Rivian's Robotics Spinout Mind Taps Doug Field as President

Rivian’s separately run robotics venture, Mind Robotics, has named longtime automotive and consumer-tech executive Doug Field as its new president. The appointment marks a significant win for the young startup, which was established by Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe in 2025 and has already pulled in more than $1 billion in funding. Scaringe currently serves as Mind’s acting chief executive and board chair.

Field arrives with a résumé that spans nearly every corner of the modern mobility business. He spent years at Apple, where he led Mac hardware engineering before departing in 2013 to become Tesla’s chief vehicle engineer and help steer the Model 3 program. He returned to Apple in 2018 to head up its secretive autonomous car initiative, then moved to Ford in 2021 to run its electric vehicle and software operations — a role he held until earlier this year.

At Mind, Field will steer an effort to develop what the company calls “universally capable robots,” machines intended first for Rivian’s own factory floors and later for broader industrial uses. No robot has been shown publicly yet, but Mind says its designs are being built around the dexterity and physical reasoning that real-world industrial tasks demand. The startup is still staffing up aggressively, with dozens of open positions listed.

The company is stepping into a robotics landscape defined by enormous enthusiasm and equally large technical obstacles. Automakers including Tesla and Hyundai are chasing humanoid robots for factory and warehouse work, even as researchers caution that scaling such machines for dependable, practical labor is far harder than making them move like people. Mind has not said whether it is pursuing a humanoid form factor or something different.

Scaringe has been clear that he wants Mind to operate independently rather than fold its work into Rivian the way Tesla has done with its own robotics program. Even so, the two businesses remain tightly connected: Mind draws on AI training data from Rivian, plans to test its robots inside Rivian plants, counts the automaker as an equity holder, and will treat Rivian as its first customer. Field called the fusion of AI and robotics one of the defining engineering challenges of the era, pointing to Mind’s ability to learn inside a working, high-volume factory from the very start.