Latest / Core Memory / Keller Rinaudo Cliffton on Zipline's Drone Delivery Journey from Blood to Burritos

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Keller Rinaudo Cliffton on Zipline's Drone Delivery Journey from Blood to Burritos · Core Memory

0:02
SPEAKER_00: we become inured to the things that just exist in the world.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: So for example, we're inured to traffic.
0:10
We're inured to the delivery drivers that are like barreling up
0:13
and down our streets,
0:14
SPEAKER_00: meaning like our kids can't play in those streets anymore.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: We're inured to the
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like pollution and environmental impacts of people driving a
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3,000 pound gas
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combustion vehicle driven by a human to deliver something to us
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that weighs like
0:29
SPEAKER_00: five pounds.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: You know,
0:30
SPEAKER_00: like that's,
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these are actually pretty crazy costs that I think we're just
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used to at this point.
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SPEAKER_00: And the reality is there are ways of delivering that are
0:43
SPEAKER_00: totally quiet,
0:45
SPEAKER_00: that are way less obtrusive,
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SPEAKER_00: that are better for the environment,
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SPEAKER_00: that are 10 times as fast and less expensive.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: We are here for another edition of Core Memory.
1:11
Today,
1:11
we're going to be talking with the co-founder and CEO of Zipline,
1:16
Keller Renato Clifton.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Zipline, you may have seen on TV or the internets, does drone
1:26
delivery we're gonna be getting our our sandwiches through the
1:30
air any day now
1:31
they're actually doing it uh in the united states and and have
1:36
a kind of surprising
1:37
fascinating track record of doing these types of deliveries for
1:41
many many years
1:42
overseas the u.s is kind of behind here so um i think we got an
1:47
interesting show
1:48
SPEAKER_01: for you thanks to everyone who's been listening
1:52
SPEAKER_01: For our subscribers,
1:53
SPEAKER_01: we do put up audio versions of my stories on Substack,
1:58
SPEAKER_01: and a lot of you have been checking those out.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: So as always, please support us if you choose to do so.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: We appreciate it.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: And with that, let's turn to Keller.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Keller, how are you?
2:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm good.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: A little bit tired.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, we just launched our next generation platform last week.
2:20
So the team's been working in a very hardcore way,
2:22
but we're also very proud.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: And where are you?
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Are you in Half Moon Bay?
2:28
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm at Zipline HQ, which is in South San Francisco.
2:31
This is where we have all of our engineering as well as the
2:35
manufacturing facility
2:36
SPEAKER_00: that builds the autonomous aircraft.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: All right.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're going to get into these aircraft.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to start us off with,
2:43
SPEAKER_01: this might not be like my most flattering introduction,
2:45
SPEAKER_01: but I think we're going to get somewhere good.
2:48
You know,
2:49
you and I,
2:50
we met for the first time,
2:51
I think about six weeks or so ago.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: You guys had an event.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: You do have this facility at Half Moon Bay where you do some testing,
3:01
SPEAKER_01: and I got an invite to come out for this dinner,
3:04
SPEAKER_01: and the unflattering part is just going into it.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: I was really skeptical.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've heard about Tron...
3:11
delivery for a long time i've heard about zipline for a long
3:14
time i it wasn't an
3:15
area that i was paying super super close attention to and and i
3:20
think i was um
3:22
SPEAKER_01: scarred i don't know if that's totally the right word by by this
3:27
60 minutes piece Amazon and Jeff Bezos had done like a decade
3:30
ago that told me we
3:31
SPEAKER_01: were going to have drone deliveries,
3:33
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:34
SPEAKER_01: at any minute.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: And this had taken a while.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, this is all to say that my expectations were low.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: And then during this visit with you guys, I was really impressed.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we were having dinner and
3:47
SPEAKER_01: I thought we'd see a couple drones,
3:49
but you guys had this nest full of dozens of them flying all
3:52
around us and delivering,
3:54
SPEAKER_01: dropping down boxes of cookies for dessert.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: And,
3:59
SPEAKER_01: you know,
3:59
SPEAKER_01: anyway,
3:59
SPEAKER_01: I was kind of shocked just to see,
4:04
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
4:04
SPEAKER_01: how realistic this seems like it might be now.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think seeing is believing.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: And I think probably...
