I took my last company public at $2.7B.

Scaled from 0 → 400 people in 3 years.

Now, I’m leading AI Robotics company (with 40 people).

7 things I’m doing differently in this new startup:

Context:

My last company was Archer Aviation.

I built it into a globally recognized aerospace company and took it public at $2.7B.

My new company is Figure.

We're currently 40 people, working to commercialize humanoid robots.

Here are my new approaches this time around:

Employees = potential $10M tax free

Historically, I’ve granted stock options or RSU’s.

Now every employee has restricted founder stock at $0.001/share.

This allows for potential QSBS eligibility at 5yrs.

That could mean $0 in federal income taxes for the first $10M in gains.

No Independent Board Members

I’m hell-bent on not adding independent board members while being a private company.

This a requirement for public companies.

But it leads to long-term value creation misalignment.

Figure’s board is set up for long-term shareholder value.

Championship Team Building

I spent an enormous amount of time at Archer crafting the team by hand.

I took this to a new extreme at Figure.

Everyone has a super power in the Org Chart.

I’m being literal:

If you aren’t the best in the world you won’t be hired.

Define the Culture

As I scaled my last companies, there were emergent properties I disliked.

I wasn’t clear on what I wanted the culture to be.

At Figure, I wrote a detailed Culture doc.

It outlines:

→ What our culture is
→ Who it's for

We will hire and fire based on this

**Our culture is rooted in “product first, mission focused”

We lead with a commitment to the mission.

Our leaders drive ambitious causes that we fight hard for.

Every person at Figure does IC work (Codes, CAD’s, Executes)

We ship 🚢

Top Priority Is Engineering

We're dedicating the entire company strategy to product & engineering.

We only have 2 non-engineers today.

Input functions (Legal, Marketing, etc) are a 2nd priority.

The entire “Company” exists to do badass engineering.

Litigation Insurance

I’ve been naive my whole life thinking lawsuits were for just cases.

I was wrong.

Most litigation I’ve seen are done in bad faith.

Day 1, Figure set up litigation insurance.

I vow to never surrender an unjust case against us.

Conversely, I've done one thing the same at all my companies (Vettery, Archer, Figure).

I take an extreme focus on product.

I spent 90% of my time on design & engineering.

Building great product will and always has been my #1 focus.

I hope you've found this thread helpful.

I'm currently building out my new company called @_figureai - we are building humanoid robots.

Follow me @adcock_brett for more.

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