Rivian's Mind Robotics Taps Former Ford EV Boss Doug Field as President

Doug Field, whose career has wound through Segway, Tesla, Apple and Ford, has taken on a new role as president of Mind Robotics, the industrial AI and robotics company that emerged from Rivian. The appointment was disclosed onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, roughly a year after the venture was spun out of the electric truck maker.

Field will run Mind Robotics’ everyday operations, covering product development, engineering and manufacturing. Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe, who founded the venture, stays involved but is handing the operational reins to Field. Scaringe recounted that he initially reached out to Field for a recommendation on who might lead the company; the conversation instead turned into a deeper discussion about how robotics should be developed and introduced into the wider economy, and the two found common ground on both mission and working style.

Mind Robotics has already drawn more than $1 billion in backing from investors including Accel, Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse, Kleiner Perkins and the venture arms of Volkswagen and Salesforce. The company is assembling a full stack for industrial manufacturing, pairing purpose-built robots with foundation models so that factory work can be automated at scale. Scaringe has drawn a distinction between this approach and the humanoid robots under development at Tesla and elsewhere, saying Mind Robotics will not try to replicate every aspect of human biomechanics. Rivian itself serves as both first customer and a live, high-volume production setting where the models can be trained and deployed.

Field’s résumé includes five years directing Ford’s electric vehicle and technology strategy before he left in April amid a broader leadership reshuffle at the automaker. Before that he headed Apple’s Project Titan, the autonomous EV effort that was scrapped in 2024, and he was senior vice president of engineering at Tesla, where he guided the Model 3 through its difficult production ramp. In a statement, Field described merging AI with robotics as one of the defining engineering challenges of the era, and pointed to Mind’s ability to learn inside a working, high-volume factory from the outset as a rare edge.

Mind Robotics is the second business Scaringe has spun out of Rivian. The first, Also, focuses on micromobility and began with premium e-bikes, with former Specialized chief product officer Chris Yu handling day-to-day leadership while Scaringe serves as chairman. Both startups operate independently, though Rivian holds minority stakes in each and reported owning roughly a third of both as of June 30, 2026. Bringing in an executive with Field’s background signals that Mind Robotics is positioning itself to move beyond its early phase and scale operations.