4:13
the vast majority of Americans have had the exact same
4:15
experience you had,
4:16
SPEAKER_00: which is,
4:16
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:17
a really big company came out and made a crazy promise in 2013
4:20
that they were going
4:21
SPEAKER_00: to do drone delivery to every single home in the U.S.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: within a couple years.
4:25
And I think it's not terribly surprising that when it comes to
4:29
radical new kinds of technology,
4:31
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:33
SPEAKER_00: it's harder than people expect.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: It takes longer.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: And I think often the great product and innovation comes from maybe
4:40
SPEAKER_00: where people,
4:41
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:41
SPEAKER_00: were less expecting it,
4:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
4:44
sometimes it's not the biggest companies in the world that come
4:47
up with the most
4:48
SPEAKER_00: important innovations.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: You know,
4:50
I think the reality is that probably most Americans have had
4:53
the exact same
4:53
SPEAKER_00: experience you had,
4:54
which is that they heard a big company make all kinds of
4:57
promises in 2013 about how
4:58
SPEAKER_00: drone delivery was going to be available in two years.
5:01
The reality is that with any new technology,
5:03
it's a lot harder than it initially seems.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of
5:07
technical detail and work to be done to design autonomous
5:12
aircraft that can fly
5:13
SPEAKER_00: reliably in all weather,
5:15
SPEAKER_00: 24-7 in any geography in the world.
5:18
And so I think Zipline has a special advantage in that we
5:23
launched outside the U.S.
5:24
and focused on life-saving use cases and then expanded that for
5:28
eight years before
5:30
we really tried to take on this much broader challenge of
5:34
automating home delivery
5:36
SPEAKER_00: systems
5:36
SPEAKER_00: in the US,
5:37
and so we're able to bring a lot of very specific experience
5:40
about how to make
5:41
SPEAKER_00: these systems work in the real world at scale very reliably.
5:45
You guys have been around for about 11 years,
5:48
if I've got the dates right?
5:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yep.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: Take me back.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: For people who know nothing about this field or your company,
5:58
SPEAKER_01: what was the vision 11 years ago,
6:01
SPEAKER_01: and why did you even decide to get into this?
6:04
SPEAKER_00: You know,
6:04
SPEAKER_00: when we were starting to build Zipline,
6:06
SPEAKER_00: our backgrounds were in robotics and automation and software.
6:10
And it seemed that it should be possible to build a new kind of
6:15
logistic system,
6:16
SPEAKER_00: a fully automated logistic system.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: And the reason that was exciting to us,
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
6:21
SPEAKER_00: it seemed like you could build something that was 10 times as fast,
6:25
SPEAKER_00: half the cost and zero emission.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: That just seemed like such an important idea.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: I actually remember this moment.
6:33
I got to go and meet the founder of a company,
6:35
Kiva,
6:36
which ended up being acquired by Amazon.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: And if you're familiar, they did this warehouse automation robotics.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: And they had these orange robots running around inside the warehouse.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: And it would bring items from a shelf.
6:49
It would actually bring the entire shelf to a human packer who
6:51
could then pack
6:51
SPEAKER_00: something into a box and ship it.
6:53
SPEAKER_00: I just remember seeing that,
6:55
SPEAKER_00: seeing all these robots running around inside the warehouse,
6:57
SPEAKER_00: kind of avoiding each other,
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SPEAKER_00: moving things around.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: thinking,
7:00
SPEAKER_00: whoa,
7:00
somebody's gonna build that for outside the warehouse and
7:02
that's gonna be like one
7:04
SPEAKER_00: of the most important companies on earth.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: I've met one of the Kiva co-founders.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: It is crazy to see these like early videos of them zipping around,
7:13
SPEAKER_01: like sitting on their little robots as they tried to dial all this in.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: When you were thinking about this,
7:20
SPEAKER_01: At the start,
7:20
SPEAKER_01: when you're talking about revamping logistics from a robotics background,
7:26
you knew that you were going to do something in the air or you
7:29
hadn't even settled
7:30
SPEAKER_01: on that idea yet?
