Rivian spinoff Mind Robotics hires former Ford and Tesla exec Doug Field as president

Rivian's industrial robotics spinoff has recruited one of the most seasoned hardware executives in the automotive world. Mind Robotics, the startup Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe founded in 2025, has appointed Doug Field as president, The Verge and TechCrunch reported on October 13, with the news announced onstage at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference in San Francisco.

Field will run the day-to-day business — product, engineering and operations — while Scaringe remains acting chief executive and chair, according to TechCrunch. Scaringe told the conference he originally called Field asking for a recommendation for someone to help lead the company, and the two found what he described as deep alignment in how they build teams and approach the mission.

A resume spanning Apple, Tesla and Ford

Field's career touches several of the defining hardware programs of the past two decades. According to The Verge, he was Apple's vice president of Mac hardware engineering before leaving in 2013 to join Tesla, where The Verge describes him as chief vehicle engineer and TechCrunch as senior vice president of engineering; both credit him with overseeing the Model 3, a program whose ramp TechCrunch notes included the notorious "production hell." He later returned to Apple to lead Project Titan, the autonomous electric car effort TechCrunch reports was canceled in 2024. Ford hired him in 2021 to run its electric vehicle and software division, a position TechCrunch says he left in April as part of a wider leadership reorganization. His first industry job, per TechCrunch, was as employee number one at Segway.

Purpose-built machines, not humanoids

Mind Robotics is developing what TechCrunch describes as a full stack for industrial manufacturing: purpose-built robots running on foundation models, aimed at automating industrial tasks at scale. The startup has raised more than $1 billion from Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse, Kleiner Perkins and the venture arms of Volkswagen and Salesforce, according to TechCrunch.

The company appears to be sidestepping the humanoid race. TechCrunch reports that Scaringe says Mind's robots will not attempt to mimic human biomechanics, unlike the humanoid machines that, as The Verge notes, Tesla and Hyundai are pursuing for factory and warehouse work. Even so, no design has been revealed: The Verge reports the company has never shown a robot publicly, is advertising 32 open positions, and describes its machines as built for the "dexterity and physical reasoning" that industrial work demands.

Rivian as customer, proving ground and shareholder

The links between the two companies run deep. Rivian will be Mind's first customer, the robots will initially be tested in Rivian's factories, and the startup is using AI training data from Rivian — which TechCrunch frames as a live, high-volume environment for model training and deployment. TechCrunch also reports that Rivian held roughly a third of both Mind and Also, its micromobility spinoff run by former Specialized chief product officer Chris Yu, as of June 30, 2026. Scaringe has said he wants to keep the companies separate rather than combine the work the way Tesla has, according to The Verge.

Field called that factory access decisive. "Integrating AI and robotics is one of the most important — and difficult — engineering challenges of our time," he said in a statement carried by both outlets, adding that Mind has "a unique advantage: the ability to deploy and learn inside a real, high-volume factory from day one." Scaringe, in his own statement to The Verge, praised Field's record of building teams that "deliver products that reset expectations."

Why it matters

Field's arrival is the strongest signal yet that Mind Robotics intends to move from stealth mode toward real deployment, just a year after its founding. It also marks a notable talent shift: an executive who led vehicle programs at Tesla, Apple and Ford is betting his next act on industrial AI robots. The startup's approach diverges from the humanoid push dominating the field — purpose-built machines, foundation models, and training data drawn from a working high-volume factory rather than lab demonstrations. The Verge notes that physical AI still faces steep hardware and software hurdles, and Mind has yet to show anything publicly. But with more than $1 billion raised, a captive first customer in Rivian, and an operator who has shipped complex hardware at scale, the company has assembled ingredients most robotics startups lack.