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@@rickys9082 They just need levels adjustment and some pop screens. But yeah. Hearing explicit breath intakes for an hour at 6am is not a top quality experience.
Well said: encasing a complex truth within a larger narrative is pretty instructive to any person in a management position. Perhaps FL could have maintained the small group team dynamic as they grew if that narrative had been maintained.
Holy *expletive*, yes. I started watching because "I want to see more of StuffMadeHere", and it woulda been a very good interview even without the "but really let's talk about the negative side", but... wow, that was one of the most impressive bits of honesty/realism I've seen on YT in a while, and especially coming from a corporate account. I'm very very impressed with this , Max/FormLabs.
Shane’s experience with a startup which reaches past a certain size is a familiar one. Max genuinely taking ownership of how the culture may have changed and trying to improve is a rare sight. Kudos to both for publishing this interview. Many valuable insights here. Good luck to both and FormLabs.
I think companies should have small fully independent teams of highly skilled workers to be able to keep talent such as Shane. When you let HR people to set the rules, no matter how small the limitations, the top employees are going to consider their options. I don't think Bell Labs was ever limited by HR people and they were hugely successful. On the other hand, now that Nokia owns it, it hasn't created anything worth mentioning. I would guess HR people were involved.
29:48 It's impressive that you were so transparent about Shane's leaving the company. I don't think many companies would have the strength to discuss openly about it.
I agree. And for top talent this is the only way you can be successful. If you try to hide your mistakes from public too much, the top talent will see if dishonest and will be looking other options. It's much better to publicly say that we made this kind of mistakes in the past and this is how we have fixed these issues now. Of course, if you don't even try to fix the issues, this doesn't work. But don't expect top talent to stay.
Literally EVERYTHING Shane does is impressive. I run a business, and you will meet a person like this very rarely and you should pay WHATEVER it takes to have them at your company.
@@TheVisidor the Shane’s of the world are not driven by money, they seek an environment that will allow them to realize their ideas. Money will always find the Shane’s of the world.
Money alone cannot keep this kind of talent. If you pay then too little, it's not worth their time. If you pay a lot, they will simply spare most of that money until they can go fully independent on savings alone. The only way is to make the work environment so good that the top talent wants to be there. In practice, if you can get a group of top talents, then you have to manage them like top athletes in any team sport, but with even more independence for the team. And for heaven's sake, keep HR people and bean counters away from that team. As in absolutely zero influence whatsoever. Imagine group of shanes working in a single project with the only target to make that project as perfect as possible. That's the work environment you should be building for top talent. Then every member of that team can feel that they can accomplish way more as a team than any of them going independent. However, that also requires finding tasks that the group considers interesting enough. You cannot get them to put 100% effort into something they don't believe in as an end result. They must feel that their job is meaningful. For any software stuff, you can get top talent interested with building 100% open source software because then the talent will feel that even if company doesn't succeed commercially, their work is not wasted because they still have the software and continue develop it further. Of course, having fully open source product is not the cheap option because any of the skilled employees could simply fork the code and create competing company if you cannot provide environment where they want to be.
Kudos to Formlabs for a great interview. This conversation had the potential of being awkward in the way that interviewing an ex-boy/girlfriend might be but it ended up being interesting and entertaining. It speaks well for a company to be able to openly own up to its shortcommings and commit to improving them and hopefully more companies will view failures as opportunites for improvement.
Very well said and I agree. Excellent interview and great soul searching from both perspectives. I appreciate Max's courage to ask some tough questions. I also appreciate that he and FormLab's do have exceptionally high standards and are critical of themselves and their products, but it's also equally if not even more important to express gratitude and accolades for hard work and exceptional efforts. the Form 3 printer is exceptional without a doubt. I wished I could afford one, but lets not digress. There's many ways to do this and one of the best ways is for a company to invest in their employees and/or share in the companies success (profits) beyond the regular and far too commonly expected annual bonus and merit increases. Amazon perhaps does this better than most. Amazon has made a lot of millionaires just by doing this very thing. When the company succeeds the employees succeed. Culture is also very important. Sadly today culture in the corporate environment has turned into one big I&D lecture and I'm sorry to say that's NOT culture. It's also not inclusive or diverse, but that's an argument for another day. What corporate culture is quite simply is your employees not only working together, but playing together. Getting to know one another outside of the office. I'm also not talking about team building exercises. Those can be fun, but it's still "work". I know what I'm referring to is challenging from a logistical and economical perspective especially for large companies that are spread out across a nation or the globe, but where there is a will there is a way. It doesn't need to be everyone, it can be limited to a team or perhaps multiple teams who work closely together. Get them together outside the office somehow and let them know they are doing a great job, if its true.
The more I interact with FormLabs, the more I can appreciate the power that they have to give to people like Shane. That being said, its clear through interviews like this why he is as successful as he is. To have someone with equal levels of both intelligence and drive is a rarity and I could listen to him explain 'stuff' for hours!
That's actually super true. I don't want this to come off as me trying to make myself look great because I'm certainly more flawed than I am great, but I've always been pretty intelligent I would often get me a lot of opportunity to do some really cool things. But I'm not like Shane.. I don't have the drive he does and as depression has gotten to me, I've achieved less and less. There's something even more humiliating about fading into some sort of mediocrity when you used to be particularly skilled at the things you did.. so that's me. But it does give me an interesting perspective because I think I got to see that my ability to achieve things with this little work is possible both made me Excel and made me become lazier. So when you see someone like Shane who said "look at what I can accomplish in an hour and I've got 24 of them in a day. Let's see what I can achieve by tomorrow" you really should hold on and encourage them as much as you can. Things being easy for someone tends to make them soft but with Shane he just kept going harder instead. He's absolutely astonishing and I'm not sure I've ever seen somebody so skilled in so many areas in my entire life.
Shane is a master at blending technical know-how and entertainment. It's quite easy to find creators who are good at one or the other, but rarely together. He's a true gem and I'm thankful I found his channel a while back.
Dazzled is right. While some of Shane projects are somewhat dubious in utility, the engineering behind them is pure gold. He is as much a teacher as he is an engineer, and his projects are often the perfect hook to capture the attention of young minds (and old alike as in my case) and inspire a new generation of engineers this country so desperately needs. I thoroughly enjoy watching his videos and being mesmerized by his cleverness and problem solving ability as he sets forth a goal and then works his way through the processes to accomplish that goal.
"Make it so humans can't make mistakes and abstract away tedious work that takes a lot of time." This quote really caught my attention. It's a simplification of the overall purpose of engineering and automation. I've been trying to automate myself out of a job for decades, but I find that all I do is find more time for solving real problems and spend less time on tedium.
I'll have to admit that I was already an engineering major by the time I came accross this channel, but I can say that his "long term strategy" of getting kids interested in engineering, via RUclips videos, is true. I am living proof of this theory because I began to tinker and build projects, from the knowledge I gained through watching youtube, while still in middle/high school. Please continue continue doing what you do because I do not know if I would have had the drive or attention span to even pass high school, let alone make it into college, without content like this on Youtuve that was accessable to me at the time.
I am very glad to hear Shane say it's not the tool that allows you to make stuff. They make it easier/quicker to make stuff. But if you want to start building/making stuff, you don't need a 8000sq ft shop and all the tools. You just need to start making things. And the more you make the more you'll be able to justify buying a new tool and you'll make more and it's a virtuous circle. I am not an engineer, but I used to dream of having a woodworking workshop for years, watching people on youtube making awesome things. So one day I went to the home improvement store, bought a piece of wood and a jig saw, and made a simple thing that I needed. A few years later I'm still broke but I have a nice little shop full of power tools that I can justify to myself having because I use them all the time.
That was a very honest and vulnerable question to ask over RUclips about why Shane left. I really appreciate hearing the question and Shane’s answer. He was honest and really hit the nail on the head. The company I’m working for is going through similar growing pains and it does get critical many times. I think that this is very valuable information that we could integrate to retain valuable employees/friends within the company. As engineers we’re viewed as very pragmatic and we are often. We often want to know what went wrong to make it better. I think because engineering is often a Darwinian process of development (you mostly notice what went wrong. Good results are viewed as working as they should) the bad results are the focus so that we can fix them. More emphasis could be put on taking a step back and seeing the whole Forrest landscape instead of just pruning the trees.
