Dubi Katz is a technologist and engineering leader working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, robotics, and computer vision. He currently serves as Chief Technology Officer at Formic Robotics, where he leads technical strategy, R&D, engineering, and recruiting, with a focus on building autonomous robots and AI-powered drones for the defense market.
Dubi holds a BSc from Tel Aviv University, an MSc and PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds multiple patents and has authored academic publications in his areas of expertise.
His career spans more than fifteen years of technical and leadership roles across academia and industry, including positions at startups in agricultural technology, wellness technology, and now robotics and defense. Throughout, he has remained close to the technology while building and leading strong engineering teams.
Dubi describes his focus as solving genuinely hard problems at the intersection of AI, robotics, and computer vision in whatever context, academic or commercial, where those problems arise.
Dubi lives in Ramat HaSharon, Israel with his wife Gili and their four children.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
I have 4 kids and am a CTO at an early stage startup. So that’s my main focus.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Daydreaming, writing down notes and revisiting, sketching on whiteboards, and recently chatting with AI
What’s one trend that excites you?
AI and robotics has been my life focus, and I’m excited to see that we now live in a period where great progress is happening around those.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
Focus, music
What advice would you give your younger self?
Stay flexible, planning in detail is a pointless exercise
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Be kind, don’t judge.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
I eat ice cream.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
Work on exactly what’s at the intersection of hard problems, problems I care about deeply, and problems most people think are not a good place to focus on.
What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?
I’m excited about someone building a universal translation device that can bridge in real time spoken language
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
Today, AI agents. Previously, self-organized wiki for ideas and goals.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
I bought the newest kindle.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast you’ve gotten a ton of value from and why?
Too many to list. I like politics, history, and science podcasts and books. One of my favorite books is Guns, Germs, and Steel.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
Probably the latest series I watched was Hunger Games. I love a well-told SciFi story.
Key learnings
- Build spaces where honesty matters more than hierarchy, and the strongest ideas rise to the top.
- Surround yourself with people who don’t just support your vision. They sharpen it, stretch it, and help make it bigger.
- Make room for new conversations every day; fresh perspectives keep your thinking alive and evolving.
- Stay curious, stay open, and keep learning from people who see the world differently than you do.
- Think boldly enough to challenge what already exists, then move with the conviction to make it real.
- The people who change things are usually the ones willing to believe in a different future before anyone else does.