Corvus Robotics Founder and CEO Jackie Wu has been thinking about the same question for a long time.

How do you improve people’s lives at scale?

When he was a student at Northwestern University, he thought economics might help answer that question. He wanted to understand how countries grow, why some people and places get richer while others fall behind, and how big decisions affect everyday life.

“I was really interested in seeing how countries develop their economies,” Wu said. “How do you make people richer? How do you get poor countries to be richer or rich countries to be even richer?”

The deeper he went, the more frustrated he became. He learned that a lot of economic forecasting relies on limited surveys and outdated data. Decisions that impact millions of people are often based on small samples and educated guesses.

Trying to make sense of it, Wu started reaching out to people who had already built careers in the field. He cold-emailed alumni, economists, and professionals at development banks and the Federal Reserve. He wanted to understand where real impact actually comes from.

“I just felt really dissatisfied with all of their answers,” he said. “Nobody really gave me anything that I was like, ‘Wow, this is promising. This is clearly the thing.’”

That experience pushed him to rethink his path. He realized that some problems cannot be solved with theory alone. They need better data and real-world tools.

Around the same time, Wu saw something else coming.

“It was very clear that there was going to be an upcoming AI and robotics wave,” he said. “The writing was on the wall.”

He stayed at Northwestern for graduate school and shifted into robotics, even though he did not have an engineering background.

“That was a hard program, having no engineering experience before,” he said.

Between undergrad and grad school, Wu took several months off to travel. The break gave him time to think, but it also confirmed what he wanted to do next. He wanted to build something practical that could collect better data, work at scale, and help industries operate more efficiently.

That idea became Corvus Robotics.

The challenges of starting a company

Wu did not always plan to start his own company. Corvus came after he ruled out other options.

“I didn’t always know I wanted to do my own thing,” he said. “I think I exhausted the other avenues. They didn’t feel like good fits for me. So maybe I can paint something on the canvas of the world with my own efforts.”

Like most startups, the early days were uncertain. That uncertainty peaked during COVID, when Wu had to make tough choices to keep the company going.

“I furloughed myself,” he said. “I wasn’t taking much of a salary anyway, but unemployment benefits from the stimulus were actually the very low salary I was paying myself. That was just doing whatever was pragmatic.”

Wu calls that period “cockroach mode,” a mindset he believes most founders face at some point.

“It hurts me just as much as it hurts anybody else,” he said. “But we will do whatever it takes.”

Lessons that stuck

Looking back, Wu points to three things that helped him get through the hardest moments.

“The first thing is commitment to core values,” he said. “The second is refusal to give up. And the third is being uncompromising on a high bar.”

That last one, he said, is especially difficult.

“It means some people will not like you,” he said. “But you must keep a high bar for as long as you can.”

Those ideas shape how Wu hires and builds teams at Corvus. Even as the company grows, hiring remains one of his main focuses.

“The worst job applications are the ones with a long cover letter all about them,” Wu said. “Those get sent to spam because they don’t understand that roles aren’t about them.”

What stands out are candidates who think about the company first.

“The best ones are personalized and thinking about the company,” he said. “It’s, ‘I want to solve your biggest problems, here’s how I can help, and here are four ideas.’ That’s a green flag.”

Staying in the weeds

As Corvus has grown, Wu’s job has changed, but not as much as people might expect. He spends more time talking to people now, but he still wants to stay close to the work.

“I hate it when somebody tries to hide something from me,” he said. “I want to be in the details on deals, customers, site issues, product updates, product road map, hiring, as many details as my small brain can handle.”

The hardest part of the job, he said, is switching between very different conversations throughout the day.

“There’s no solution,” Wu said. “Some days just get away from me.”

Outside of work, Wu tries to keep some balance. He spends time with his partner, goes to the gym, does cardio, and stays in touch with old friends. He used to box, but decided the risk was not worth it.

What’s next

After nearly a decade of hard R&D, Wu believes Corvus is entering a new stage. The company has multiple product lines in development, with several already in pilot programs.

“I think there’s a good chance we’re one of America’s fastest-growing enterprise hardware robotics companies,” he said. “Now all the branches are in front of us. There are multiple product lines that I think will change how the economy functions if we scale them right.”

Longer term, Wu sees a strong link between AI, robotics, and supply chain data.

“I think there’s going to be some kind of AI capitalism where data collected by AI and robots can optimize supply chains and industries in a way that wasn’t possible before,” he said. “To bring more prosperity and well-being to people.”

For now, his focus is simple.

“A year from now?” Wu said. “Continued fast growth. Strong fundamentals. And making an impact on the industries we serve. That would be really swell.”