Solidoodle CEO Sam Cervantes talks 3D printing with Council on Foreign Relations

The Council on Foreign Relations held a panel on 3D printing as it relates to foreign policy. Sam Cervantes, CEO of Solidoodle in Carroll Gardens, was one of the three panelists.

The two-year-old company sells a 3D printer for $499. In the intro of the talk, the moderator says that China has committed major investment in 3D printing, resulting in what is probably the biggest 3D metal printing unit in the world.

See the full video below. Cervantes speaks for about nine minutes starting around 17:00. Some takeaways from what he had to say:

• Solidoodle has shipped to 60 different countries. About 40% of their sales go outside the U.S.
• “3D printing is one small subsegment of the coming Robotics revolution,” Cervantes says. He describes the automation/robotics revolution as the integration of the previous industrial, digital and Internet revolutions.
• Cervantes expects 3D printing to be ubiquitous in as soon as five years.
• Cervantes addresses the disruption of jobs directly, later in the conversation. Comparing a disruption of manufacturing work to former disruptions in agriculture.