7:31
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think we'd settled on that.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
7:33
we were just really attracted by this idea that logistics is
7:38
immensely important
7:40
SPEAKER_00: global industry.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like running water.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, you just, nobody thinks it's cool.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: It's really boring.
7:45
Logistics is super boring,
7:46
but it's something we all depend on with our lives.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And
7:49
SPEAKER_00: that's just constantly operating in the background.
7:51
And that's kind of a,
7:52
that's a perfect kind of thing for automation and for robotics.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Cause you want boring,
7:59
SPEAKER_00: you want just repetitive day in,
8:01
SPEAKER_00: day out,
8:01
SPEAKER_00: just do the same thing again and again.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: I think that what,
8:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
8:07
SPEAKER_00: what we ended up deciding is that like,
8:08
SPEAKER_00: look,
8:09
SPEAKER_00: if you want to move really fast and you want to,
8:12
SPEAKER_00: and efficiently,
8:13
SPEAKER_00: it's way easier to do that in the air than it is on the ground.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: You want to be able to go fast and far basically.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: And as we started to understand that,
8:22
SPEAKER_00: like,
8:22
SPEAKER_00: look,
8:22
building an automated logistics system that could operate at
8:26
national scale,
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SPEAKER_00: it's going to be complicated from a regulatory perspective.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: That was pretty obvious from day one.
8:32
And so we decided to be really smart to focus on lifesaving use
8:35
cases and to go to
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SPEAKER_00: countries that we felt would
8:39
make exceptions quickly and would be really good partners to us
8:42
as a startup.
8:43
And so this is actually the reason that we ended up launching
8:45
the company in Africa,
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SPEAKER_00: Rwanda at first,
8:50
SPEAKER_00: rather than trying to launch the service in the US in the early days.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Rwanda, I've like run into this multiple times over 20 years.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: They tend to be very tech forward and try out some wild ideas.
9:02
SPEAKER_01: So again, like for people who've never seen your products or
9:08
SPEAKER_01: This initial vehicle that you guys built,
9:11
what does it look like and what was the job that you were
9:14
trying to do in Rwanda?
9:17
SPEAKER_00: In 2014,
9:18
SPEAKER_00: 2015,
9:18
SPEAKER_00: when we were just building the first version of the technology,
9:21
SPEAKER_00: we didn't really know exactly what was required.
9:27
We had some kind of sense that,
9:29
hey,
9:29
let's focus on these life-saving use cases.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: If we could deliver medical products to hospitals and health facilities,
9:36
SPEAKER_00: at the right time, way faster, that would probably save lives.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: And,
9:39
SPEAKER_00: you know,
9:40
SPEAKER_00: a lot of people told us this was a stupid idea,
9:42
SPEAKER_00: and that it would never work,
9:43
SPEAKER_00: would never get regulatory permission,
9:45
SPEAKER_00: the unit economics would never work,
9:46
SPEAKER_00: etc,
9:46
SPEAKER_00: etc.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And it was the Minister of Health of Rwanda at that time,
9:50
SPEAKER_00: who,
9:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
9:52
SPEAKER_00: in meeting with her,
9:52
SPEAKER_00: I remember saying,
9:53
SPEAKER_00: hey,
9:53
we're going to use autonomous aircraft to deliver medical
9:55
products to every
9:57
SPEAKER_00: hospital and health facility in the country.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: And she looked at me and said, Keller, shut up, just do blood.
10:02
And that was the best advice we ever received because,
10:04
you know,
10:05
we said,
10:06
sounds good.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And as she was explaining it to us,
10:08
SPEAKER_00: you know,
10:09
SPEAKER_00: with blood,
10:09
SPEAKER_00: 50% of transfusions go to moms with postpartum hemorrhaging,
10:13
SPEAKER_00: 30% go to kids.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a really complicated combination of products.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: You have packed red blood cells, platelets, cryoprecipitates, and plasma.
