Last week Dan Gill and I spent a morning at Spalding Works, where hundreds of eighth-, ninth- and tenth-grade students moved between tables set up by local employers. Approach Automation had a few stations set up in the hallway. Nobody had to imagine what automation meant from a slide. Some kids asked sharp questions. Some wandered through. A few could hardly keep their hands off the equipment. All of that was fine with us. We did not come looking for a moment where a student

I read Nikunj Kothari’s piece “Deployment Gap” in Balancing Act from September 28, 2026. He wrote it for investors and founders. What landed with me is that I sit on the other side of it, on the floor. One detail from his piece is the whole story. A robot he was told was deployed was not on the production line. The robot worked. It just was not in the process. I have seen that enough times that it does not even feel surprising anymore. A robot gets bought, built, delivered, r