Doug Field Takes President Role at Rivian Spinout Mind Robotics
Mind Robotics, the industrial AI and robotics venture spun out of Rivian in 2025, has appointed former Ford electric-vehicle executive Doug Field as president. The company, which has raised more than $1 billion from investors including Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse, Kleiner Perkins and the venture arms of Volkswagen and Salesforce, is preparing to expand its early operations.
Rivian chief executive RJ Scaringe will remain involved with Mind Robotics, but Field will oversee the daily business, including product, engineering and operations. The appointment was announced on stage at Disrupt 2026, one year after the company’s founding.
A manufacturing-focused robotics strategy
Mind Robotics is developing a full stack for industrial manufacturing. Its purpose-built robots are intended to run on foundation models and automate industrial and manufacturing tasks at scale. Scaringe said the company does not plan to reproduce the full biomechanics of a human, distinguishing its approach from humanoid-style robots under development at Tesla and other companies.
The startup’s operating model is closely tied to Rivian. The EV maker is Mind Robotics’ first customer and is being used as a live, high-volume manufacturing environment for model training and deployment. That arrangement gives the new company a setting in which to develop and deploy its systems alongside a production operation.
The financing behind the venture had already established the scale of its ambitions: Mind Robotics industrial robotics funding describes the industrial robotics funding that preceded Field’s arrival, while the new leadership structure places responsibility for execution with an executive experienced in vehicle programs and factory-scale engineering.
Field’s experience spans EV programs and robotics
Field left Ford in April after five years helping shape its EV and technology strategies, during a wider leadership reorganisation. Before Ford, he led Apple’s Project Titan, the electric and autonomous car initiative that was cancelled in 2024. He was also Tesla’s senior vice president of engineering, overseeing Model 3 development and its passage through the company’s production challenges.
His career also includes being employee No. 1 at Segway. At Mind Robotics, Field said the integration of AI and robotics is among the most important and difficult engineering challenges, citing the company’s ability to deploy and learn in a real, high-volume factory from its first day as a distinctive advantage.
Rivian keeps stakes in its spinouts
Mind Robotics is Scaringe’s second Rivian spinout. The first, Also, is a micromobility business beginning with high-end e-bikes; Scaringe is its chairman and former Specialized chief product officer Chris Yu runs daily operations. Both companies operate independently, while Rivian retains minority stakes. As of June 30, 2026, Rivian reported owning about one-third of each startup.
For manufacturers, the development highlights the value of assessing robotics platforms not only by their models or hardware, but also by whether they have a credible path to train, deploy and improve systems inside real production environments.