram.com/mathscaper/

Laced Golf (one of Rob’s key clients where he is the Technology Architect): https://lacedgolf.com/

For more information on the podcast, check out https://tradeoffs.fm

For this episode, we sat down with Brian Chen, founder and CEO of Kite Compliance, an AI-powered product-compliance platform built to make certification faster, safer, and less painful to scale. We discuss building hardware during the last hardware renaissance, surviving lockdowns while running a business dependent on in-office work, and how regulators can make life very difficult for hardware founders.

Brian dropped out of MIT Sloan after one semester to co-found Bluesmart, the YC W15 smart-luggage startup that raised $2.2M on Indiegogo before airlines banned non-removable batteries and grounded the category entirely. He then co-founded ROOM, creators of those modular office phone-booths we’ve all taken calls from. There he scaled the business to $60M in annual revenue before selling it to contract-furniture maker OFS in 2023.

Today Brian is focused on helping companies solving hard problems overcome compliance and regulatory hurdles. On the side, he's an active angel investor backing other founders.

Learn more about Kite Compliance at http://kitecompliance.ai/

For more information on the podcast, check out https://tradeoffs.fm
Episode: T-26-014