10:21
And then everything has different shelf lives,
10:24
different storage requirements.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: You have A, B, A, B, and O.
10:28
positive and negative rh factor it's just getting the right
10:30
thing to the right
10:31
place at the right time is super hard because is is it mostly
10:36
because if once you
10:37
get outside of a big city then you're limited on the supply of
10:42
all these things
10:43
that you're talking about and and getting it to somebody who's
10:47
going through a
10:48
SPEAKER_01: traumatic event in time is that is that like the biggest problem
10:52
SPEAKER_00: It's a combination of things.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: So for example,
10:54
platelets only last six days from when you get them from a
10:58
donor to when they need
10:59
SPEAKER_00: to be transfused into a patient.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: So a very short shelf life product.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: Packed red blood cells last 30 days.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Then you've also got them typed and certain people have rare blood types.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: So for example, negative blood types are quite rare in Rwanda.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: For that reason,
11:13
they didn't stock any negative blood type products at the
11:16
hospitals that we served
11:17
SPEAKER_00: when we started serving them.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: So if you came into that hospital and say gave birth,
11:22
And needed a blood transfusion and had a negative blood type,
11:26
you're in big trouble.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Now,
11:27
SPEAKER_00: you know,
11:28
SPEAKER_00: if you're lucky,
11:28
SPEAKER_00: the doctor,
11:29
the nurse will get into a car and drive a couple hours to the
11:32
closest facility,
11:34
SPEAKER_00: like blood,
11:35
regional blood center to get a negative blood type product and
11:38
bring it back.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: By the way, a lot of similar challenges exist in the U.S.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: in rural health care.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: This is like the crazy thing we've learned in the last few years.
11:46
But yeah,
11:47
suffice it to say that,
11:48
and also it's just a hard thing to predict.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: You don't know when a mom is,
11:52
or when anybody is gonna need a transfusion or a massive blood transfusion.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, it's priceless.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: You never have enough of it.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: You cannot manufacture it.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: And so you just,
12:03
SPEAKER_00: you know,
12:04
getting the right thing to the right place at the right time is
12:06
super difficult.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: And the idea or what you do today,
12:11
do you fly from hospital to hospital or you have a central
12:15
distribution center
12:16
SPEAKER_01: that's feeding all the hospitals?
12:18
SPEAKER_00: So when we originally launched in Rwanda,
12:21
SPEAKER_00: our contract was to deliver from our distribution center,
12:23
SPEAKER_00: which we built from scratch,
12:26
SPEAKER_00: to 22 hospitals within range.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: And we started just delivering blood to those 22 hospitals.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And then we expanded from there.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: We expanded to 50,
12:35
SPEAKER_00: then to 200,
12:36
then to 500 hospitals and health facilities throughout the
12:39
country of Rwanda.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Then we expanded into four more countries.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Today we serve 4,500 hospitals and health facilities globally.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: you know, we've delivered 20 million doses of vaccine.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: We deliver 70% of the national blood supply of Rwanda fully autonomously.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: The system has scaled.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: We're about to cross 100 million commercial autonomous miles.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: It's the largest commercial autonomous system on earth.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like, I mean, not to, it's not like a zipline ad.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: It was just those numbers were what really drew my attention.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, I think, I don't know, I'm pretty tech savvy and follow stuff.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: I just had no idea of the
13:14
SPEAKER_01: amount of stuff that you guys were already doing,
13:17
SPEAKER_01: I think,
13:17
because it's not front and center to an American mainstream
13:23
audience at the moment.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
13:25
I mean,
13:25
I think there was a long time when very few Americans used WhatsApp.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: I think there are a couple interesting examples where
13:32
SPEAKER_00: technology just grows exponentially outside the U.S.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: for a long time before it comes to the U.S.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: And in our case,
13:40
being able to launch in a country that was super tech forward
13:45
and willing to kind
13:47
SPEAKER_00: of disrupt and innovate like Rwanda,
13:48
SPEAKER_00: which is kind of known as like,
13:50
SPEAKER_00: I think you can kind of think of it as like the Singapore of Africa.
