Cartwheel Robotics Founder Scott LaValley Joins Google DeepMind

The "Android of robotics" just gained another significant architect. Scott LaValley, the founder and CEO of the recently shuttered Cartwheel Robotics, has joined Google DeepMind to work on robotics and physical AI.

The move, announced by LaValley on LinkedIn, reunites him with Aaron Saunders, the former Boston Dynamics CTO who was hired as DeepMind’s VP of Hardware Engineering in late 2025. Both men are veterans of Boston Dynamics’ early days, and their presence at DeepMind signals a massive consolidation of elite mechanical and software talent under the Alphabet umbrella.

A Return to the Frontier

LaValley’s career has spanned the most influential corners of the robotics industry. He was part of the small team at Boston Dynamics that developed the first generation of dynamic humanoids—machines that prioritized balance and movement in ways the industry had never seen.

He later transitioned to Disney Imagineering, where he led the team behind the highly expressive Baby Groot robot. This experience informed his philosophy that robots should be "lovable" and approachable, a vision he attempted to scale through Cartwheel Robotics.

"In many ways, this moment feels like coming back to the frontier, but at a very different scale," LaValley wrote of his new role. "The hardest problems in robotics won’t be solved incrementally... they require deep AI research, serious infrastructure, long time horizons, and a willingness to pursue foundational breakthroughs."

Scaling Physical AI

The appointment comes just weeks after Cartwheel Robotics closed its doors due to a lack of capital. Despite achieving technical milestones with its "Yogi" humanoid—including an AI-driven "motion language model" that produced eerily smooth, lifelike movement—the startup succumbed to the "Valley of Death" that often claims hardware-heavy ventures.

At DeepMind, LaValley will likely find the "oxygen" he noted was missing at Cartwheel: near-limitless capital and infrastructure. DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis has been vocal about his strategy to turn the Gemini AI model into a universal "operating system" for robots.

While Cartwheel’s "Yogi" was designed for emotional connection and home companionship, DeepMind’s ambitions are broader. By bringing in specialists like Saunders and LaValley, the lab is positioning itself to solve the "sim-to-real" gap—ensuring that foundation models can control complex, deforming, and dynamic hardware in the unpredictable real world.

The Emerging Dream Team

The hiring of LaValley reinforces a clear trend: the convergence of high-end animation physics and advanced machine learning. LaValley's work on expressive motion at Disney and Cartwheel mirrors DeepMind’s recent collaborations with Disney on the Olaf robot project, which utilized the "Newton" simulation framework to teach robots "squash and stretch" animation principles.

As DeepMind continues to recruit the engineers who built the industry's most iconic hardware, the lab is moving beyond being a mere software partner. With the expertise behind the electric Atlas and the "lovable" Yogi now in-house, Google is building a team capable of designing the next generation of robot bodies—and the brains to run them.