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Select Quotes From This Episode:
“What are the problems I could be working on that when my girls are teenagers, they could look back at it and say, my dad did that. That was really cool.” –Vikas
“What does it take to build resilient homes? Call it two to three times as fast. Can we build them twice as cheap? And what needs to be true to make that happen?” –Vikas
“If you think about all of our annual carbon emissions, about 27 percent of those are actually coming from our homes. Our homes are actually emitting more carbon than our cars.” –Vikas
“This is a mass customization problem. How do you build a factory that can produce snowflakes at scale and do that cost efficiently?” –Vikas
“A lot of us in the climate tech space have only learned to speak about it from the spectrum of carbon content versus economic value. And I think the more we can actually translate into economics, I think the more we will actually connect with the layperson making a decision.” –Vikas
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What happens when an ex–Amazon Robotics leader looks at the housing crisis and says, “Yeah… I can fix that”?
You get Reframe Systems. And honestly, this might be one of the boldest climate-tech swings happening right now.
Vikas Enti joined me on the show, and within five minutes, it was clear: the home construction industry we have is broken. Slow builds. Sky-high costs. Massive waste. Homes are leaking energy like crazy. And absolutely zero scalability.
Reframe Systems is flipping the entire industry on its head.
They’re building homes like you’d build hardware: in micro factories, with robots, software, and tight quality control. Their houses use about 80 percent less energy, slash embodied carbon, and cut the chaos of job-site construction. And they’re doing it with these insanely flexible robotic work cells that cost under $200k and fit inside a garage.
Here’s another thing that will blow your mind away.
They cracked the code on mass customization. Everyone else tries to copy-paste the same house. Reframe built the software that turns any custom design into robot-ready instructions.
The economics hit just as hard. Developers are paying $350 to $450 per square foot today. Reframe comes in at $275 to $325 — and builds faster. Their long-term target? Under $100 per square foot. If they get to hit that, game over. Housing changes forever.
Also… insurance companies are pushing this wave faster than anyone. With wildfire and climate risk exploding, insurers want buildings that actually perform. Reframe homes check every box: airtight, fire-rated, flood-resilient, and way cheaper to run.
Vikas and the team built their first full micro factory and delivered a permitted home in just 18 months. Now they’re scaling through joint ventures and laying the tracks for a network of small, fast factories that can pop up anywhere housing is needed.
If you care about climate tech, housing affordability, robotics, or the future of cities… this is really one of those episodes you should listen to.
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📝 Show Notes:
Topics
Here are some key timestamps from the episode:
00:45 - Podcast Intro and Reframe’s Solution to Housing, Climate, and Efficiency
03:36 - Vikas Enti’s Introduction and Reframe Systems’ Technology
04:07 - The Motivation Behind Starting Reframe Systems
06:16 - Connecting Modular Housing and Robotics to Climate Tech
08:41 - Details on Operational and Embodied Carbon Reduction
10:38 - Modular vs. Traditional Construction and the Challenge of Mass Customization
12:17 - Reframe’s “Pixels to Parts” Software and Robotic System Design
16:28 - Market Focus on High-Cost and Infill Markets
17:34 - Company Branding: Focusing on Economic Value and Resilient Homes
19:15 - Customer Type: Developers and B2B Go-to-Market
20:00 - Success Factors: Co-Benefits of Cost, Speed, Quality, and Energy Codes
22:42 - Home Destruction from Climate Change and the Role of Insurance Companies
24:39 - Housing Shortage and Demographic Shift Driving Demand
30:00 - The Power of Economics in Climate Communication
32:32 - Scaling Strategy: Owning, Operating, and Future Licensing of Micro Factories
34:53 - Importance of Local Joint Ventures for Land Access and Permitting
37:05 - Overcoming the Perception of Factory-Built Housing
39:16 - The MVP Journey and Getting Traction to Raise Funding
50:45 - The Importance of Hiring for “Fit” and Being a “Force Multiplier”
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