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Evan Beard

Co-founder and CEO of Standard Bots, an AI-native industrial robotics company building six-axis robot arms in the United States

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Overview

Evan Beard is co-founder, CEO, and chief engineer of Standard Bots, an AI-native industrial robotics company [3]. Standard Bots has raised $260 million from investors including General Catalyst and Amazon, and reached a valuation of $1 billion in 2026, with deployments at Lockheed Martin, Verizon, NASA, and hundreds of other manufacturers [3]. Beard previously co-founded Etacts, which was acquired by Salesforce [3], and has been named to Forbes' "30 Under 30" and Business Insider's "Most Inspiring and Influential People in New York Tech" [3]. Beard holds a B.S. with Distinction in Economics and Computer Science from Duke University [9] and completed study in Computer Science at Universitat Politècnica de València [10] and Entrepreneurship at the London School of Economics and Political Science [11].

Profile introduction
Source excerptLinkedIn [3]

Evan Beard is co-founder, CEO, and chief engineer of Standard Bots, America's largest ai-native industrial robot manufacturer. Standard Bots has raised $260 million from investors including General Catalyst and Amazon, and reached a valuation of $1 billion in 2026. The company has deployments at Lockheed Martin, Verizon, NASA, and hundreds of other manufacturers. An early Y Combinator alumnus, Evan previously co-founded Etacts (acquired by Salesforce). He has been named to Forbes' "30 Under 30" and Business Insider's "Most Inspiring and Influential People in New York Tech," and has testified…

Career history

  1. Co-founder, CEO and Chief Engineer2017 to PresentStandard Bots
  2. Co-Founder & CEOApr 2014 to Jan 2016A Plus (aplus.com)
  3. Co-FounderJan 2012 to Feb 2013Gridtech
  4. Senior Member of Technical Staff, Software EngineeringDec 2010 to Jan 2012Salesforce
  5. Co-FounderNov 2009 to Dec 2010Etacts Inc.

Education

  1. B.S. with Distinction in Economics, Computer Science2005 - 2009Duke University
  2. Computer Science2008 - 2008Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV))
  3. Entrepreneurship2007 - 2007The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE))

Insights & ideas

Evan Beard argues that Standard Bots is built around AI-trained industrial robot arms meant to automate genuine factory work rather than staged demonstrations [1]. He frames his path into hardware as coming out of a background in software startups and Y Combinator, suggesting that entrepreneurial lessons from that world carry over into building an AI-native robotics company [1]. The episode title itself points to a core theme he emphasizes: that founders and companies need to be dramatically better, not just marginally better, than incumbents to succeed in a hard, capital-intensive category like industrial robotics [1].

Media & appearances

  • 22AstronautsApple Podcasts
    Ep 100 | You Need To Be 10x Better (w/ Evan Beard)Evan Beard is the co-founder and CEO of Standard Bots, building AI-trained industrial robot arms designed to automate real factory work, not demos:In this episode, Evan shares a founder path that started in software startups and Y Combinator long before

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