Brett Adcock (born April 6, 1986) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

technology entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Figure AI, an AI startup working on a general-purpose humanoid robot. In 2018, Adcock founded

Archer Aviation Archer Aviation is a publicly traded company headquartered in San Jose, California, which is developing eVTOL aircraft. Its eVTOL aircraft are planned to transport people in and around cities in an air taxi service and are claimed to have a rang ...

, five years after he started Vettery. As of June 2024, ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' estimates his net worth to be US$1.4 billion.

Early life and education

Adcock was raised on his family's farm just outside of

Moweaqua, Illinois Moweaqua is a village in Shelby and Christian counties, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,764 at the 2020 census. Geography Moweaqua is located at . According to the 2021 census gazetteer files, Moweaqua has a total area of , all lan ...

. At the age of sixteen, Adcock began working on web companies, which included an e-commerce site focused on outdoor electronics and a content site called Street of Walls. He subsequently graduated as the

valedictorian Valedictorian is an academic title for the highest-performing student of a graduating class of an academic institution. The valedictorian is commonly determined by a numerical formula, generally an academic institution's grade point average (GPA ...

of Central A&M High School. Initially majoring in engineering, Adcock then studied at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

's Warrington College of Business and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 2008.

Career

In 2013, Adcock founded Vettery (which later became known as ''Hired''), a talent marketplace that matched job seekers with employers who needed technical expertise. In 2018, the

Adecco Group The Adecco Group, is a Swiss-French company based in Zurich, Switzerland, and is the world's second largest Human Resources provider and temporary staffing firm, and a Fortune Global 500 company. They directly employ 700,000 people a day, an ...

bought Vettery for $100 million. The same year, Adcock started eVTOL company

. In 2022 he founded Figure, an AI startup based in

Sunnyvale Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the north ...

that is working on a general-purpose humanoid robot. Adcock assembled Figure's team from people working at Boston Dynamics, Tesla,

Google DeepMind DeepMind Technologies is a British artificial intelligence subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. and research laboratory founded in 2010. DeepMind was acquired by Google in 2014 and became a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, after Google's restru ...

and

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

. Adcock opines that the creation of humanoid robots will mitigate labor shortages.

Personal life

Brett Adcock resides in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

, with his wife and two children. Adcock has a penchant for the ''Robot'' series authored by

Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...

—novels that influenced his career.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adcock, Brett Living people 21st-century American businesspeople American technology company founders American technology businesspeople American technology executives American technology chief executives 1986 births University of Florida alumni Businesspeople from Palo Alto, California People from Christian County, Illinois