In Chile, I Co-founded a Startup, making low cost, high performance Ed tech hardware for rural and poor urban parts of Latin America, our Formlabs Form 2 was crucial in the iteration and mass manufacturing of small complex components. I've been following stuff made for at least a couple years and it really teached us how to think carefully, and how to iterate sistematically! From Santiago, Thanks to both of you!
I've known a lot of engineers (my dad was an MIT-trained mechanical engineer). But I've known few who actually MAKE stuff. They design stuff. I love that Shane does it all - dreams it up, engineers it, makes the parts, programs the computer - the whole ball of wax. I guarantee there are kids watching who will go down one of those many paths, from math to CNC operator. Heck, I'm 62, a writer, and I've been leaning CNC through Titans of CNC's free courses!
Stuff made here was the first RUclips channel that got me truly interested in the maker scene. Shane’s videos are incredibly fun, enjoyable and insightful and gave me the confidence to try learn new skills such as Arduino. Completely agree 41:21 , an automated circuit building software would open so many more doors, as a mechanical engineer, electrical circuit design is my biggest struggle
Great interview by Max. It was really interesting to learn more about Shane. Big props to Max and Shane for discussing his leaving from FormLabs. I wish more executives were this perceptive around their engineers.
This was fantastic. You guys are the reason I chose to pursue personal manufacturing for parts and products. Followed the Kickstarter back in 2012, ran one successfully the following year, and continue to follow Formlabs and Stuff Made Here. Keep up the great work!
I think Shane's videos are educational, not as explainers, but the high level solutions of applications. Inspiring as hooks if you want to use them as lessons.
Computer engineer here, don't get discouraged just look for good sources really what programming truly is about its about creating detailed instructions for a machine, if you want to start somewhere I would recommend for you that after learning the basics you look for automatons, they are very straightforward and incredibly useful to the 99% of anything you will ever do
I actually did a career shift from mech eng into software engineering. I'd avoided programming for years. My work involved a lot of mechanical and electrical stuff, eventually I had to do a bit of programming for proofs of concepts etc and found it wasn't as hard as I thought. Then I had a start-up idea so learnt backend and front end and hacked something crappy together. Didn't go anywhere but I had a lot of fun learning. Eventually I realised I was working 60 hour weeks at work and coming home looking forward to programming so I added a few more portfolio projects and made the switch. If you like problem solving (which engineers really should) then it's quite a natural switch. The best thing to me is the feedback loop is so much shorter. You can iterate in seconds, instead of weeks (waiting for design review, parts to be fabricated/ordered, etc) so you get that dopamine rush of solving a challenge many many times each day. Not having to drive to remote factories and stand around waiting for things is a huge plus too.
I'm 18 and from Brazil, I've found his channel back in 2021, when I had decided that design wasn't exactly for me and was looking for other possibilities, I really wanted a career where I could be creative and solve problems. His channel was one of the reasons I've decided to follow mechanical engineering, the fact that you can create basically anything knowing physics and mathematics it's amazing to me, he is definitely making a difference
"They tell me they like it", exactly that. So many times workers (in any profession) want to just hear that once in a while. Even though I had a very nice position in science, the only time I really heard that was when I asked for my recommendation letter. :) And I was like "well, if you could have pointed towards those feelings earlier.... who knows...". And with a lot of clever people, they do want to change their goals somewhat regularly, they do want that vibrant tight group of people that are not managed to death. A very smart friend from school I know, years later, told me exactly these things when he left a company after 15 or so years.
Shane is as humble as he is gifted. This man is endlessly pushing himself and the quality and complexity of his work is always astonishing. I'm so happy he has shared so much on RUclips. I can't wait to see what he is working on next.
My watching of Stuff Made Here sent me to this video. I'm not an engineer, but I am a math guy (high school teacher). I just introduced my 10-year old daughter to Stuff Made Here, and she is totally mesmerized by it. It is making an impact.
Love the transparency. As some said before: Talking openly about the reasons why one would leave your company and addressing the problems for everyone to see is a sign of really reflected leadership. Keep it up.
Shane says "The videos, obviously, they're not helping people make stuff". I want to take a second to say that, as an Engineering student and Enterpreneur (who builds machines) I really have found the opposite. Not only does Shane's video entertain and get you exited to do engineering (and believe me they do), they also demonstrate the process Shane follows and that is highliy educational in itself. Additionally it shows how he struggles (and how that's ok), and how he goes through iterations to get to a final product. All of that is before even mentioning showing his way of solving various mechanical, electrical and programming problems (which I've personally learnt from). Finally Shane exposes us to a lot of technology and how it is used - it goes from Arduinos to motors to high-tech cameras and programming. Without a doubt we DO learn from your videos @StuffMadeHere . Thanks again mate.
It's RARE that you have someone like Shane who is tech minded, go from 'near-introvert savant engineer to PUSHING out videos on RUclips where he is Expressly capturing the audience and driving content and engages in the audience whether through fault or coincidence he's able to persevere. Congrats on the new shop! Super Excited about the shop EXPANSE Shane! Kudos to Shane and FormLabs for addressing issues seen when business or personnel differ. \\ It had been 10 years since I visited Kickstarter launching 3D printers with FormLabs. Congrats on the new shop! Super Excited about the shop EXPANSE Shane! \\
I just got sucked into this podcast, man it's amazing. I'm a second year student of Computer Science, and things that Shane has made really is inspiring!
I am a mechanical engineer and am constantly impressed by the depth and range of Shane's knowledge. Can't wait to see the new shop. I have a small shop in my basement with a cnc router. It has been fun building it and setting it up the way I want. Great interview
I remember that first Kickstarter for Formlabs and being both excited and disappointed... excited because I had first seen the laser technology earlier in a large company and was fascinated by it, yet also disappointed because the price point was still quite a bit out of my range and the heavy handed use of proprietary tech made it very difficult to justify tying myself so inextricably with a single technology that still had many faults from my viewpoint. Even the latest variants have failed to remove some of those sticking points, even when I *did* have the funds to get one. In some ways I am very similar to Shane in coming up with new ideas and then figuring out how to make it work, but I don't have that tendency to go for the extremes and try to figure out the best ways while remaining cost effective... Even so, I must applaud the fortitude and even a bit of humility for the CEO to go out and talk to a prodigious engineer and humbly accept what fault was due and still be supportive and yet educationally interesting through the interview.
Kudos to Formlabs for doing this. It’s certainly a different side of Shane than most if us are used to. And a company that would create and post an interview like this has some serious talent at the top. Well done to all.
Nice to know FormLabs has a leader who takes responsibility for mistakes made. That speaks to a company that can adapt and improve the culture to keep talent. Perhaps they will be able to keep their current and future Shanes with this approach.
It's fascinating how fast things go out of date. I don't agree with Shane about needing to be an engineer to do this stuff, I cut my teeth on mini matrix boards, Don Lancaster's CMOS cookbook and CMOS logic, the ZX81 and then modding the Amstrad CPC664. Teaching myself assembler for the Z80, the HC11, PIC and Atmel.. I did do part of a microprocessor Systems course as an isolated study but what it did mostly for me is cement my resolution to do my own designs rather than make other's designs. It gave me confidence in my own ability and skepticism about following other's design principles and research conclusions. Shane is obviously a great researcher. It took me a month to make an 68HC11 cross assembler in locomotive basic back in around 1993 and I made my own STM32F103VBT based full board, printer design 13 years ago but the 3 day SLA slicer sounds like a big challenge. I'm guessing Shane worked up to it for a while first. Familiarity with slicing algorithms, tweaking open source tool platforms and gaining familiarity with the tools, gaining familiarity with 3D display, GUI design before starting something like that. And then working with packaging and deployment, there's a lot of hours that go into all those processes. Sometimes I wonder what a person with Nicola Tesla or Leonardo Da Vinci's talents would do in our current environment with today's tools. Chat-GPT shows that the obsolescence of human "Computers", human "Cashiers", human "Factory workers" is not stopping, our obsolescence is actually accelerating as a geometric progression. The big questions have been posed by Science Fiction writers already like Arthur C. Clarke and Frank Herbert. My only input is to the relative survival instincts of humans vs a new competitor that can ultimately think faster and smarter but lags significantly in evolutionary ancestral lineage. Of course the optimists among us hope for A.I.s like those of Orson Scot Card but we or our decendants will find out in reality.
