Most people evaluate robotics companies through products, partnerships and funding rounds. Zeki started somewhere else: people. When we mapped the global workforce building advanced robotics systems, one finding stood out. Global robotics experts are increasingly concentrated in a small number of organisations rather than distributed across robotics scale-ups. This creates a challenge for every robotics company.
If the deepest expertise in robot learning, foundation models and robotics intelligence sits elsewhere, where does competitive advantage come from?
That question led us to Humanoid.
Most observers see Humanoid as one competitor in a crowded race alongside Figure, Apptronik, Agility Robotics and Boston Dynamics. The talent data tells a more interesting story.
Rather than trying to build a robotics foundation model from scratch, Humanoid appears to have focused on something different: assembling experienced operators, engineers and technical leaders from across the robotics ecosystem.The company has recruited heavily from organisations experiencing restructuring, leadership change or commercial disruption, while also attracting talent from some of the industry’s most established names.
Humanoid’s workforce reveals a concentrated pattern of hiring from established robotics companies and organisations undergoing major transitions. Viewed through a traditional market lens, this is a hiring story. Viewed through a talent lens, it is a capability story.
The workforce suggests Humanoid has focused on acquiring expertise in robotics deployment, engineering execution and manufacturing rather than attempting to compete directly for the small pool of researchers building the underlying intelligence layer of robotics systems. That distinction matters. Workforces often reveal what a company is preparing to do next.
By mapping talent flows, senior hires and concentrations of expertise, it becomes possible to identify strategic priorities, capability gaps and competitive pressures long before they appear in company announcements. That’s the real finding from Humanoid. The talent data reveals a very different picture of competition in robotics than most market analysis.
Once you can see that pattern in one company, you start wondering what the workforce might reveal about every other company in the market. Follow the talent and you may see an opportunity before the market.