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Why we’re at the beginning of the AI hardware boom | Caitlin Kalinowski (ex–OpenAI, Meta, Apple)

17 May 2026 35 published claims 2 attributable people
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Speakers in the public record

Caitlin KalinowskiLenny Rachitsky

Claim mix

belief 16uncertainty 6evaluation 5recommendation 4prediction 3preference 1

Evidence policy

Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.

Claim ledger

The useful parts, with receipts.

35 published records

01 / recommendation

Recommends Book of the New Sun.

“I've been mostly reading the classics lately. Book of the New Sun is a great fiction book, which I really recommend. I think that's what it's called. I haven't read it in a little while. I love Mrs. Dalloway. Actually, I think it's a very interesting book about transitions, and it was a post-war book by Virginia Woolf. So I really love it and I think it's really wonderful. I think Herodotus Histories is pretty incredible. He's wrong a lot, but he's also, it's the first history book and in many cases he's going and finding firsthand or secondhand accounts of what happens. It's a way to look into the world at a completely different era than it is now. So these are some books that I like, and I'll double check the title of the first one and email you, but I think that's what it's called.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

02 / recommendation

I really like Vollebak, the clothes. They make really interesting clothes. They're essentially basing their new clothes on material science.

“I really like Vollebak, the clothes. They make really interesting clothes. They're essentially basing their new clothes on material science.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

06 / belief

I think that is this old way of thinking, and these are important components of the military, but it's an old way of thinking of, "Hey, we have this and we have this and we have this and our planes come off here.

“I think that is this old way of thinking, and these are important components of the military, but it's an old way of thinking of, "Hey, we have this and we have this and we have this and our planes come off here.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

07 / belief

I think the message is understanding why you're doing what you're doing, and then every design decision supporting that goal. And that requires a lot of detail, and it requires a lot of persistence, and that requires a lot of consistency, but understanding why you're doing what you're doing and what the end goal is is, I think, the key, and letting that expand into not only the software and the UX, but also the hardware.

“I think the message is understanding why you're doing what you're doing, and then every design decision supporting that goal. And that requires a lot of detail, and it requires a lot of persistence, and that requires a lot of consistency, but understanding why you're doing what you're doing and what the end goal is is, I think, the key, and letting that expand into not only the software and the UX, but also the hardware.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

08 / belief

What I imagine, what I think about now is watching the war in Ukraine and Russia, just like drones, just like how crazy and different the world is now that you can build these little drones that go and blow people up.

“What I imagine, what I think about now is watching the war in Ukraine and Russia, just like drones, just like how crazy and different the world is now that you can build these little drones that go and blow people up.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

10 / belief

Absolutely. And one really great idea I think would be to have an AI system that can go on prem, so be inside of a data center that the company owns and then train it with their data.

“Absolutely. And one really great idea I think would be to have an AI system that can go on prem, so be inside of a data center that the company owns and then train it with their data.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

12 / belief

Figuring out what future we want, what we want it to look like, what we want the human aspect to be in that future and what we think we want to hold for ourselves, how we want to augment ourselves.

“Figuring out what future we want, what we want it to look like, what we want the human aspect to be in that future and what we think we want to hold for ourselves, how we want to augment ourselves.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

13 / belief

OpenAI is an amazing company and I was able to help build a robotics program there and attract some of that top talent in robotics, I think in the world.

“OpenAI is an amazing company and I was able to help build a robotics program there and attract some of that top talent in robotics, I think in the world.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

15 / belief

I think, if my memory serves, the very, very, very first MacBook Air was a pretty low volume device that was machined, but kind of had more of a proof of what could be done.

“I think, if my memory serves, the very, very, very first MacBook Air was a pretty low volume device that was machined, but kind of had more of a proof of what could be done.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

18 / uncertainty

What an incredible set of experiences and different types of places to work. I don't know if they could be more different, all these places.

“What an incredible set of experiences and different types of places to work. I don't know if they could be more different, all these places.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

19 / belief

When you're hiring for zero to one and new things or new industries, and that's what we're facing, I think with AI and robots, certainly it's very new, you can't count on having entirely people who've done the exact same thing in past lives because it doesn't exist.

“When you're hiring for zero to one and new things or new industries, and that's what we're facing, I think with AI and robots, certainly it's very new, you can't count on having entirely people who've done the exact same thing in past lives because it doesn't exist.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

20 / belief

There's the obvious question of what happens if we don't have teams that have senior and junior people, but I think what you find when you actually build these teams is you have to have both.

“There's the obvious question of what happens if we don't have teams that have senior and junior people, but I think what you find when you actually build these teams is you have to have both.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

21 / belief

I know. And I think that that's why I'm looking for this zero to one. And so when you're looking for a zero to one opportunity, it's always going to be in some place different generally.

“I know. And I think that that's why I'm looking for this zero to one. And so when you're looking for a zero to one opportunity, it's always going to be in some place different generally.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

23 / belief

What I think about as you talk about this is it feels like there's going to be this big moment when a robot can build other robots, and this CAD point you make about where once AI can develop full designs for hardware, that's going to be a big moment.