I'm 25. If there had been channels as amazing as Stuff Made Here or Mark Rober when I was in my teens, I wouldn't have hesitated to go into engineering. Heck, I still consider doing so after watching such wonderful projects and satisfying processes!
Thank you Max Lobovsky and Shane Wighton for this honest, mature and insightful interview. If you're any start-up, engineer and inventor this is extremely valuable to watch and learn from. You leave us all with a high level of confidence in the future for both of you, and your companies.
Stuff Made Here has inspired me on so many levels. The breadth of problem solving that is demonstrated in each video is mind boggling. Huge thanks for sharing your work to the community.
I back Shane on Patreon because he's doing the Engineering God's work. Every time he builds something and then does the video where he walks through the process and why he made the decisions (and failed and adjusted fire) he did makes my brain physically fill a bit more full. He's inspiring. It sounds like Formlabs is a company where Shane would've felt right at home. You really are a force multiplier allowing engineers down to makers prototype quickly which not only saves $, but in the end makes the product better faster.
I relate so much on how he didn't feel like working for his old job because he didn't feel his work was appreciated. This is why youtube comments are such a high motivator, why my projects got accelerated. Because I had viewers I was excited to show stuff to.
Great to see a company that isn't afraid to publicly admit mistakes and regrets, it's a breath of fresh air and always a bonus to have an owner (ceo?) that is humble and willing to improve their employees experience. As a consumer I'd much rather support companies like this.
Shane is my idol. I have never seen anyone else having so complex and broad knowledge set combined with ability to present his skills and knowledge in an entertaining way.
Been watching Shane's channel for a while. Had no idea he was into mega endurance cycling. RAAM is a bonkers crazy race and a few friends have done it. Totally agree, the mental game is much harder for ultra endurance cycling. For me, endurance cycling isn't really about fun, it's about the journey and discovery.
Shane is one of *those* people. One of those I copuld listen to all day, that does not try and simply does, one of those I always want to have on my team and never want to have as an enemy.
I had zero exposure to Formlabs until watching Shane’s videos - I recently purchased a Fuse 1+ SLS package and am super excited about my newly unlocked prototyping potential! Thanks to Shane for his great videos with all the inspiration and knowledge they provide. And thanks to Formlabs for the candor in this interview
yeah i worked for a smallish family owned drilling company that had only really done water wells in fairly stable ground in high ground water areas mostly for dairy cattle farmers and the company one a small diamond drilling contract ,,never even had the correct drill rig to drill the contract ,they employed me to solve all these issues and get this job done and it was an awesome small company ,,so the drilling contract was rocky to start as any job is when your buying all new gear and some things just dont bolt togeather but soon into doing the 100 ,1000 meter deep geothermal holes for this energy company ,,it went so well we won another contract but 5 or 6 times the size so the company went from small family to huge with huge money on the line and contracts so tightly written that if you lost more than 5 percent of the core sample thruout the hole you drill it again for free ,,lots of stress and workmates turned into power tripping supervisors and started treating people like a number ,,i got a bit drunk one night and punched out my superviser ,who was a mate for years prior to turning into an overpaid low I.Q slave to the company ,,he still there now and i left back in 2008 ,,so i know what you mean brother
I love the Form 3. I have many MSLA printers, and I'm constantly replacing FEP sheets. I can always count on the Form 3 to give me a print without a failure. Ultimate product would be the speed of the MSLA but with the low force of the Form 3 print bed. Flood illumination with masking, with low force removal print bed. Peal on a single direction swipe of the head to cut down time.
This was a great video, thanks for sharing! Tremendous respect for Shane, always really enjoyed his videos, which are a mix of really great editing, explanations, and covering interesting engineering topics. He's a very talented engineer and enjoyed him and you talking about why and how he came into Formlabs and his departure.
Really wonderful interview. I love Shane Wighton's videos and absolutely appreciate his motivation to inspire the next generation of engineers. But what I love more is Max's willingness to lean into the uncomfortable discussion about why Shane left Formlabs after the Form 3 release. I think that show's an excellent sense of awareness and humility that is rare in corporate America today.
I recently resigned my 14 career in telecom to go back to school for engineering. Shane's channel along with others like Destin, Rober and Jeremy Fielding, Real Enginering and Practical Engineering really reignited my interest in Engineering. I may be the oldest student in my class. (40 this year). In a couple years ill be doing it as a career instead of just a hobby. (Also wnated to point out the graphic that slid in was not a hand saw lol)
Amazing guy. So very intelligent and striving to always do better, to achieve more. I wish i had a fraction of his intelligence and drive. I look forward to seeing Shanes future.
hearing the CEO publicly talking taking ownership on mishaps and on how to improve culture is admirable and setting a great example on good leadership.
In response to the comment Shane made about a CNC machine destroying itself. This has been a safety feature inside many CNC machines for a large number of years. It does take time to setup however. DMG Mori, for instance, allows you to load the 3D models of your tooling into the machine so the it knows the exact geometry for each station on the turret. Doing this takes time to get working properly and is usually skipped. In the 28 years I've been in this business, I consistently have seen people spend more time removing/disabling safety features than actually using them
I think Shane underestimates the impact his videos have. From inspiring new generations through making engineering fun, to making problem solving approachable and showing each of his failures and how he resolves them along the way.
Good interview with a brilliant guy. Thanks! One comment for future interviews, regarding the audio quality: the sibilants are super loud and strident. I don’t know if it’s the mics or mic placement, or whether it can be fixed in post, but they are quite unpleasant. I suggest watching some Curtis Judd videos for tips on how to improve that.
I was one of Shanes first few hundred subscribers and told him he could go far with his content. I never expected him to blow up this big. There was a fair bit of luck involved to get noticed by the right people... and the almighty algorithm. But most of it is due to his hard work he puts into his projects. He really deserves it.
Good for Lobovsky, he really rolled out the parts they didn't do well, to learn from them. I appreciate people who can face their mistakes and move on from them.
One thing I think bosses/managers need to think about when they are talking to employee's is that if you give negative feedback, you will get negative results. Give positive feedback and you can get that person to overcome just about anything but you have to encourage them, never complain about what your workers do. If you want to complain, then just fire them or move them to something else. Complaining just adds resentment and then they start to think, well I did all this and you talk negatively or I was told to do it this way and now you are not happy ect... but if you can just encourage and motivate in the direction you wish, you get the same result in a better way while not de-motivating the people. Instead of, "Why did you do it this way, it does not work and the customer would not be happy because ...", just say something along the lines of "Well this might work but what if xxx happens, do you think we can find a way to make it not do that? It would be really awesome if we could do that!" ...and just encourage with positive feedback! You want workers that will work hard for you and be proud of their work then do not discourage them! Every time you are about to talk to your employees, think first...how would you receive that feedback and what is a better way you could word it.
