Instawork

Just returned from a couple weeks in China visiting robotics teams, factory floors (including a private tour of Xiaomi Technology 's flagship and factory), retail operators, and dinners with founders. Came home with more questions than answers. A few things I can't stop thinking about: * The most interesting robotics companies I met weren't chasing the "do everything" humanoid. They were going deep on one wedge with clear ROI — FJDynamics in agriculture, YUNJI ROBOTICS running fleets of robots inside hotels. * The pace is on another level. Asked a Shenzhen hardware vendor how long it would take to customize their gear for our use case. I expected quarters. The answer was two weeks. I made them repeat it. Then made my translator (my Mandarin speaking daughter) repeat it 😀 * A generational handoff is quietly underway. Observed young Chinese founders whose parents spent decades building the supply chains for Chanel, Gucci, and the European luxury houses. The kids are launching their own brands now. Same factory access. Sharp merchandising. Something most of us aren't watching. * The brand and retail work coming out of China is now genuinely world-class. I saw it across Chinese retail and when visiting Xiaomi. The old China story was "they make it." The new one is "they make it, brand it, and sell it." * Curiosity flows asymmetrically. When I provocatively asked a Xiaomi exec about Tesla, I got real respect, almost deference, for Tesla's heritage. Same energy with a Beijing robotics team using tactile gloves and UMI grippers. They had read every recent US paper, knew the authors and labs, and even knew Instawork . That level of curiosity about what's happening elsewhere is something I want to bring back. * The thing I least expected: how much room individual Chinese cities have to experiment. Meituan drone-delivered me boba in Shenzhen in 15 minutes. Different city, different rules, different bets. Worth chewing on as we think about how robots get deployed in the US. * If you build hardware and you've never walked Huaqiangbei in Shenzhen, put it on the list. Custom sensor, obscure chip, hand-built cable, all in your hand by lunch. The supply chain isn't a chart on a slide. It's a city block. Where does America's version of this get built? Had dinner with a US robotics CEO who is wrestling with this too. Dan Wang's "Breakneck" names the hard part well: process knowledge lives in places, and can't be imported. Candidates I keep hearing about ... NY (capital, no industrial base), SF (tech and capital, no labor or land), Boston (robotics roots), Texas (energy and oil/gas infrastructure, proximity to Mexico for labor). I went in with a mental model of China mostly built from headlines. Most of it didn't survive the first couple of days on the ground. Worth a visit for all builders ... not just those focused on physical AI, but even consumer Internet and marketplaces. DMs and comments are open!

The Federal Reserve Board 's Beige Book flagged rising demand for flexible workers, and Instawork 's real-time data backs it up: new business signups triple digits year over year, light industrial surging in logistics hubs like Hagerstown, MD, warehouse associate the most in-demand position across the market. Businesses aren't canceling plans...they're hedging them. Emma Ockerman at Yahoo Finance ! Finance captured this trend exactly right. 📊 #LaborMarket #FlexWork #FutureOfWork https://lnkd.in/gS5DPs3S

Instawork connects 10M+ workers to businesses across 50+ markets. Backed by Benchmark, Craft Ventures, and others, we're building out an AI-native GTM team. The best GTM teams aren't just using AI, they're built around it. We're looking for a Revenue Systems Architect who wants to design the infrastructure, ship production systems, and do the most interesting work of their career. Sound like you? Let's talk! Kyle Hussey Aaron Eichenbaum Dan Kaplan Harrison Tighe Laurent Baillot https://lnkd.in/gv4DKBhq

With every major technology shift, the question isn't whether new jobs will be created. They always are. The question is who builds the bridge between the current world and the next one. Instawork is building the bridge for our Pros. Alistair Barr at Business Insider lays it well below. ⬇️