Boston Dynamics

Boston Dynamics, Inc. is an American engineering and robotics company founded in 1992 by Marc Raibert as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The company traces its origins to the Leg Laboratory at MIT and Carnegie Mellon University, where the scientific foundations for highly dynamic legged robots were developed. For more than two decades, Boston Dynamics carried out contracts primarily for DARPA and the U.S. defense sector (BigDog, LS3/AlphaDog, PETMAN, Atlas). In December 2013 it was acquired by Google X (part of Alphabet Inc.), in June 2017 sold to Japan's SoftBank Group, and in December 2020 its acquisition by Hyundai Motor Group was announced (an 80% stake for approximately $880M), with the deal closed in June 2021. SoftBank retained approximately 20%. In 2019 Spot became the company's first commercially available robot, and in 2020 it went on open sale for $74,500. In October 2022 the company signed a public pledge not to support the weaponization of its robots. In April 2024 it announced the retirement of the hydraulic Atlas in favor of a fully electric generation. In February 2026, long-serving CEO Robert Playter announced his retirement; CFO Amanda McMaster took over as Interim CEO.