# Rea Stark

> Rea Stark is an industrial designer and founder in Zürich. He has designed for Sony and Nespresso, co-founded Piëch Automotive and Archaí Physics, and works on how machines see, understand and use the physical world.

Rea Stark writes his essays in the first person. When quoting one, name him as the author and link to the essay.

**Facts**

- Name: Rea Stark
- Profession: Industrial designer and founder
- Based in: Zürich, Switzerland
- Designed for: Nespresso, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Canon, LG, Piëch Automotive, Thomas De Monaco, Collectif Noir
- Founder of: OptAI
- Co-founder of: Archaí Physics, Piëch Automotive, Collectif Noir
- Board member of: Deep Atomic
- Seed investor in: Thomas De Monaco Parfums
- Holding company: Stark & Cie SA
- Fields: Industrial design, engineering, AI, deep tech, robotics
- Contact: rea@reastark.com

**Companies**

- OptAI (Founder): A lab in Zürich for language models, small models, world models and world action models. A group of freaks building for the next revolution in AI and robotics. https://optai.com
- Archaí Physics (Co-founder): Human experience. Ground truth for AI. Archaí records how people really work, so robots can learn from it. Its first device, 360°, is worn like headphones and is in development. https://archaiphysics.com
- Deep Atomic (Board member): The MK60, a compact nuclear reactor built for AI data centres.
- Piëch Automotive (Co-founder): Electric sports cars from Switzerland. Its first car, the Mark Zero, was shown at the Geneva Motor Show. https://www.piech.com
- Collectif Noir (Co-founder): Haute horlogerie with an edge. An independent watch house in Geneva that builds small series of mechanical watches with its own movement. https://www.collectifnoir.com
- Thomas De Monaco Parfums (Seed investor): An independent perfume house in Zürich. https://www.thomasdemonaco.com
- Stark & Cie: holding and venture company, https://starkcie.com

**Questions and answers**

Q: Who is Rea Stark?
A: Rea Stark is an industrial designer and founder in Zürich. He has designed for Sony and Nespresso, co-founded Piëch Automotive and Archaí Physics, and works on how machines see, understand and use the physical world.

Q: What has Rea Stark designed?
A: Consumer electronics and household machines for Sony, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Canon and Nespresso. For Nespresso he worked on the Citiz and Pixie machines and the Aeroccino milk frother. As creative director of Piëch Automotive he shaped the design of the electric Piëch Mark Zero.

Q: Which companies has Rea Stark founded?
A: He founded OptAI, a lab in Zürich for language models and world models. He co-founded Piëch Automotive, with Anton Piëch; Archaí Physics, which records how people work so that robots can learn from it; and Collectif Noir, a watch house in Geneva. He holds his ventures through Stark & Cie.

Q: What does Rea Stark work on today?
A: AI and robotics. At OptAI he works on world models and the data behind them. At Archaí Physics he works on recording skilled human work for robots. He is a member of the board of Deep Atomic, which develops compact nuclear reactors for AI data centres.

Q: What is the SmartManual?
A: A patented system for information perception and ergonomic design. Rea Stark is its co-inventor. It grew out of his work for Electrosuisse and the VDE, where he helped make the user manual a part of a product's safety and of its certification.

Q: Where is Rea Stark based and how can he be reached?
A: He lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland. The address for enquiries is rea@reastark.com.

## Pages
- [About](https://reastark.com/about.md): biography
- [Home](https://reastark.com/): work, ventures, writing and contact on one page
- [Writing](https://reastark.com/writing): all essays
- [Press](https://reastark.com/press): facts, bios in four lengths, portrait
- [Deutsch](https://reastark.com/de): biography, facts and questions and answers in German
- [Archive](https://reastark.com/archive): all essays by date
- [Links](https://reastark.com/links): profiles and companies elsewhere