With all the love that I have for Shane and his content, I'm afraid I have a hot take ahead and what I feel is a fair critique for society... maybe some of you will share my concern. As a HS teacher in training, I was attending a presentation at my school by a game development studio. The purpose of this outfit was to develop cutting-edge modelling tools for their other satellite offices to use (rather than using and creating the games themselves), so their presentation was significantly less focused on specific technologies and more on the story of their two main presenters. Presenter 1 was a "Shane" - a guy who started early with his curiosity and can-do attitude, someone who sounded like they'd never turn down a conceptual challenge - even if he didn't think it was possible at the time. And [un]surprisingly, it basically sounded like it always ended in some kind of success; a significant step forward in his personal life at the very least. Taking it at face value, this was extremely impressive. Presenter 2 basically started by saying that his story was the opposite - he enjoyed video games and hoped that he would end up as a video game dev one day (further encouraged by his family and friends that he would be). He had high grades in HS but started university with the assumption that doing "reasonably well" in his classes would result in end success. He did well at the ones he enjoyed, but didn't put much effort into the ones that seemed unhelpful or boring. He also only pushed as hard in personal projects as his classes required - which he admitted could often take almost all of his free time and drained his interest in pursuing it during any remaining time. I don't remember if he ended up going into a co-op program, but if he did, I don't know if it was particularly meaningful for him. When he graduated and began searching for jobs, he applied to stuff he was interested in... no bites. Over time, he became less picky and applied for a wider set of positions - no better. He said that he ended up applying to over 200 companies before getting a single interview - I can only imagine how soul-crushing this would be. Eventually, he decided to keep working on his individual skill and developed some kind of a RAM-monitoring and editing utility that added cheat functionality to one of his video games. The game studio was impressed by his work and took him on. But let's not forget... this was to get an entry-level job in the field, it's not like he was trying to make it into the NBA. This isn't necessarily related to the interview - but as a society, I think we need to celebrate how rare "Shanes" are in a healthier way. Most people are blessed with about 10% of his drive and determination, and even implicitly SHOULD NOT EXPECT TO APPROACH ANYTHING NEAR THIS LEVEL. I think there's still this underlying hope that "YOU can be like Shane if you do X and Y" - as much as I would love to believe that, everything in my experience tells me that it's literally not possible in a practical sense. My deep worry is that, with a contracting economy, greater automation/replication, and increasing exposure to Shanes in various fields, the pressure to be performing at levels higher than most people can reasonably attain will increase significantly. Where does that leave the populous? Where does that leave the child who can't fathom a path in life because they have to compete against people with this level of personal capital and an incredible head start?
Love Shane's work which is why I was so interested in this interview. Very ballsy on both your parts to look one another in the eye, at times a little uncomfortably (it seemed) and push through the interview both coming out with your integrity intact. Respect to both of you and of Formlabs. I am now looking deeper into Formlabs and what they have to offer. I am interested in a 3D printer but not sure yet what direction I want to take. Thank you both for an excellent, never boring video interview.
Shane's comment at 45:00 about the current need for manual inputs when it comes to CAD/CAM CNC work is a good one. It would be really nice if CAD/CAM software companies invested in developing software that took some of the legwork out. The dream would be to say I want this part, out of this material, and I have these tools to do it, and the rest is auto generated. Great interview BTW, its really fun listening to Shane's backstory and perspective. Thanks for sharing!
ChatGPT might be the first example of an Artificial Intelligence use that will come to CAD as well. As of now Autodesk seems as slow as Microsoft with these kind of new trends and their product optimisation.
It is out there but it's still in the place where Shane mentioned digital fab/3d printing was in the 90's. It's a walled garden and costs $100k's to take a peak. The best piece of advice I can give a small shop with some $10k/year software pushing NC code to CNC machines they bought at auction is this: never, ever, edit code on the machine. In and of itself in a vacuum that doesn't matter all that much but(!) If you can solve the various puzzles involved in following that rule, then those solutions will pay off huge.
Great interview, Shane's skills are so high level, I always amazes me he is isn't working in an high-tech startup . The way he is able to program complexe automation just boogles my mind. But I understand that pure engineering bliss is harder to achieve in larger companies with more pots cooking. A lot more distractions make one person worse off, not everybody is willing to accept this.
Great interview! Tools can be a limiting factor of course. A painter without brushes can't do the techniques and get the same results as someone with a brush. But it doesn't mean that you can't make a painting. You have to start somewhere and work with the tools that you do have! As Adam Savage said, "don't wait until everything is perfect to begin a project, and if you don't have the exact right tool for a task, just use whatever's handy", " every tool is a hammer". In my own shop, I'm the biggest tool. Both definitions 💁♂️.
This was a really interesting video. Having so many trusts and openness was really great to listen to. I love the idea of formlabs and their products. The issue i have with it is that im not your target persona. I don't have 3k kicking around to buy a good quality product to sit around 50% of the time. I use my other printers for multiple reasons, product prototyping, iteration, but I honestly dont have the funds for a form labs printer. Im more content buying cheaper printers and then making mass parts or better quality parts with a 3rd party service. The issue with RUclips and social media is that yes we see people like Shane using them but they are out of reach for 75% of us and the other 25% either have free expendable income or a willing family member to step up. Its a shame as a formlabs printer is high on my list of tools to own. That being said if I ever become the target persona you know you have another customer with me.
What an amazing discussion/video. 2 smart people listening to each other and explaining intelligently. Can’t help thinking that this is the model your leaders in Washington and in my case Canberra could benefit from …
Funny interview, bc you guys must know eachother well. As for the designing of things. boy o boy, if only i woulda had the tools that exist today. I was born when radios, tvs and so had vacuum tubes. Learned programming in 1975 or 76 (was algol i believe). Machine language a couple of years later. It seems many things wrt electronics, programming, etc have become high end modular. So easy to build things with that. Back then i was trying to save bits even, bc limited amount of memory. Tought me to be very efficient, but it takes a lot of time. If i look at OS-es today and webpages, im horrified by the amount of wasted memory and speed. Thats the downside to modular design. Looking back it is also amazing how fast everything went. I still have lots of things from back then, which were cutting edge tech, but now obsolete and worthless. Same as me i guess.
This conversation took guts. I watched several tier one R&D labs--DuPont CR&D, GE Research--collapse and disappear because management was completely unwilling to honestly discuss and address anything negative about the organization.
I've always been impressed by Shane's videos, and how well thought out and constructed his videos are, as well as his talent for actually building stuff and coding it, but damn I didn't know how much of a badass he is, and I'm only half way through the interview!
💼 Check Out Open Positions at Formlabs: bit.ly/3uZ6fJx
📘 Discover Some of Our Customer Stories: bit.ly/3G2x45A
🤓 Learn More About 3D Printing Applications: bit.ly/3G53VqM
Might want to put audio editor under open positions. The audio in this video is awful.
@@rickys9082 They just need levels adjustment and some pop screens. But yeah. Hearing explicit breath intakes for an hour at 6am is not a top quality experience.
Very brave to ask Shane publicly why he left. Points to a bright future where FormLabs can retain great talent.
Well said: encasing a complex truth within a larger narrative is pretty instructive to any person in a management position. Perhaps FL could have maintained the small group team dynamic as they grew if that narrative had been maintained.
Time stamp?
This was one of the highlights of the video for me. Such a candid interview between Shane and Maxim. I really enjoyed this video!
Holy *expletive*, yes. I started watching because "I want to see more of StuffMadeHere", and it woulda been a very good interview even without the "but really let's talk about the negative side", but... wow, that was one of the most impressive bits of honesty/realism I've seen on YT in a while, and especially coming from a corporate account. I'm very very impressed with this , Max/FormLabs.
great conversation all around - glad they posted it
Shane’s experience with a startup which reaches past a certain size is a familiar one. Max genuinely taking ownership of how the culture may have changed and trying to improve is a rare sight. Kudos to both for publishing this interview. Many valuable insights here. Good luck to both and FormLabs.
I think companies should have small fully independent teams of highly skilled workers to be able to keep talent such as Shane.
When you let HR people to set the rules, no matter how small the limitations, the top employees are going to consider their options.
I don't think Bell Labs was ever limited by HR people and they were hugely successful. On the other hand, now that Nokia owns it, it hasn't created anything worth mentioning. I would guess HR people were involved.
29:48 It's impressive that you were so transparent about Shane's leaving the company. I don't think many companies would have the strength to discuss openly about it.
I agree. And for top talent this is the only way you can be successful. If you try to hide your mistakes from public too much, the top talent will see if dishonest and will be looking other options.
It's much better to publicly say that we made this kind of mistakes in the past and this is how we have fixed these issues now.
