Lisa Yu shared a powerful metaphor for evaluating robotics startup investments: success depends on every layer of the production "cake stack." Each country has a specialty in production, but investors must align with all layers — and those layers are spread across many countries.
Every layer of production in every country needs to support every mode of production. We can't focus too much on the US-based way of doing things when building startups that operate globally.
Japan has so much to teach us about manufacturing, precision, and production integration. The lesson is clear: to invest well in robotics and hardware startups, you need to understand and respect the full international production chain, not just the slice you're most familiar with.