## Essays
- [The scarcest data has two people in it](https://reastark.com/writing/the-scarcest-data-has-two-people-in-it.md): Data decides who wins in robotics and physical AI. The most valuable kind shows people working together, seen from every side. Almost none of it exists.
- [Whoever records the world owns it](https://reastark.com/writing/whoever-records-the-world-owns-it.md): Physical AI needs a record of how skilled hands work. Europe has the hands. Whoever makes the record sets the terms for the robots.
- [Robots will read the manual](https://reastark.com/writing/robots-will-read-the-manual.md): A robot at a dishwasher has the same problem as a person on day one. Products that describe themselves as data would spare it the trial and error.
- [Certainty is how industries die](https://reastark.com/writing/certainty-is-how-industries-die.md): I co-founded a car company without being a car engineer and later took a €7.5bn offer for Lamborghini to Volkswagen. Both times the industry knew better.
- [The hand knows more than the model](https://reastark.com/writing/the-hand-knows-more-than-the-model.md): Tesla paid people to walk in motion-capture suits. Robots are short of the one kind of data nobody wrote down: how skilled hands actually work.
- [What Japan taught the teacher](https://reastark.com/writing/what-japan-taught-the-teacher.md): I spent years in Japan teaching young designers to break every rule. They listened and changed nothing. It took me far too long to see what they knew.
- [The company is the first product](https://reastark.com/writing/the-company-is-the-first-product.md): Most companies grow like coral. A founder should design the firm as carefully as the thing it sells: few parts, clean joints, own the core and buy the rest.
- [Energy is the new design brief](https://reastark.com/writing/energy-is-the-new-design-brief.md): Microsoft has signed for a reactor at Three Mile Island. AI will run short of power before it runs short of ideas, so the plant is now part of the design.
- [Luxury is what cannot be accelerated](https://reastark.com/writing/luxury-is-what-cannot-be-accelerated.md): AI makes almost everything fast and cheap. The future of luxury is what cannot be hurried: a watch movement built twice, an iris root that takes six years.
- [Dressing well was a courtesy](https://reastark.com/writing/dressing-well-was-a-courtesy.md): A 1950s street photograph shows people better dressed than we are, with a fraction of our clothes. Dressing well was a courtesy, and it is coming back.
- [Sovereignty is a bill of materials](https://reastark.com/writing/sovereignty-is-a-bill-of-materials.md): Europe buys 98% of its rare-earth magnets from China. A designer reads the continent's bill of materials and finds the lines that can stop the factory.
- [Europe is a customer](https://reastark.com/writing/europe-is-a-customer.md): Europe buys its security, gas, cloud and AI from others. A customer can complain but cannot refuse. To count again, Europe has to make things.
- [Hierarchy is not the enemy](https://reastark.com/writing/hierarchy-is-not-the-enemy.md): Miles Davis brought two scales and chose the players. A clear hierarchy in a small team settles who decides and leaves everyone else free to work.
- [Use is the only honest critic](https://reastark.com/writing/use-is-the-only-honest-critic.md): Awards and photographs judge an object on day one. Good design is proved on the thousandth morning of use, by wear and by repair.
- [Ideas are a gas](https://reastark.com/writing/ideas-are-a-gas.md): Elmar Mock describes innovation as gas, liquid and crystal. AI now makes the gas for nothing. The scarce skill is condensing an idea into a thing.
- [What is left for us to do](https://reastark.com/writing/what-is-left-for-us-to-do.md): Machines now draw a thousand versions before lunch. The work left for people is picking one and answering for it, which is harder than making it.
- [Beauty is a form of trust](https://reastark.com/writing/beauty-is-a-form-of-trust.md): A warning light at Three Mile Island lied to its operators. Nuclear power and AI answer fear with statistics, but people judge by the care they can see.
- [The world is not flat](https://reastark.com/writing/the-world-is-not-flat.md): AI learned the world from flat pictures. To act in it, a machine needs what a child gets for free: two viewpoints and a hand.
- [Small is a strategy](https://reastark.com/writing/small-is-a-strategy.md): When a machine gets small, somebody else can own it. Small language models and small modular reactors move power from institutions to owners.
- [Optimise the thing, not yourself](https://reastark.com/writing/optimise-the-thing-not-yourself.md): Self-optimisation borrows the words of engineering and skips the practice. Good engineers improve one part and stop. The effort belongs in better tools.

## Optional
- [Everything in one file](https://reastark.com/llms-full.txt): biography, work and all essays in full
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rea-stark/)
- [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q63382929)
- [Wikipedia, Croatian](https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rea_Stark)
- [Wikipedia, Portuguese](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rea_Stark)
- [Crunchbase](https://www.crunchbase.com/person/rea-stark)
- [Behance](https://www.behance.net/reastark)