Diligent Robotics hires two notable Cruise alumni to its leadership team

Diligent Robotics, a pioneer in the field of AI-powered humanoid robots for healthcare, is significantly bolstering its leadership team. The move comes as the Austin, Texas-based company gears up to dramatically scale the deployment of its Moxi robots across hospitals and pharmacies nationwide.

In a strategic announcement, Diligent Robotics confirmed the appointment of Rashed Haq as its Chief Technology Officer and Todd Brugger as its Chief Operating Officer. Both accomplished professionals previously held key leadership roles at Cruise, the General Motors self-driving subsidiary that recently underwent significant operational shifts, leading to its workforce restructuring.

Rashed Haq served as the Vice President and Head of AI and Robotics at Cruise, while Todd Brugger was the company’s Chief Operating Officer, overseeing the scaling of its autonomous vehicle fleet.

Andrea Thomaz, co-founder and CEO of Diligent Robotics, shared with TechCrunch that the timing for these pivotal leadership hires was opportune. With approximately 100 of its Moxi humanoid robots already deployed, assisting healthcare facilities with crucial non-patient-facing tasks, the startup is now poised for an aggressive scaling phase.

“We’ve purposely grown a little bit more slowly, I would say, over the last, two or three years, really honing some of the operational efficiencies and getting ready to be in a position to scale more dramatically,” Thomaz explained. “And that’s kind of what we’re gearing up to do the end of this year and next year.”

Thomaz highlighted Haq’s profound AI expertise and invaluable experience in translating complex AI algorithms from laboratory concepts to real-world applications, such as autonomous vehicles. This practical application experience was a key draw for Diligent.

Her initial discussions with Haq led to an introduction to Brugger through a mutual connection. Thomaz quickly recognized Brugger’s extensive experience in scaling Cruise from its nascent stages to deploying hundreds of vehicles, deeming it an ideal fit for Diligent’s ambitious growth objectives.

“Todd and Rashed worked so well together at Cruise,” Thomaz noted, emphasizing the synergy. “Everything started coming together. We were in need of operational leadership. We knew that we were needing to hire someone with Todd’s expertise, and it was really very much perfect timing.”

Both Haq and Brugger expressed to TechCrunch that joining Diligent Robotics felt like a natural progression. They pointed to Diligent’s advanced deployment stage and the inherent similarities between autonomous vehicle technology and humanoid robotics. Haq further elaborated, stating that autonomous vehicles are, at their core, mobile robots by another name.

“Many companies have early traction in terms of revenue and I call it ‘vibe revenue,’ because people try it out, and then they cancel their service afterwards, so then that revenue dies out,” Haq remarked. “But with Diligent, if you look at all the metrics, the robots are actually in day-to-day use, and have become integral parts of the companies that are using them. So that makes it a very sticky product as well. So, you know, lots of interesting things about the company.”

Brugger echoed this sentiment, stating his attraction to Diligent stemmed from its parallel operational challenges and strategic priorities with Cruise.

“There’s a sort of a hierarchy, or pyramid, of priorities that we looked at that I think will be very similar,” Brugger stated. “You start with safety at the bottom of the pyramid, that’s a nonnegotiable. Then you move up and improve reliability. Beyond that, you continue to work on product-market-fit, which a lot of times, is expanding the capability or the utility of the robots. So I think that sort of pyramid is the same. And then the way you think about deployments, I think the parallels are very similar as well.”

Founded in 2017 by Andrea Thomaz and Vivian Chu, Diligent Robotics’ Moxi robots are currently deployed across more than 25 healthcare networks. The company has successfully raised over $90 million in venture funding from notable firms including Tiger Global, True Ventures, and Canaan Partners, among others, underscoring strong investor confidence in its vision and technology.