By Matt Simon

Boston Dynamics’ videos aren’t just famous, at this point they are almost a staple of the internet—typical stuff like robots doing backflips and opening doors for their friends. But the machines only became a YouTube phenomenon because someone grabbed the first video from Boston Dynamics’ website and uploaded it themselves.

“We just had it on our website and someone stole it and posted it,” Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics, told us during a rare on-camera interview at the WIRED25 festival earlier this month. A few weeks later, the video had amassed 3.5 million views. “The light went on—this matters.”

“Since then, what we've tried to do is make videos that you can just look at and understand what you're seeing,” Raibert says. “You don't need words, you don't need an explanation. We're neither hiding anything nor faking anything....”

Read the full story and watch the video on WIRED's website using the link below.