Answer extracted from the Inspiring Industry Podcast — listen to the full episode below.
How does leadership philosophy influence talent attraction and team motivation at SPEE3D?
SPEE3D's founders embrace evidence-based decision-making principles from Jim Collins' "Good to Great," using mathematical rigor to guide leadership choices. They attract top talent by tackling genuinely difficult engineering problems in emerging sectors like defense and space using high-speed robotics and sophisticated software. Teams stay motivated through a disciplined iterative cycle—form a hypothesis, test it rigorously, learn from failure, and move on when ideas don't work.
Leadership anchored in evidence, not intuition
Byron Kennedy and Steve Committery built SPEE3D's leadership culture on a foundational principle: decisions must be grounded in data and scientific method, not guesswork. This philosophy, drawn directly from Jim Collins' strategic work, shapes how they hire, how they set direction, and how they evaluate whether an approach is actually working.
The discipline shows up in daily practice. Rather than pushing forward with a solution because it feels promising, Kennedy and Committery insist teams form explicit hypotheses, run controlled tests, and examine the results with ruthless honesty. When evidence points away from an idea, they're willing to abandon it—a clarity that removes the ego from failure and keeps the organization moving toward what actually works.
Attracting engineers through hard problems
Top talent gravitates toward teams solving problems that matter. SPEE3D draws world-class engineers by offering access to some of the most challenging technical puzzles in manufacturing—deploying high-speed robotics, designing rocket nozzles, and building sophisticated algorithms for emerging sectors like defense and aerospace.
This isn't abstract motivation. When a mine site loses a critical part and faces downtime costs of a million dollars per day, SPEE3D's technology becomes not a feature but a lifeline. Engineers see their work directly impact real operations in real time—particularly across defense forces now operating the company's systems globally.
"You can eliminate that mould. You don't need that mould. And suddenly you don't need a big factory and you don't need a lot of capital intensive equipment to be able to manufacture parts anymore."
Byron Kennedy — Co-founder, SPEE3D. Kennedy co-founded SPEE3D with Steve Committery after a decade working in traditional manufacturing. The two had previously built a company developing electric motors and, as university students, constructed solar cars. Their manufacturing experience gave them the insight that metal 3D printing technology encountered around 2015–2016 could be dramatically accelerated compared to existing alternatives.
Motivation through rigorous iteration
The motivational engine at SPEE3D runs on a clear feedback loop rooted in engineering principle. Teams form a hypothesis, test it against reality, learn what breaks, and iterate when it fails. This approach removes the shame from failure—it's not a career setback, it's data.
The psychological effect is powerful. Engineers know that a failed test isn't a judgment on their competence; it's useful information. The willingness to abandon ideas that don't work, paired with the expectation that good ideas will be tested rigorously, creates an environment where motivation tracks directly to intellectual progress.
As Kennedy explains in more depth in the full episode, this discipline extends to how the company weighs competing manufacturing approaches and decides which new technologies actually deserve investment—a decision-making lens that applies equally to talent, strategy, and product development.
See also
What is SPEE3D's unique market positioning within the broader 3D printing industry?
Unlike the metal 3D printing industry which focused on slow, very precise or very complex parts, SPEE3D targeted commodity, low-cost, fast parts—a fundamentally different strategy in an emerging sector.
How has SPEE3D deployed its technology with defense forces globally?
Starting around 2019, the Australian Army approached SPEE3D to deploy the four-ton printer in the field. After testing and refinements during COVID, SPEE3D expanded globally with 10 systems deployed to Ukraine and partnerships with five defense forces worldwide.
What are the speed advantages of SPEE3D's technology compared to other metal 3D printing technologies?
SPEE3D is typically between 100 to 1,000 times faster than other metal 3D printing technologies. At those speeds, the technology can compete with traditional manufacturing methods like casting for commodity parts.