Of course, if you don't even try to fix the issues, this doesn't work. But don't expect top talent to stay.
Literally EVERYTHING Shane does is impressive. I run a business, and you will meet a person like this very rarely and you should pay WHATEVER it takes to have them at your company.
Yes... but I don't think money alone is sufficient.
@@TheVisidor the Shane’s of the world are not driven by money, they seek an environment that will allow them to realize their ideas. Money will always find the Shane’s of the world.
@@TheVisidor 100% as with Shanes situation with Form. But never leave money on the table for that to be a decision to leave.
Money alone cannot keep this kind of talent. If you pay then too little, it's not worth their time. If you pay a lot, they will simply spare most of that money until they can go fully independent on savings alone.
The only way is to make the work environment so good that the top talent wants to be there. In practice, if you can get a group of top talents, then you have to manage them like top athletes in any team sport, but with even more independence for the team. And for heaven's sake, keep HR people and bean counters away from that team. As in absolutely zero influence whatsoever.
Imagine group of shanes working in a single project with the only target to make that project as perfect as possible. That's the work environment you should be building for top talent. Then every member of that team can feel that they can accomplish way more as a team than any of them going independent.
However, that also requires finding tasks that the group considers interesting enough. You cannot get them to put 100% effort into something they don't believe in as an end result. They must feel that their job is meaningful.
For any software stuff, you can get top talent interested with building 100% open source software because then the talent will feel that even if company doesn't succeed commercially, their work is not wasted because they still have the software and continue develop it further.
Of course, having fully open source product is not the cheap option because any of the skilled employees could simply fork the code and create competing company if you cannot provide environment where they want to be.
Shane has no problems with money with that amount of talent. He just wants satisfaction.
Kudos to Formlabs for a great interview. This conversation had the potential of being awkward in the way that interviewing an ex-boy/girlfriend might be but it ended up being interesting and entertaining. It speaks well for a company to be able to openly own up to its shortcommings and commit to improving them and hopefully more companies will view failures as opportunites for improvement.
Very well said and I agree. Excellent interview and great soul searching from both perspectives. I appreciate Max's courage to ask some tough questions. I also appreciate that he and FormLab's do have exceptionally high standards and are critical of themselves and their products, but it's also equally if not even more important to express gratitude and accolades for hard work and exceptional efforts. the Form 3 printer is exceptional without a doubt. I wished I could afford one, but lets not digress. There's many ways to do this and one of the best ways is for a company to invest in their employees and/or share in the companies success (profits) beyond the regular and far too commonly expected annual bonus and merit increases. Amazon perhaps does this better than most. Amazon has made a lot of millionaires just by doing this very thing. When the company succeeds the employees succeed.
Culture is also very important. Sadly today culture in the corporate environment has turned into one big I&D lecture and I'm sorry to say that's NOT culture. It's also not inclusive or diverse, but that's an argument for another day. What corporate culture is quite simply is your employees not only working together, but playing together. Getting to know one another outside of the office. I'm also not talking about team building exercises. Those can be fun, but it's still "work". I know what I'm referring to is challenging from a logistical and economical perspective especially for large companies that are spread out across a nation or the globe, but where there is a will there is a way. It doesn't need to be everyone, it can be limited to a team or perhaps multiple teams who work closely together. Get them together outside the office somehow and let them know they are doing a great job, if its true.
The more I interact with FormLabs, the more I can appreciate the power that they have to give to people like Shane. That being said, its clear through interviews like this why he is as successful as he is. To have someone with equal levels of both intelligence and drive is a rarity and I could listen to him explain 'stuff' for hours!
That's actually super true. I don't want this to come off as me trying to make myself look great because I'm certainly more flawed than I am great, but I've always been pretty intelligent I would often get me a lot of opportunity to do some really cool things. But I'm not like Shane.. I don't have the drive he does and as depression has gotten to me, I've achieved less and less. There's something even more humiliating about fading into some sort of mediocrity when you used to be particularly skilled at the things you did.. so that's me. But it does give me an interesting perspective because I think I got to see that my ability to achieve things with this little work is possible both made me Excel and made me become lazier. So when you see someone like Shane who said "look at what I can accomplish in an hour and I've got 24 of them in a day. Let's see what I can achieve by tomorrow" you really should hold on and encourage them as much as you can. Things being easy for someone tends to make them soft but with Shane he just kept going harder instead. He's absolutely astonishing and I'm not sure I've ever seen somebody so skilled in so many areas in my entire life.
Shane is a master at blending technical know-how and entertainment. It's quite easy to find creators who are good at one or the other, but rarely together. He's a true gem and I'm thankful I found his channel a while back.
First four words say it all
Dazzled is right. While some of Shane projects are somewhat dubious in utility, the engineering behind them is pure gold. He is as much a teacher as he is an engineer, and his projects are often the perfect hook to capture the attention of young minds (and old alike as in my case) and inspire a new generation of engineers this country so desperately needs. I thoroughly enjoy watching his videos and being mesmerized by his cleverness and problem solving ability as he sets forth a goal and then works his way through the processes to accomplish that goal.
"Make it so humans can't make mistakes and abstract away tedious work that takes a lot of time." This quote really caught my attention. It's a simplification of the overall purpose of engineering and automation. I've been trying to automate myself out of a job for decades, but I find that all I do is find more time for solving real problems and spend less time on tedium.
I'll have to admit that I was already an engineering major by the time I came accross this channel, but I can say that his "long term strategy" of getting kids interested in engineering, via RUclips videos, is true. I am living proof of this theory because I began to tinker and build projects, from the knowledge I gained through watching youtube, while still in middle/high school. Please continue continue doing what you do because I do not know if I would have had the drive or attention span to even pass high school, let alone make it into college, without content like this on Youtuve that was accessable to me at the time.
I am very glad to hear Shane say it's not the tool that allows you to make stuff. They make it easier/quicker to make stuff. But if you want to start building/making stuff, you don't need a 8000sq ft shop and all the tools. You just need to start making things. And the more you make the more you'll be able to justify buying a new tool and you'll make more and it's a virtuous circle. I am not an engineer, but I used to dream of having a woodworking workshop for years, watching people on youtube making awesome things. So one day I went to the home improvement store, bought a piece of wood and a jig saw, and made a simple thing that I needed. A few years later I'm still broke but I have a nice little shop full of power tools that I can justify to myself having because I use them all the time.
That was a very honest and vulnerable question to ask over RUclips about why Shane left. I really appreciate hearing the question and Shane’s answer. He was honest and really hit the nail on the head. The company I’m working for is going through similar growing pains and it does get critical many times. I think that this is very valuable information that we could integrate to retain valuable employees/friends within the company. As engineers we’re viewed as very pragmatic and we are often. We often want to know what went wrong to make it better. I think because engineering is often a Darwinian process of development (you mostly notice what went wrong. Good results are viewed as working as they should) the bad results are the focus so that we can fix them. More emphasis could be put on taking a step back and seeing the whole Forrest landscape instead of just pruning the trees.
In Chile, I Co-founded a Startup, making low cost, high performance Ed tech hardware for rural and poor urban parts of Latin America, our Formlabs Form 2 was crucial in the iteration and mass manufacturing of small complex components.
I've been following stuff made for at least a couple years and it really teached us how to think carefully, and how to iterate sistematically!
From Santiago, Thanks to both of you!
I've known a lot of engineers (my dad was an MIT-trained mechanical engineer). But I've known few who actually MAKE stuff. They design stuff. I love that Shane does it all - dreams it up, engineers it, makes the parts, programs the computer - the whole ball of wax. I guarantee there are kids watching who will go down one of those many paths, from math to CNC operator. Heck, I'm 62, a writer, and I've been leaning CNC through Titans of CNC's free courses!
Stuff made here was the first RUclips channel that got me truly interested in the maker scene. Shane’s videos are incredibly fun, enjoyable and insightful and gave me the confidence to try learn new skills such as Arduino. Completely agree 41:21 , an automated circuit building software would open so many more doors, as a mechanical engineer, electrical circuit design is my biggest struggle
Great interview by Max. It was really interesting to learn more about Shane. Big props to Max and Shane for discussing his leaving from FormLabs. I wish more executives were this perceptive around their engineers.
