The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway First Time Founders with Ed Elson – This Physicist Is Building AI Droids
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Nov 2, 2025 
Matan Grinberg, co-founder and CEO of Factory, is a former physics PhD who shifted gears to lead an AI startup focused on autonomous software engineering agents. He shares insights on the future of AI, discussing its potential to augment rather than replace engineers. Matan dives into the importance of regulation, tackling the risks of an AI bubble, and explains how Factory aims to reduce the time developers spend on routine tasks. He emphasizes the need for global coordination in AI regulation and offers a fresh perspective on how AI can transform software development.
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From Physics PhD To AI Founder
- Matan studied physics for a decade before pivoting to AI and program synthesis after classes at Berkeley rekindled his interest.
- A cold email and a hackathon meeting led him to drop out and start Factory within days.
Coding Is Not Engineers' Main Bottleneck
- Coding is only a fraction of modern engineers' time; organizational overhead like docs, reviews, and approvals dominates.
- Factory focuses on automating those lower-level tasks because they consume more developer hours than writing code.
Onboard AI Agents Like Human Engineers
- Treat delegation to agents as the new primitive and onboard them like you would a human engineer with docs, guidelines, and an environment.
- Give agents a testing environment so they can iterate autonomously and meet your success criteria.