13:52
It enabled us to grow,
13:56
grow,
13:56
grow and scale to the point where,
13:58
you know,
13:59
I mean,
14:00
SPEAKER_00: In Rwanda, we've expanded to all medical products.
14:02
We've expanded into a lot of additional use cases,
14:05
animal health care,
14:05
e-commerce,
14:07
tourism.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: You know,
14:09
SPEAKER_00: there's huge,
14:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
14:12
SPEAKER_00: if you're in that country,
14:13
you're going to see autonomous aircraft flying through the
14:15
airspace making deliveries,
14:16
SPEAKER_00: and everybody there will act like it's totally normal.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: And Americans are like, whoa, what is this?
14:22
SPEAKER_00: We thought this was impossible.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Like on a given day, I mean, how many aircraft are flying?
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Or how many flights are taking place?
14:31
SPEAKER_00: Globally, yeah.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Globally,
14:32
SPEAKER_00: today,
14:33
SPEAKER_00: Zipline's doing upwards of 2,000 flights a day,
14:36
SPEAKER_00: and that number is still doubling year over year,
14:39
SPEAKER_00: even eight years in.
14:41
And that's on platform one,
14:42
our kind of original version of the technology.
14:45
Platform two,
14:46
which we just launched last week,
14:47
we actually expect to grow dramatically faster.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: So,
14:52
SPEAKER_01: and the vehicle you guys describe as platform one,
14:56
SPEAKER_01: don't get mad at me if I use the wrong words.
14:58
It looks a little more like a small plane to me than like what
15:02
people are used to
15:03
SPEAKER_01: seeing with a drone.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: So platform one, you know, it was really inspired.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
15:09
SPEAKER_00: when we were originally talking to customers,
15:11
SPEAKER_00: we thought,
15:12
SPEAKER_00: oh,
15:12
SPEAKER_00: we need to build this complicated system,
15:15
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:15
SPEAKER_00: that can do all these things.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: And then as we were talking to a lot of these customers,
15:18
SPEAKER_00: especially in healthcare in the early days,
15:20
we understood that actually the only thing they care about is
15:24
range and it needs to
15:25
SPEAKER_00: be cheap.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: It has to like be cost effective.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: And so if you want to go really far and you want it to be affordable,
15:31
SPEAKER_00: we realized,
15:31
SPEAKER_00: hey,
15:31
SPEAKER_00: we got to build the simplest possible thing.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And so that was a fixed wing vehicle that looks,
15:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:38
it kind of looks like a 50 pound electric aircraft with about a
15:42
10 foot wingspan.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: And that vehicle,
15:45
SPEAKER_00: by virtue of having a very high lift-to-drag ratio,
15:47
SPEAKER_00: which you can kind of think of as like miles per gallon per airplanes,
15:51
SPEAKER_00: that vehicle can fly very efficiently.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: It has a similar lift-to-drag ratio of a Boeing 787.
15:56
And so that means that we can fly on a single battery charge
16:00
almost 200 miles.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: And so we guarantee a service radius of up to like 110, 120 kilometers.
16:10
So does it,
16:11
and it looks,
16:11
I remember,
16:12
I mean,
16:12
it sort of takes off on this like rail,
16:15
right?
16:15
SPEAKER_01: And then just zips up in the air.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: Does it,
16:19
it flies from your distribution center to a hospital and then
16:22
does somebody
16:23
SPEAKER_01: recharge it?
16:24
SPEAKER_01: And how does it get back?
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the vehicle leaves our distribution center.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: We pack the product into the vehicle.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: We can carry about six pounds of payload.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: One of our operators will launch the vehicle.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: We use a launcher.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like a catapult.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: to accelerate the vehicle from zero to 70 kilometers an hour.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Once the vehicle leaves the end of the launcher,
16:46
it flies autonomously out to the GPS coordinates of the
16:49
hospital that we're serving.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Again,
16:51
every distribution center will typically serve maybe like 300
16:53
hospitals and health facilities.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: And then when we arrive there,
16:57
SPEAKER_00: the vehicle will descend closer to the ground,
17:00
SPEAKER_00: maybe 20 to 30 meters off the ground.
