Rivian’s Mind Robotics Hires Doug Field as President
The former Tesla and Ford executive joins the startup as it approaches $1 billion in total funding.
Doug Field, the engineer who previously led Tesla’s Model 3 program and Ford’s EV division, has been appointed president of Mind Robotics, the industrial robotics startup spun out of Rivian last year. Field will oversee product, engineering, and operations alongside Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe.
What Happened
Mind Robotics announced the hire of Field, who joins after leaving Ford in April when his EV group was folded into manufacturing under COO Kumar Galhotra. Field’s career includes serving as Tesla’s SVP of Engineering during the Model 3 launch and leading Apple’s Special Projects Group. At Mind, he will help run the company that has raised more than $1 billion in under a year, including a $400 million round in May 2026 that valued the startup at $3.4 billion. Scaringe described Field as a leader with a track record of delivering new technologies in successful products, noting that such experience is critical as Mind deploys robots into real factories.
Why It Matters
Field’s appointment places Mind Robotics in direct competition with Tesla’s Optimus program, which has faced production delays and missed targets for deploying useful robots in factories. Unlike Tesla, which has publicly discussed unit goals and stage demos, Mind is taking a quieter approach, leveraging its relationship with Rivian to train robots on live assembly lines. Rivian, which delivered 19,248 vehicles in Q3 and is ramping up R2 production in Normal, Illinois, serves as both a major shareholder and launch customer for Mind. This strategy provides Mind with a high-volume environment to collect training data and deploy dexterous manufacturing hardware without the public scrutiny of a standalone consumer launch.
The Bottom Line
Mind Robotics has secured significant capital and industry leadership in Doug Field to advance its goal of building foundation models and hardware for manufacturing. The startup’s integration with Rivian’s production ecosystem offers a distinct path toward industrialization, contrasting with the high-profile but challenged trajectory of Tesla’s robot efforts.