This was fantastic. You guys are the reason I chose to pursue personal manufacturing for parts and products. Followed the Kickstarter back in 2012, ran one successfully the following year, and continue to follow Formlabs and Stuff Made Here. Keep up the great work!
I think Shane's videos are educational, not as explainers, but the high level solutions of applications. Inspiring as hooks if you want to use them as lessons.
Shane definitely changed my pov on Mechanical engineering. I’m in engineering school and I try to avoid coding. But he makes it bearable.
You probably will not get around programming at some point. Just don't compare yourself to Shane. He's too good.
Computer engineer here, don't get discouraged just look for good sources really what programming truly is about its about creating detailed instructions for a machine, if you want to start somewhere I would recommend for you that after learning the basics you look for automatons, they are very straightforward and incredibly useful to the 99% of anything you will ever do
I actually did a career shift from mech eng into software engineering. I'd avoided programming for years. My work involved a lot of mechanical and electrical stuff, eventually I had to do a bit of programming for proofs of concepts etc and found it wasn't as hard as I thought. Then I had a start-up idea so learnt backend and front end and hacked something crappy together. Didn't go anywhere but I had a lot of fun learning. Eventually I realised I was working 60 hour weeks at work and coming home looking forward to programming so I added a few more portfolio projects and made the switch.
If you like problem solving (which engineers really should) then it's quite a natural switch. The best thing to me is the feedback loop is so much shorter. You can iterate in seconds, instead of weeks (waiting for design review, parts to be fabricated/ordered, etc) so you get that dopamine rush of solving a challenge many many times each day. Not having to drive to remote factories and stand around waiting for things is a huge plus too.
I'm 18 and from Brazil, I've found his channel back in 2021, when I had decided that design wasn't exactly for me and was looking for other possibilities, I really wanted a career where I could be creative and solve problems. His channel was one of the reasons I've decided to follow mechanical engineering, the fact that you can create basically anything knowing physics and mathematics it's amazing to me, he is definitely making a difference
"They tell me they like it", exactly that. So many times workers (in any profession) want to just hear that once in a while. Even though I had a very nice position in science, the only time I really heard that was when I asked for my recommendation letter. :) And I was like "well, if you could have pointed towards those feelings earlier.... who knows...". And with a lot of clever people, they do want to change their goals somewhat regularly, they do want that vibrant tight group of people that are not managed to death. A very smart friend from school I know, years later, told me exactly these things when he left a company after 15 or so years.
This is an excellent example of how to have a conversation without past disagreements cloud the mood and content.
Shane is as humble as he is gifted. This man is endlessly pushing himself and the quality and complexity of his work is always astonishing. I'm so happy he has shared so much on RUclips. I can't wait to see what he is working on next.
What a superb discussion. Thanks so much for taking the time to have this discussion and to upload it. Fascinating .
My watching of Stuff Made Here sent me to this video. I'm not an engineer, but I am a math guy (high school teacher). I just introduced my 10-year old daughter to Stuff Made Here, and she is totally mesmerized by it. It is making an impact.
Love the transparency. As some said before: Talking openly about the reasons why one would leave your company and addressing the problems for everyone to see is a sign of really reflected leadership. Keep it up.
I really liked this interview between a former ‘boss’ and an engineer going his own way. Well done, I hope you both keep growing. Best wishes for 2023
Shane says "The videos, obviously, they're not helping people make stuff". I want to take a second to say that, as an Engineering student and Enterpreneur (who builds machines) I really have found the opposite. Not only does Shane's video entertain and get you exited to do engineering (and believe me they do), they also demonstrate the process Shane follows and that is highliy educational in itself. Additionally it shows how he struggles (and how that's ok), and how he goes through iterations to get to a final product. All of that is before even mentioning showing his way of solving various mechanical, electrical and programming problems (which I've personally learnt from). Finally Shane exposes us to a lot of technology and how it is used - it goes from Arduinos to motors to high-tech cameras and programming. Without a doubt we DO learn from your videos @StuffMadeHere . Thanks again mate.
Watching this gave me a raging nerd-on! Hahaha
Fascinating to hear about Shane's origin story.
It's RARE that you have someone like Shane who is tech minded, go from 'near-introvert savant engineer to PUSHING out videos on RUclips where he is Expressly capturing the audience and driving content and engages in the audience whether through fault or coincidence he's able to persevere.
Congrats on the new shop! Super Excited about the shop EXPANSE Shane!
Kudos to Shane and FormLabs for addressing issues seen when business or personnel differ.
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It had been 10 years since I visited Kickstarter launching 3D printers with FormLabs.
Congrats on the new shop! Super Excited about the shop EXPANSE Shane!
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I just got sucked into this podcast, man it's amazing. I'm a second year student of Computer Science, and things that Shane has made really is inspiring!
Shane is one of my favorite creators on this platform, his work reaches wide and far and should be celebrated for the education of process
I am a mechanical engineer and am constantly impressed by the depth and range of Shane's knowledge. Can't wait to see the new shop. I have a small shop in my basement with a cnc router. It has been fun building it and setting it up the way I want. Great interview
I remember that first Kickstarter for Formlabs and being both excited and disappointed... excited because I had first seen the laser technology earlier in a large company and was fascinated by it, yet also disappointed because the price point was still quite a bit out of my range and the heavy handed use of proprietary tech made it very difficult to justify tying myself so inextricably with a single technology that still had many faults from my viewpoint. Even the latest variants have failed to remove some of those sticking points, even when I *did* have the funds to get one. In some ways I am very similar to Shane in coming up with new ideas and then figuring out how to make it work, but I don't have that tendency to go for the extremes and try to figure out the best ways while remaining cost effective... Even so, I must applaud the fortitude and even a bit of humility for the CEO to go out and talk to a prodigious engineer and humbly accept what fault was due and still be supportive and yet educationally interesting through the interview.
Shane should be a role model for the current generation. it's a joy to watch his videos. Smart, humorous and entertaining😊
Kudos to Formlabs for doing this. It’s certainly a different side of Shane than most if us are used to. And a company that would create and post an interview like this has some serious talent at the top. Well done to all.
Nice to know FormLabs has a leader who takes responsibility for mistakes made. That speaks to a company that can adapt and improve the culture to keep talent. Perhaps they will be able to keep their current and future Shanes with this approach.
Big respect for you bringing up the difficult topics. This level of emotional maturity is a rare virtue. Subbed.
It's fascinating how fast things go out of date. I don't agree with Shane about needing to be an engineer to do this stuff, I cut my teeth on mini matrix boards, Don Lancaster's CMOS cookbook and CMOS logic, the ZX81 and then modding the Amstrad CPC664. Teaching myself assembler for the Z80, the HC11, PIC and Atmel.. I did do part of a microprocessor Systems course as an isolated study but what it did mostly for me is cement my resolution to do my own designs rather than make other's designs. It gave me confidence in my own ability and skepticism about following other's design principles and research conclusions. Shane is obviously a great researcher. It took me a month to make an 68HC11 cross assembler in locomotive basic back in around 1993 and I made my own STM32F103VBT based full board, printer design 13 years ago but the 3 day SLA slicer sounds like a big challenge. I'm guessing Shane worked up to it for a while first. Familiarity with slicing algorithms, tweaking open source tool platforms and gaining familiarity with the tools, gaining familiarity with 3D display, GUI design before starting something like that. And then working with packaging and deployment, there's a lot of hours that go into all those processes. Sometimes I wonder what a person with Nicola Tesla or Leonardo Da Vinci's talents would do in our current environment with today's tools. Chat-GPT shows that the obsolescence of human "Computers", human "Cashiers", human "Factory workers" is not stopping, our obsolescence is actually accelerating as a geometric progression. The big questions have been posed by Science Fiction writers already like Arthur C. Clarke and Frank Herbert. My only input is to the relative survival instincts of humans vs a new competitor that can ultimately think faster and smarter but lags significantly in evolutionary ancestral lineage. Of course the optimists among us hope for A.I.s like those of Orson Scot Card but we or our decendants will find out in reality.
