🎙️ Caleb Chamberlain, co-founder of Osh Cut, joins Tool or Die for a loose conversation about the viral video that hit a nerve in U.S. manufacturing circles. The video—posted by a frustrated entrepreneur—calls out American manufacturers for being unwilling or unable to build a simple ATM kiosk enclosure, contrasting that experience with seamless production in China. Joel, Alex and Caleb break down where he's right, where he's wrong, and what the story reveals about the structural gaps in American industry—especially for high-mix, low-volume manufacturing.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro & viral video setup
02:00 The mystery of WTI Wireless
04:00 Why Osh Cut was founded
07:00 U.S. manufacturers: optimized for repeat jobs, not first-time customers
10:00 “American manufacturers are babies?” Not quite
13:00 Why high-mix, low-volume work is still so hard
20:00 What’s missing: no U.S. equivalent of Alibaba
28:00 What Caleb would do with $250 million
33:00 Should you scale services or open new shops?
38:00 Could Osh Cut’s platform become a SaaS business?
44:00 Why many legacy shops won’t survive the next decade
Key Topics:
The real reasons U.S. manufacturers turn down small or custom jobs
Why digitizing quoting is only 20% of the challenge
The case for vertically integrated, software-native factories
What it would take to build an American manufacturing marketplace
Reshoring, tariffs, and the shrinking pool of capable shops
Why Caleb thinks this is the time to build in U.S. manufacturing
👉 Website: oshcut.com
TOOL OR DIE is produced by Johnson & Roy (Johnson-Roy.com), a strategic advisory firm focused on technology, mobility, manufacturing, and robotics. Your hosts are Joel Johnson, longtime tech journalist and builder (General Motors, Gizmodo, Wirecutter), and Alex Roy, General Partner at New Industry Venture Capital (NIVC.us) and veteran of the autonomy and mobility space.
Follow them:
LinkedIn: alexroy | joeljohnson
X: @alexroy144 | @joeljohnson
Web: johnson-roy.com
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