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How Amazon's Ex-Robotics VP Is Building 500 Homes Per Year in a 50,000 sq ft Factory

Vikas Enti went from deploying half a million robots at Amazon to revolutionizing home construction with micro-factories that can produce 250 to 500 homes annually. After winning the 2025 Ivory Prize for affordable housing and scaling 30x this year, Reframe Systems is proving that mass customization—not mass production—is the future of construction.

Vikas breaks down how they're solving the $350-450/sq ft cost crisis in infill construction by selling homes at $275/sq ft, why breaking the assembly line was crucial, and how they're shipping homes from Massachusetts to wildfire-rebuilding efforts in California.

In this episode, you’ll:

• Discover why mass customization beats mass production in construction and how to build a factory that adapts to any site condition

• Learn the "pixels to parts" software approach that converts design changes into manufacturing instructions in under 9 minutes

• Understand how vertical integration and information architecture solve the skilled trades shortage crisis

• Get insights on when to be a technology provider vs. design-build GC vs. co-developer based on market realities

• See how Amazon's fulfillment principles apply to construction automation and why software-defined factories are the competitive moat

Chapters

• 00:00 - 30x growth and expanding to California wildfire rebuilding

• 07:42 - From Amazon robotics to solving the climate crisis through construction

• 11:04 - Why breaking the assembly line unlocks mass customization

• 16:27 - The vision: buildings that design and build themselves

• 22:53 - Hardware vs software challenges in construction automation

• 31:30 - Two major obstacles founders don't see coming

• 38:54 - Business model evolution: from tech provider to design-build GC

• 45:39 - Unit economics: competing at $275/sq ft vs $350-450/sq ft market

• 56:44 - Why construction is both a supply chain AND information problem

• 01:04:17 - Where to find Reframe Systems and career opportunities

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