“Our Goal Is to Build an Electrical Engineer.” (Davide Asnaghi, Co-Founder & CEO of Diode)

Davide Asnaghi is the co-founder and CEO of Diode, a Brooklyn-based startup using AI to design and manufacture circuit boards in the United States.

Before Diode, Davide worked on Apple’s Special Projects Group and spent time in Hong Kong and Shenzhen studying Asia’s electronics manufacturing ecosystem. That experience convinced him that PCB design, despite powering everything from smartphones and satellites to medical devices and autonomous systems, remained one of the most overlooked layers of the tech stack.

Since its founding just two years ago, Diode has landed Physical Intelligence and Saronic as customers and partnered with Anthropic to help Claude become a better electrical engineer. The company’s ultimate ambition: to make hardware as nimble as software.

In our conversation, we explore:

1. Why the West outsourced PCB manufacturing to Asia in the 2000s and why bringing it back matters for American competitiveness
2. What Shenzhen’s manufacturing culture does better than Silicon Valley (and what the U.S. can learn from it)
3. How Diode’s models can one-shot much of schematic design and compress hardware timelines from months to weeks
4. The three-week YC pivot that transformed Diode from a design validation tool into a full-stack manufacturer
5. Why circuit boards are the “forgotten middle child” between silicon and software
6. How Diode partners with Anthropic to make LLMs better electrical engineers
7. What it takes to build a hardware company in 2025—and why the talent bar must stay incredibly high
8. How Italian, American, and Chinese cultures shaped Davide’s approach to entrepreneurship and manufacturing

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Thank you to the partners who make this possible

.tech domains: An identity for builders at their core.

Guru: The AI source of truth for work.

Brex: The intelligent finance platform.

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Transcript: https://www.generalist.com/p/our-goal-is-to-build-an-electrical-engineer

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Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(04:15) Why Davide calls himself a copper merchant

(05:53) Diode’s mission to rebuild PCB manufacturing in the U.S.

(07:58) What success looks like

(09:00) Growing up in northern Italy and spending a year in Minnesota

(13:14) Why Italy produces fewer venture-backed founders

(15:30) Why Hong Kong accelerated Davide’s learning

(19:09) Silicon Valley vs. Shenzhen

(22:05) What Davide learned in Apple’s Special Projects Team

(24:11) Why Davide left Apple after two years

(26:54) Meeting his co-founder, Lenny

(29:32) How Davide uncovered the need for better PCB design and manufacturing

(33:23) PCB manufacturing in Asia, and Diode’s approach

(41:29) The YC pivot that changed Diode’s business

(44:39) Inside Diode’s customer journey

(48:10) Where the value is in electronics manufacturing, and Davide’s AGI thesis

(51:30) What separates a working board from a great one

(55:32) Where Diode fits in the electronics stack

(59:55) Diode’s early near-death moment and long-term vision

(1:02:30) Diode’s exceptionally high bar for hiring

(1:04:48) Where Davide gets his best ideas

(1:07:00) Final meditations

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Follow Davide Asnaghi

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/d-asnaghi

X: https://x.com/davideasnaghi

GitHub: https://hexdae.github.io

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Resources and episode mentions: https://www.generalist.com/p/our-goal-is-to-build-an-electrical-engineer⁠

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