I'm 25. If there had been channels as amazing as Stuff Made Here or Mark Rober when I was in my teens, I wouldn't have hesitated to go into engineering. Heck, I still consider doing so after watching such wonderful projects and satisfying processes!
Thank you Max Lobovsky and Shane Wighton for this honest, mature and insightful interview.
If you're any start-up, engineer and inventor this is extremely valuable to watch and learn from.
You leave us all with a high level of confidence in the future for both of you, and your companies.
This interview is full of great lessons. Retaining people like Shane will be crucial for any company.
Stuff Made Here has inspired me on so many levels. The breadth of problem solving that is demonstrated in each video is mind boggling. Huge thanks for sharing your work to the community.
I back Shane on Patreon because he's doing the Engineering God's work. Every time he builds something and then does the video where he walks through the process and why he made the decisions (and failed and adjusted fire) he did makes my brain physically fill a bit more full. He's inspiring.
It sounds like Formlabs is a company where Shane would've felt right at home. You really are a force multiplier allowing engineers down to makers prototype quickly which not only saves $, but in the end makes the product better faster.
I relate so much on how he didn't feel like working for his old job because he didn't feel his work was appreciated. This is why youtube comments are such a high motivator, why my projects got accelerated. Because I had viewers I was excited to show stuff to.
It takes pretts huge balls to make a interview like this. Congrats to both of you
Great to see a company that isn't afraid to publicly admit mistakes and regrets, it's a breath of fresh air and always a bonus to have an owner (ceo?) that is humble and willing to improve their employees experience.
As a consumer I'd much rather support companies like this.
One thing I've experienced with "type 3" fun is that it also just makes the little things you deal with everyday feel snaller
Amazing interview. I'd recommend it to tech companies everywhere.
Shane is my idol. I have never seen anyone else having so complex and broad knowledge set combined with ability to present his skills and knowledge in an entertaining way.
Been watching Shane's channel for a while. Had no idea he was into mega endurance cycling. RAAM is a bonkers crazy race and a few friends have done it.
Totally agree, the mental game is much harder for ultra endurance cycling. For me, endurance cycling isn't really about fun, it's about the journey and discovery.
Any company that is willing to ask questions and listen is worth investing in. Thank you for this video, it's been very inspiring.
Shane is absolutely brilliant. He is making an impact on the future of STEM.
Shane is one of *those* people.
One of those I copuld listen to all day, that does not try and simply does, one of those I always want to have on my team and never want to have as an enemy.
YT algorithm doing its work.
Thanks for the interview
this interview gives me chills. Engineering reconciled with humanity. I love this guy.
Every time I see one of Shane’s videos I get all giddy, def my fav RUclipsr. A true master of explaining the struggle and accomplishment
I had zero exposure to Formlabs until watching Shane’s videos - I recently purchased a Fuse 1+ SLS package and am super excited about my newly unlocked prototyping potential! Thanks to Shane for his great videos with all the inspiration and knowledge they provide. And thanks to Formlabs for the candor in this interview
Huh! At least I got aware of formlabs cause I sticked to stuff made here very recently. Formlabs are cool and brave to do this interview.
yeah i worked for a smallish family owned drilling company that had only really done water wells in fairly stable ground in high ground water areas mostly for dairy cattle farmers and the company one a small diamond drilling contract ,,never even had the correct drill rig to drill the contract ,they employed me to solve all these issues and get this job done and it was an awesome small company ,,so the drilling contract was rocky to start as any job is when your buying all new gear and some things just dont bolt togeather but soon into doing the 100 ,1000 meter deep geothermal holes for this energy company ,,it went so well we won another contract but 5 or 6 times the size so the company went from small family to huge with huge money on the line and contracts so tightly written that if you lost more than 5 percent of the core sample thruout the hole you drill it again for free ,,lots of stress and workmates turned into power tripping supervisors and started treating people like a number ,,i got a bit drunk one night and punched out my superviser ,who was a mate for years prior to turning into an overpaid low I.Q slave to the company ,,he still there now and i left back in 2008 ,,so i know what you mean brother
I could watch these two talk for hours. Great video.
Bruh! I literally just ebayed one of those old radio shack '150 projects in one' kits with the spring connectors. I grew up with those too!
I love the Form 3. I have many MSLA printers, and I'm constantly replacing FEP sheets. I can always count on the Form 3 to give me a print without a failure.
Ultimate product would be the speed of the MSLA but with the low force of the Form 3 print bed. Flood illumination with masking, with low force removal print bed. Peal on a single direction swipe of the head to cut down time.
This was a great video, thanks for sharing! Tremendous respect for Shane, always really enjoyed his videos, which are a mix of really great editing, explanations, and covering interesting engineering topics. He's a very talented engineer and enjoyed him and you talking about why and how he came into Formlabs and his departure.
I know someone who watches Stuff Made Here and decided to go into Engineering because of the channel. Keep doing what you're doing!
Really wonderful interview. I love Shane Wighton's videos and absolutely appreciate his motivation to inspire the next generation of engineers. But what I love more is Max's willingness to lean into the uncomfortable discussion about why Shane left Formlabs after the Form 3 release. I think that show's an excellent sense of awareness and humility that is rare in corporate America today.
I recently resigned my 14 career in telecom to go back to school for engineering. Shane's channel along with others like Destin, Rober and Jeremy Fielding, Real Enginering and Practical Engineering really reignited my interest in Engineering. I may be the oldest student in my class. (40 this year). In a couple years ill be doing it as a career instead of just a hobby. (Also wnated to point out the graphic that slid in was not a hand saw lol)
Check out Tech Ingredients. Good luck with your schooling and new career.
Amazing guy. So very intelligent and striving to always do better, to achieve more. I wish i had a fraction of his intelligence and drive. I look forward to seeing Shanes future.
hearing the CEO publicly talking taking ownership on mishaps and on how to improve culture is admirable and setting a great example on good leadership.
Very entertaining interview. Hearing more about the coding challenges in the startup days was really cool. Also those bike races sounds insane
Really good interview. Rare to find one this good, especially for people interested in engineering, whether young or old.
In response to the comment Shane made about a CNC machine destroying itself. This has been a safety feature inside many CNC machines for a large number of years. It does take time to setup however. DMG Mori, for instance, allows you to load the 3D models of your tooling into the machine so the it knows the exact geometry for each station on the turret. Doing this takes time to get working properly and is usually skipped. In the 28 years I've been in this business, I consistently have seen people spend more time removing/disabling safety features than actually using them
Shane sets a great example for what I aspire to be.
I think Shane underestimates the impact his videos have. From inspiring new generations through making engineering fun, to making problem solving approachable and showing each of his failures and how he resolves them along the way.
Good interview with a brilliant guy. Thanks!
One comment for future interviews, regarding the audio quality: the sibilants are super loud and strident. I don’t know if it’s the mics or mic placement, or whether it can be fixed in post, but they are quite unpleasant. I suggest watching some Curtis Judd videos for tips on how to improve that.
Also hearing every breath is kind of weird 😂
I was one of Shanes first few hundred subscribers and told him he could go far with his content.
I never expected him to blow up this big.
There was a fair bit of luck involved to get noticed by the right people... and the almighty algorithm.
But most of it is due to his hard work he puts into his projects. He really deserves it.
"The algorithm" is a cop-out. Videos with a high quality win and poor quality loses out. Luck has little to do with it.
Good for Lobovsky, he really rolled out the parts they didn't do well, to learn from them. I appreciate people who can face their mistakes and move on from them.
That was fun. Some great insight into how Shane thinks.