17:03
And then we use a really simple paper parachute to just get the
17:05
package to the
17:06
SPEAKER_00: ground in a way that is gentle.
17:07
So the beauty of this is that the doctors and nurses and
17:11
technicians who use the service,
17:12
SPEAKER_00: it's incredibly simple.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: It's like, order something on the app or send us a WhatsApp.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: And we deliver, I mean, you never interact with any technology.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: You're just like, the product is just teleported to your mailbox.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: And do you guys charge per delivery or, yeah, okay.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: And after Rwanda,
17:33
SPEAKER_01: where would be the,
17:34
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
17:34
because this sounds like I want to go to Rwanda and see all
17:38
this happening in the...
17:39
SPEAKER_01: In the sky.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: After Rwanda,
17:41
SPEAKER_01: what would be the next,
17:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:42
two or three biggest countries that have adopted that first
17:46
vehicle and technology?
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we scaled in Rwanda for about three years from 2016 to 2019.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: And then we launched in Ghana.
17:54
Today,
17:55
Ghana is our largest country by volume and by number of
17:58
distribution centers.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: We serve almost 2,000 hospitals and health facilities in Ghana.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Then we launched in Cote d'Ivoire.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Kenya, Nigeria, and then more recently launched in the U.S.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: and in Japan.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: And so obviously you just called out the U.S.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: and you said there's a need for this in rural spots,
18:18
SPEAKER_01: but it just sounds like Europe,
18:21
SPEAKER_01: the U.S.,
18:25
SPEAKER_01: some of the more,
18:26
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
18:26
SPEAKER_01: developed countries,
18:27
they just haven't caught onto this or they're too densely
18:32
packed for some of that
18:34
SPEAKER_01: to make sense?
18:36
SPEAKER_00: I think that the main thing is that,
18:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:39
bigger countries and ones that are going to have slightly more
18:42
complicated airspace,
18:43
SPEAKER_00: they're just going to be slower.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of,
18:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:47
SPEAKER_00: it's interesting to think,
18:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
18:49
SPEAKER_00: over the last 15 years,
18:52
SPEAKER_00: it's both good and bad.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: There was so much focus,
18:54
SPEAKER_00: I think,
18:55
SPEAKER_00: on internet innovation,
18:57
SPEAKER_00: and the internet is uniquely unregulated.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And so it allowed a lot of startups to move really fast.
19:03
I think it's the birth of SaaS and the explosion of mobile apps
19:07
and these kinds of things.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: They're all unregulated.
19:10
The reality is most of the things that we need for the kind of
19:15
abundant sci-fi
19:16
version of the future for humanity that we were promised in
19:19
Star Trek or by more
19:21
SPEAKER_00: optimistic versions of sci-fi,
19:23
SPEAKER_00: that's all stuff that's in highly regulated markets.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's nuclear fission and fusion energy or...
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Biotech.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
19:31
SPEAKER_00: biotech,
19:32
like DNA computers or flying autonomous aircraft or 3D printed
19:40
homes or even better
19:42
SPEAKER_00: education is super,
19:44
SPEAKER_00: super regulated.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Better versions of healthcare.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: These are super regulated markets.
19:48
So I actually think what's happening is that it's just
19:52
inevitable that we need to
19:53
SPEAKER_00: see innovation and new companies in these spaces.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: And
19:59
those companies are going to have to think very carefully about
20:02
how to find
20:02
SPEAKER_00: regulatory environments that are conducive to moving fast and innovating.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: And those environments won't always be the U.S.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I hope it will be.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: As a U.S.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: citizen, I think it's awesome.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: And I'm really hopeful that the U.S.
20:16
pushes really hard to be the center of innovation for a lot of
20:19
these technologies.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's very powerful to have some competition for innovation.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Well...
20:29
SPEAKER_01: On the drones that I think most people are familiar with,
20:33
SPEAKER_01: kind of the quadcopter style thing and the successors of that.
