Rivian-Backed Mind Robotics Hires Doug Field to Lead Industrial AI Push
Rivian-backed Mind Robotics hires former Ford, Tesla and Apple EV leader Doug Field as president to scale industrial AI robots in Rivian factories at scale.
Summary
Rivian-backed Mind Robotics hired Doug Field as president on October 13, 2026, in San Francisco, one year after Rivian created the industrial AI and robotics venture. CEO RJ Scaringe remains involved, but Field now oversees product, engineering and operations. Mind has raised more than $1 billion from Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse, Kleiner Perkins, and the venture arms of Volkswagen and Salesforce. It is developing a full industrial manufacturing stack of purpose-built robots powered by foundation models, rejecting the human biomechanics pursued by Tesla and other humanoid developers. Rivian is its first customer and provides a live, high-volume factory for model training and deployment.
Field left Ford in April after five years shaping its EV and technology strategies during a wider leadership reorganization. He previously led Apple’s Project Titan before the autonomous EV program was canceled in 2024, served as Tesla’s senior vice president of engineering during Model 3 development and “production hell,” and was Segway’s first employee. Mind is Scaringe’s second standalone company outside Rivian, following Also, a micromobility venture starting with high-end e-bikes. Scaringe chairs Also, while former Specialized chief product officer Chris Yu runs daily operations. Rivian held minority stakes of about one-third in both startups as of June 30, 2026.
Positives
- More than $1 billion from Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse, Kleiner Perkins, Volkswagen and Salesforce gives Mind substantial scaling capital.
- Rivian provides a live, high-volume factory where Mind can train models, deploy robots and collect operational data from day one.
- Doug Field brings leadership experience from Ford, Apple’s Project Titan, Tesla’s Model 3 program and Segway.
- Purpose-built robots avoid the added complexity of reproducing every aspect of human biomechanics.
- Field’s control of product, engineering and operations gives Mind dedicated daily leadership while RJ Scaringe remains involved.
Risks & concerns
- Field calls integrating AI and robotics one of the most important and difficult engineering challenges of the era.
- Rivian is Mind’s first disclosed customer and its initial training environment, concentrating early deployment within one manufacturer.
- Mind is only one year old and is still preparing to scale its early operations.
- No product specifications, deployment schedule or additional commercial customers have been disclosed.