One thing I think bosses/managers need to think about when they are talking to employee's is that if you give negative feedback, you will get negative results. Give positive feedback and you can get that person to overcome just about anything but you have to encourage them, never complain about what your workers do. If you want to complain, then just fire them or move them to something else. Complaining just adds resentment and then they start to think, well I did all this and you talk negatively or I was told to do it this way and now you are not happy ect... but if you can just encourage and motivate in the direction you wish, you get the same result in a better way while not de-motivating the people. Instead of, "Why did you do it this way, it does not work and the customer would not be happy because ...", just say something along the lines of "Well this might work but what if xxx happens, do you think we can find a way to make it not do that? It would be really awesome if we could do that!" ...and just encourage with positive feedback!
You want workers that will work hard for you and be proud of their work then do not discourage them! Every time you are about to talk to your employees, think first...how would you receive that feedback and what is a better way you could word it.
very interesting interview, He is very talented & dedicated person, looking forward to see his up coming projects,
Thanks to have brought out the cycling stuff, I didn't know about it and it was really cool hearing it!
With all the love that I have for Shane and his content, I'm afraid I have a hot take ahead and what I feel is a fair critique for society... maybe some of you will share my concern.
As a HS teacher in training, I was attending a presentation at my school by a game development studio. The purpose of this outfit was to develop cutting-edge modelling tools for their other satellite offices to use (rather than using and creating the games themselves), so their presentation was significantly less focused on specific technologies and more on the story of their two main presenters.
Presenter 1 was a "Shane" - a guy who started early with his curiosity and can-do attitude, someone who sounded like they'd never turn down a conceptual challenge - even if he didn't think it was possible at the time. And [un]surprisingly, it basically sounded like it always ended in some kind of success; a significant step forward in his personal life at the very least. Taking it at face value, this was extremely impressive.
Presenter 2 basically started by saying that his story was the opposite - he enjoyed video games and hoped that he would end up as a video game dev one day (further encouraged by his family and friends that he would be). He had high grades in HS but started university with the assumption that doing "reasonably well" in his classes would result in end success. He did well at the ones he enjoyed, but didn't put much effort into the ones that seemed unhelpful or boring. He also only pushed as hard in personal projects as his classes required - which he admitted could often take almost all of his free time and drained his interest in pursuing it during any remaining time. I don't remember if he ended up going into a co-op program, but if he did, I don't know if it was particularly meaningful for him.
When he graduated and began searching for jobs, he applied to stuff he was interested in... no bites. Over time, he became less picky and applied for a wider set of positions - no better. He said that he ended up applying to over 200 companies before getting a single interview - I can only imagine how soul-crushing this would be.
Eventually, he decided to keep working on his individual skill and developed some kind of a RAM-monitoring and editing utility that added cheat functionality to one of his video games. The game studio was impressed by his work and took him on. But let's not forget... this was to get an entry-level job in the field, it's not like he was trying to make it into the NBA.
This isn't necessarily related to the interview - but as a society, I think we need to celebrate how rare "Shanes" are in a healthier way. Most people are blessed with about 10% of his drive and determination, and even implicitly SHOULD NOT EXPECT TO APPROACH ANYTHING NEAR THIS LEVEL. I think there's still this underlying hope that "YOU can be like Shane if you do X and Y" - as much as I would love to believe that, everything in my experience tells me that it's literally not possible in a practical sense.
My deep worry is that, with a contracting economy, greater automation/replication, and increasing exposure to Shanes in various fields, the pressure to be performing at levels higher than most people can reasonably attain will increase significantly. Where does that leave the populous? Where does that leave the child who can't fathom a path in life because they have to compete against people with this level of personal capital and an incredible head start?
Protect these men at all cost
Love Shane's work which is why I was so interested in this interview. Very ballsy on both your parts to look one another in the eye, at times a little uncomfortably (it seemed) and push through the interview both coming out with your integrity intact. Respect to both of you and of Formlabs. I am now looking deeper into Formlabs and what they have to offer. I am interested in a 3D printer but not sure yet what direction I want to take. Thank you both for an excellent, never boring video interview.
Shane's comment at 45:00 about the current need for manual inputs when it comes to CAD/CAM CNC work is a good one. It would be really nice if CAD/CAM software companies invested in developing software that took some of the legwork out. The dream would be to say I want this part, out of this material, and I have these tools to do it, and the rest is auto generated. Great interview BTW, its really fun listening to Shane's backstory and perspective. Thanks for sharing!
Very true. It’s honestly strange that it hasn’t happened yet.
ChatGPT might be the first example of an Artificial Intelligence use that will come to CAD as well. As of now Autodesk seems as slow as Microsoft with these kind of new trends and their product optimisation.
It is out there but it's still in the place where Shane mentioned digital fab/3d printing was in the 90's.
It's a walled garden and costs $100k's to take a peak.
The best piece of advice I can give a small shop with some $10k/year software pushing NC code to CNC machines they bought at auction is this: never, ever, edit code on the machine. In and of itself in a vacuum that doesn't matter all that much but(!)
If you can solve the various puzzles involved in following that rule, then those solutions will pay off huge.
Great interview, Shane's skills are so high level, I always amazes me he is isn't working in an high-tech startup . The way he is able to program complexe automation just boogles my mind. But I understand that pure engineering bliss is harder to achieve in larger companies with more pots cooking. A lot more distractions make one person worse off, not everybody is willing to accept this.
This is an amazing interview! And this singular interview is going to be a such a magnet for future talent!
This guy is the 🐐.
indeed his one of the G.O.A.T in building awesome stuff especially his engineering skills and problem solving skills are just insanely superb 💯💯💯💯
Truthful, hones, insightfull & inspiring. Thank you for posting the video.
Great interview!
Tools can be a limiting factor of course. A painter without brushes can't do the techniques and get the same results as someone with a brush. But it doesn't mean that you can't make a painting. You have to start somewhere and work with the tools that you do have!
As Adam Savage said, "don't wait until everything is perfect to begin a project, and if you don't have the exact right tool for a task, just use whatever's handy", " every tool is a hammer".
In my own shop, I'm the biggest tool. Both definitions 💁♂️.
This was a really interesting video. Having so many trusts and openness was really great to listen to.
I love the idea of formlabs and their products. The issue i have with it is that im not your target persona. I don't have 3k kicking around to buy a good quality product to sit around 50% of the time. I use my other printers for multiple reasons, product prototyping, iteration, but I honestly dont have the funds for a form labs printer.
Im more content buying cheaper printers and then making mass parts or better quality parts with a 3rd party service.
The issue with RUclips and social media is that yes we see people like Shane using them but they are out of reach for 75% of us and the other 25% either have free expendable income or a willing family member to step up.
Its a shame as a formlabs printer is high on my list of tools to own.
That being said if I ever become the target persona you know you have another customer with me.
@Shane you are truly a inspiration.. I feel I can confidently say that every hour spent watching your videos was spent well.
What an amazing discussion/video. 2 smart people listening to each other and explaining intelligently.
Can’t help thinking that this is the model your leaders in Washington and in my case Canberra could benefit from …
Funny interview, bc you guys must know eachother well.
As for the designing of things. boy o boy, if only i woulda had the tools that exist today. I was born when radios, tvs and so had vacuum tubes.
Learned programming in 1975 or 76 (was algol i believe). Machine language a couple of years later.
It seems many things wrt electronics, programming, etc have become high end modular. So easy to build things with that.
Back then i was trying to save bits even, bc limited amount of memory. Tought me to be very efficient, but it takes a lot of time. If i look at OS-es today and webpages, im horrified by the amount of wasted memory and speed. Thats the downside to modular design.
Looking back it is also amazing how fast everything went. I still have lots of things from back then, which were cutting edge tech, but now obsolete and worthless. Same as me i guess.
This conversation took guts. I watched several tier one R&D labs--DuPont CR&D, GE Research--collapse and disappear because management was completely unwilling to honestly discuss and address anything negative about the organization.
I've always been impressed by Shane's videos, and how well thought out and constructed his videos are, as well as his talent for actually building stuff and coding it, but damn I didn't know how much of a badass he is, and I'm only half way through the interview!
What an absolutely fascinating Podcast/Interview!
Thanks, awesome interview. Would love more content like this.
This was a great interview. Very interesting questions and very interesting answers.