20:37
I mean,
20:39
well,
20:39
I'd love to get your take because I'm just a dilettante on this stuff.
20:42
But,
20:42
you know,
20:43
the reputation of the FAA with some of those devices is pretty bad.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: The U.S.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: was at the forefront of this technology process.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: Most of the first US drone makers don't even exist anymore.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: DJI and China, you know, basically wiped out the market.
21:01
And I know a lot of people were frustrated that they thought
21:03
the FAA was making it.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: extremely hard to compete with companies in China that already had a big
21:12
SPEAKER_01: manufacturing advantage.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
21:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
21:16
SPEAKER_01: as far as getting into drone delivery and things like that,
21:20
am I reading this right or were there different things at play
21:25
just in terms of how
21:28
SPEAKER_01: the journey to get to this point where we're actually doing it?
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a really good question.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
21:34
SPEAKER_00: look,
21:34
it's not the FAA's fault that China has a massive manufacturing
21:38
advantage over the U.S.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, like, that's a more complicated thing.
21:43
And I think that that's the main thing that's at play when you
21:45
think about,
21:45
SPEAKER_00: like,
21:46
SPEAKER_00: DJI versus,
21:47
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
21:47
SPEAKER_00: some of those early players,
21:48
SPEAKER_00: like 3D robotics.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: There were a lot of companies building early versions of drones.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: I think that...
21:55
SPEAKER_00: That I would think of as a bit more inevitable.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: You know,
21:58
a lot of these thousand dollar quadcopters that just need to
22:00
have a camera that can
22:02
SPEAKER_00: fly for 20 minutes.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: That's a pretty simple hardware product.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: And I don't and there's not a lot of software or technical complexity.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: I think it's like kind of clear that China would win in that space,
22:15
SPEAKER_00: given their just massive manufacturing scale advantages.
22:21
And I think arguably,
22:23
you know,
22:23
the FAA probably did move too slow for some period of years.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: But the good news is that over the last five years,
22:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
22:31
the FAA actually think has been amazing at like moving very
22:35
quickly to like
22:35
modernize and find new ways of enabling this kind of innovation
22:39
in the U.S.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Zipline's actually found them to be an awesome partner.
22:44
I mean,
22:46
we're making like rapid progress with them every month at this point.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: I think that
22:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
22:52
SPEAKER_00: I actually think there are a lot of people in government who are,
22:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
22:55
SPEAKER_00: I know that maybe this violates a little bit of the narrative,
22:57
but there are tons of people who are doing a really good job
23:01
and are highly
23:01
SPEAKER_00: competent and are actually moving quite fast.
23:04
I think maybe the mistake that Zipline made in the early days
23:07
is we took a little
23:08
SPEAKER_00: bit more of an approach,
23:09
SPEAKER_00: you know,
23:09
SPEAKER_00: it was like the days of Uber and we were like,
23:11
SPEAKER_00: well...
23:12
SPEAKER_00: you know, screw the regulator.
23:13
We're going to be the bad boys and we're going to move fast and
23:15
we have all the answers.
23:16
And it turned out that approach didn't work super good with the regulator.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: And so we actually had this moment where we're like, you know what?
23:22
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to be the bad boys.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be the golden child.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: And golden child is a way better, it's a way better approach.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: And I think-
23:31
I guess the main thing that is my takeaway is a lot of these
23:34
regulatory relationships,
23:35
it might seem like certain things are stuck in like legalese or
23:39
bureaucratic process,
23:41
but actually my takeaway is that a lot of these relationships
23:44
are about trust.
