Robots don’t kill jobs, and they might even be able to save them when you use them right.

In this episode, Jake Hall: the Manufacturing Millennial, joins Olivier Bloch and Ryan Kershaw of Thing-Zero to dig into the real levers behind U.S. manufacturing: reshoring, automation, brownfield vs. greenfield, AI (yes, generative too), security/trust, and the single biggest constraint of all… people and skills.

We cover:

• Why many SMEs still run like it’s 2005—and what flips the adoption switch

• RaaS, easier software, and proof-you-can-scale examples• Robots creating local jobs (not replacing them)

• Practical security/trust moves when connecting OT → cloud

• Education pipelines: FIRST Robotics, digital natives, and what Gen Z actually wants at work

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⏱ Chapters:

00:00 Intros & setup (Olivier, Ryan, Jake)

01:38 Sports icebreaker → manufacturing mindset

02:30 Reshoring & tariffs: can the U.S. staff up?

05:44 “Good enough” risk: closure story & the moving-train analogy

09:50 Post-2020 winners: automation, flexibility, RaaS & easier software

12:45 Brownfield first steps: lighthouse plants & fail-fast culture

16:32 Brownfield vs. Greenfield: culture decides; skills are the bottleneck

20:04 Robots save jobs: U.S. case study + AI parallels

26:07 Security & trust: connecting OT → cloud the right way

32:42 Education pipeline & what Gen Z wants (FIRST Robotics)

37:22 Closing thoughts

🎧 Brought to you by Thing-Zero — Secure. Predict. Augment. Automate.

📌 Follow Jake Hall on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobrhall/

📌 Follow Olivier Bloch on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivierbloch/

📌 Follow Ryan Kershaw on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryankershaw/

Follow Thing-Zero on:

- YouTube: YouTube.com/@Thing-Zero

- Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/thing-zero

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- Web: https://www.Thing-Zero.com

#IoT #OT #AI #PredictiveAnalytics #manufacturing