“What I think about as you talk about this is it feels like there's going to be this big moment when a robot can build other robots, and this CAD point you make about where once AI can develop full designs for hardware, that's going to be a big moment.”
Speaker
Lenny Rachitsky
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

24 / belief

I mean, I think that we are, and I don't want to be on a high horse or something, but I do think that we're in a place where we need to think about things in the future in these terms and defend these things with our capabilities while also hoping that we never have to have hot conflict anywhere.

“I mean, I think that we are, and I don't want to be on a high horse or something, but I do think that we're in a place where we need to think about things in the future in these terms and defend these things with our capabilities while also hoping that we never have to have hot conflict anywhere.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

25 / uncertainty

I gave it my real email address and my ... I don't know what it was. I gave it some information about one of my accounts or something like that.

“I gave it my real email address and my ... I don't know what it was. I gave it some information about one of my accounts or something like that.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

26 / evaluation

I have this weird thing where I love to think about the future, but I'm also a skeptic, and you really want me to be a skeptic because if I think everything's going to be fine, the hardware's not going to work.

“I have this weird thing where I love to think about the future, but I'm also a skeptic, and you really want me to be a skeptic because if I think everything's going to be fine, the hardware's not going to work.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

27 / evaluation

Obviously there's a risk to pre-buying, and the price might go down. And so the challenge is, I think, there's a latency with supply chain in something like memory, where it can't adapt fast enough, often, to demand, or there's a new category of product, or, in this case, maybe data centers, that are just eating up so much and are actually not as cost-sensitive as somebody in consumer electronics like Matic might be.

“Obviously there's a risk to pre-buying, and the price might go down. And so the challenge is, I think, there's a latency with supply chain in something like memory, where it can't adapt fast enough, often, to demand, or there's a new category of product, or, in this case, maybe data centers, that are just eating up so much and are actually not as cost-sensitive as somebody in consumer electronics like Matic might be.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

28 / evaluation

We think we can get those, but I think everyone, not just in this country, but around the world is starting to think about supply chain because you have these disruptions, whether it's COVID or war and you see how quickly things change.

“We think we can get those, but I think everyone, not just in this country, but around the world is starting to think about supply chain because you have these disruptions, whether it's COVID or war and you see how quickly things change.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

29 / prediction

What I'm seeing in the AI world in San Francisco is there's a dawning realization, especially in the labs, I think that the acceleration is going so vertical that what you can do behind a keyboard with AI is going to saturate.

“What I'm seeing in the AI world in San Francisco is there's a dawning realization, especially in the labs, I think that the acceleration is going so vertical that what you can do behind a keyboard with AI is going to saturate.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

30 / prediction

People don't think about this that much, but the part variance is pretty high. And so we've got to solve for that last half a percent in the process of building so that when we compile our last time, when we build our last time, it's done and we're going to have a high yield, we're going to be able to make them and make money on them effectively and we won't have very many returns.

“People don't think about this that much, but the part variance is pretty high. And so we've got to solve for that last half a percent in the process of building so that when we compile our last time, when we build our last time, it's done and we're going to have a high yield, we're going to be able to make them and make money on them effectively and we won't have very many returns.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

31 / recommendation

Anything you know you need to do, you need to do right now, because in two days there's going to be a surprise coming around the corner that you need that time to fix. And so this sense of stacking the things that you know you need to do and just getting them out of the way, even if you technically have more time, is this kind of ruthless efficiency that I learned with them.

“Anything you know you need to do, you need to do right now, because in two days there's going to be a surprise coming around the corner that you need that time to fix. And so this sense of stacking the things that you know you need to do and just getting them out of the way, even if you technically have more time, is this kind of ruthless efficiency that I learned with them.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

32 / preference

Very simply, I use off the shelf whenever I can, especially in the prototyping phases because in the prototyping phases, which are really important phase of what we do, your goal is to show that it can work at all.

“Very simply, I use off the shelf whenever I can, especially in the prototyping phases because in the prototyping phases, which are really important phase of what we do, your goal is to show that it can work at all.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

33 / evaluation

We needed to reduce the price so more people could buy them. And what happened was it was right before Christmas and I heard from the lead on the team that does computer vision and he said, "Oh my gosh, the data from the cameras isn't working and we can't get a lock on where the person is using the headset.

“We needed to reduce the price so more people could buy them. And what happened was it was right before Christmas and I heard from the lead on the team that does computer vision and he said, "Oh my gosh, the data from the cameras isn't working and we can't get a lock on where the person is using the headset.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast

34 / prediction

We just need more of these dedicated robots. So my suspicion is we'll have humanoids for some long-tail things that we need to do that humans are currently doing that will be important, but we'll also have robots that are for construction, robots that are for electrical work, robots that are for very low volume assembly maybe, robots for logistics, and most of them are going to look different from each other.

“We just need more of these dedicated robots. So my suspicion is we'll have humanoids for some long-tail things that we need to do that humans are currently doing that will be important, but we'll also have robots that are for construction, robots that are for electrical work, robots that are for very low volume assembly maybe, robots for logistics, and most of them are going to look different from each other.”
Publisher
Lenny's Podcast
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