The future of humanoid robots might not look human at all. In fact, the "humanoid robots" of the future could have wheels instead of legs, four arms instead of two, or even look more like spiders than people.
That's the provocative argument from Haomiao Huang, founding partner of Matter Venture Partners, which just raised a $450 million fund to invest in robotics, physical AI, semiconductors, and other deep technologies.
His perspective: "Humanoid is a state of mind, not a specific type of robot."
What matters isn't whether a robot walks on two legs or looks like a person. It's whether that robot can perform multiple tasks, manipulate objects, navigate human environments, and adapt to new situations without being completely reprogrammed.
In other words, the real revolution isn't humanoid robots. It's general-purpose robots.
In this episode of Humanoid (almost) Daily, we explore why Huang believes we're entering a golden age of robotics, what's still holding the industry back, and what the next generation of robots might look like.
We discuss:
- Why humanoid robots don't actually need to look human
- How general-purpose robots could transform manufacturing, logistics, and eventually our homes
- Why today's humanoids resemble the clunky wearable computers of the 1980s
- Whether robot manufacturers are scaling before finding product-market fit
- Why AI models, compute, and demand are converging to accelerate robotics
- The hardware and training-data bottlenecks still holding robots back
- Why robots like Dexterity's Mech and Path Robotics' welding systems might represent the near-term future
- Where Matter Venture Partners is investing its $450 million
- Why the most capable robots of the future might resemble spiders more than humans
And we get Huang's predictions for what robotics will look like in five to ten years.
00:00 – The golden age of robotics
00:17 – Meet Haomiao Huang: The $450M physical AI fund
00:55 – If AI eats the world, hardware is its teeth
02:05 – Why physical AI is replacing the metaverse hype
03:49 – Bringing AI agents into the physical world
05:44 – Three forces creating the robotics boom
08:22 – Humanoid is a state of mind, not a robot shape
11:40 – Are humanoids scaling before product-market fit?
12:59 – Why robot reliability still isn't good enough
15:11 – Will we need humanoid-safe products?
16:01 – Hardware, AI, data: What's the biggest bottleneck?
16:39 – Why advanced robotics training data is scarce
17:24 – Today's robots are like early personal computers
20:40 – Why robot makers are building custom hardware
22:19 – Robotics, geopolitics, and military applications
24:07 – Where Matter will invest $450 million
26:24 – Predicting humanoid robots in 2031
27:25 – General-purpose industrial robots will scale first
28:31 – Why the ultimate robot might look like a spider
30:03 – Figure, 1X, and the race toward useful home robots
32:06 – Final thoughts
