Humanoid robots are only about 3-4 times harder to build than quadruped robots, but offer a million times higher payoff because quadrupeds have no real mass market.
Adcock uses the example of humanoid versus quadruped robots to illustrate his nonlinear difficulty-reward thesis: humanoids are modestly harder but open a trillion-dollar market versus a niche one. ✦ AI generated
Brett Adcock · My First Million · 2026-08-14 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 49:29
I'll give you an example in robotics I think like largely building like quadruped robots like four-legged dog robots versus humanoids. Like probably humanoids are probably like three times harder than that. Maybe four. That's it. But like there's really no I don't think there's like really a real market for for humanoid like like those dogs, right? I think it's just like a niche thing. I don't think there's a real business for it... So like you do humanoids, it's like okay, three times harder, but it's probably like a million times higher payoff. Probably like a million x or a billionx higher ROI for that.
verbatim transcript · starts at 49:29
49:09are like two or three or four times harder maybe five times harder but they're not 100 times harder so you might have a hundred times better payoff but it might be like three or four times harder I'll give you an example in robotics I think like largely building like quadriped robots like four-legged dog robots versus humanoids. Like probably humanoids are probably like three times harder than that. Maybe
49:29four. That's it. But like there's really no I don't think there's like really a real market for for humanoid like like those dogs, right? I think it's just like a niche thing. I don't think there's a real business for it. And I don't know anybody really at this point in like really wants to spend a lot of time on that. So like you do humanoids, it's like okay, three times harder, but
49:44it's probably like a million times higher payoff. Probably like a million x or a billionx higher ROI for that. You know what I mean? for investors, for humans that want to work there and get stock and participate in upside and for everything else. Like what why would you ever like want to work on like like four-legged dogs? Well, what economic value can a robot dog bring at scale?
50:04Like if you really understand it, like I think there's everybody's trying to do the easy work and it just becomes really difficult, you know, look at look at all the AI slop like open claw harnesses out there today. It's all crap. It's all not good. They're all going to go I don't think any of them will make it long term. You might have some consolidation here and there for aqua hires and stuff,
50:23but like that's going to go all the way. >> Dude, you talk in so many absolutes. Has that not gotten you in trouble ever? >> I don't know. I mean, mark my words. Like like you think like like have you guys even used Open Claw since then? >> No, I don't know how to. [laughter] >> Do you use Open Claw? >> I I never I never trusted Open Claw to
50:41set it up. I was >> Yeah, I used to use it. I don't use anymore. It's not very good. Like just the wave's over. I don't know. I'm just I'm just trying to say like I think it's like I think the most important thing you can do as a founder is to think through what you're going to actually go do because you're going to spend the next 1015 years doing it and it'll it'll
50:57like it'll map the whole course the probability course it's like a probability weighted decision of like or probability of like of like potential outcomes. >> Well, but you're you're you're you're talking about a very particular game like like for example uh you're as you said you're like we're going to be a trillion dollar company or we're going to go bankrupt. Like it's it's binary. Most business is not binary. You're, you