Doug Field, a veteran executive who has shaped electric vehicle strategies at Ford, Tesla, and Apple, has been appointed president of Mind Robotics, an industrial AI and robotics startup launched last year by Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe. The announcement, made onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 on October 13 in San Francisco, signals that the one-year-old venture is preparing to expand its early-stage operations. Field will oversee product development, engineering, and day-to-day business operations, while Scaringe remains involved at the strategic level.
Mind Robotics has already secured more than $1 billion in funding from investors including Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse, Kleiner Perkins, and the venture divisions of Volkswagen and Salesforce, according to the report. The startup is developing a complete technology stack for industrial manufacturing, with purpose-built robots powered by foundation models designed to automate manufacturing and industrial tasks at large scale. Unlike humanoid robots under development at Tesla and other companies, Mind Robotics won't try to replicate all the biomechanical features of a human, Scaringe said. Rivian serves as the startup's first customer and provides "a live, high-volume manufacturing environment for model training and deployment." Rivian holds minority ownership in Mind Robotics, owning approximately one-third of the company as of June 30, 2026.
Field departed Ford in April after five years leading the automaker's electric vehicle and technology initiatives, a move that came during a broader leadership restructuring. Before Ford, he ran Apple's Project Titan, the electric and autonomous vehicle effort that was shut down in 2024, and served as senior vice president of engineering at Tesla, where he managed Model 3 development and guided the sedan through what the company called "production hell." Field was also employee number one at Segway. "Integrating AI and robotics is one of the most important — and difficult — engineering challenges of our time," Field said in a statement, adding that Mind Robotics "has a unique advantage: the ability to deploy and learn inside a real, high-volume factory from day one."
Scaringe explained on the Disrupt Stage Tuesday that he initially contacted Field to request a recommendation for someone to help lead Mind Robotics, but the conversation evolved into a deeper discussion about the intentional development and deployment of robotics in society and the economy. The two executives discovered strong alignment not only on the company's overall mission but also on their approaches to building teams and working together, Scaringe said. Mind Robotics is the second independent venture Scaringe has created beyond Rivian, following Also, a micromobility company that started with premium e-bikes. Similar to the Mind Robotics arrangement, Scaringe serves as chairman of Also but has installed Chris Yu, formerly chief product officer at Specialized, to manage daily operations. Both Mind Robotics and Also function as standalone entities, though Rivian reported holding minority stakes of roughly one-third in each startup as of June 30, 2026. Field's hiring reflects Mind Robotics' ambition to scale manufacturing automation technology with backing from top-tier venture capital and strategic corporate investors, leveraging Rivian's production facilities as a testing ground for real-world deployment. The decision to focus on application-specific industrial robots rather than general-purpose humanoids suggests a pragmatic path toward commercialization in manufacturing environments. The partnership between Field's deep automotive and product development experience and Scaringe's manufacturing vision could reshape how automation technology is integrated into American industrial operations, particularly as the venture seeks to prove its models in Rivian's own factories before expanding to external customers.