23:45
I think a lot of it has to do with can you demonstrate that you
23:48
are trustworthy,
23:49
like that you are a trustworthy guardian of public safety and
23:53
that you won't launch
23:54
SPEAKER_00: products that are going to crash or hurt people.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: A lot of companies violate these norms and
24:00
SPEAKER_00: don't deserve the trust.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think,
24:02
SPEAKER_00: you know,
24:02
SPEAKER_00: Zipline,
24:02
SPEAKER_00: by virtue of,
24:03
SPEAKER_00: you know,
24:05
SPEAKER_00: being able to go to the FAA with almost 100 million commercial autonomous
24:08
SPEAKER_00: kilometers of flight with zero human safety incidents,
24:12
SPEAKER_00: I think we were able to demonstrate to them that we were trustworthy,
24:15
SPEAKER_00: and that's what has resulted in a really awesome relationship.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: So,
24:18
SPEAKER_01: like,
24:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
24:20
you were going through some even more numbers with me when we
24:23
met in person,
24:24
SPEAKER_01: and you do have this impressive track record.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: I still think
24:29
SPEAKER_01: Most people,
24:29
SPEAKER_01: the average person,
24:33
if you tell them that we're actually heading to a world where
24:35
there's going to be
24:36
thousands of drones in the air at all times dropping off
24:40
sandwiches and stuff from
24:43
SPEAKER_01: Amazon or Walmart or whoever,
24:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
24:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even sure.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: I think obviously this is the United States.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: People love convenience and that part I can see appealing to them.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even sure.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: Most people...
24:57
SPEAKER_01: either believe this or would think that's even like a good idea.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, that is like very much the future you see, right?
25:05
SPEAKER_01: Is not just like a few of these things.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: It's like a sky full of these making deliveries all the time.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
25:12
SPEAKER_00: I think it's really important to realize that,
25:15
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:15
SPEAKER_00: new technology always seems really scary to us.
25:19
And I would point out that you saw the exact same consternation
25:24
and fear around automobiles.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: When automobiles were released for the first time,
25:28
SPEAKER_00: people were like,
25:29
SPEAKER_00: these are going to be terrible for our cities.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: They're extremely loud.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: They create pollution.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there were regulations passed in states.
25:40
These are real regulations that you can still see on the books
25:44
that said that if a
25:45
car was driving down the road and a horse was coming in the
25:48
opposite direction—
25:50
SPEAKER_00: the owner of the car was required to pull off to the side of the road,
25:53
SPEAKER_00: disassemble the car,
25:54
SPEAKER_00: and hide the parts in the bushes so as not to upset the horse,
25:59
SPEAKER_00: which was the obvious driver of like economic productivity of the day.
26:03
And so what I would say is we become inured to the things that
26:09
just exist in the world.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: So for example, we are inured to traffic.
26:12
We're inured to the delivery drivers that are like barreling up
26:16
and down our streets,
26:17
SPEAKER_00: meaning like our kids can't play in those streets anymore.
26:19
We're inured to the pollution and environmental impacts of
26:24
people driving a
26:26
3,000-pound gas combustion vehicle driven by a human to deliver
26:30
something to us
26:30
SPEAKER_00: that weighs like five pounds.
26:33
These are actually pretty crazy costs that I think we're just
26:38
used to at this point.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is there are ways of delivering that are...
26:46
SPEAKER_00: totally quiet,
26:48
SPEAKER_00: that are way less obtrusive,
26:50
SPEAKER_00: that are better for the environment,
26:51
SPEAKER_00: that are 10 times as fast and less expensive.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: And so I think,
26:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:56
SPEAKER_00: there is that,
26:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:57
SPEAKER_00: people have this scary sense for,
26:59
SPEAKER_00: I think,
26:59
SPEAKER_00: two reasons.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: One is people have this sense of like,
27:01
SPEAKER_00: oh,
27:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
27:02
SPEAKER_00: the sky is going to be dark with these vehicles.
27:04
The reality is you can practically,
27:06
you can't even see them at the height that we're flying at.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: And two,
27:10
SPEAKER_00: it's like people have an experience of drones being like,
27:12
SPEAKER_00: oh,
27:12
SPEAKER_00: it sounds terrible,
27:14
SPEAKER_00: this really annoying grating sound.
27:16
The reality is you can design vehicles that sound totally
27:20
different than that,
27:21
SPEAKER_00: as you experienced when you visited us.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you tricked me when we came out.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you didn't know.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just to give people an idea.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: We almost did a delivery right next to you.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you did.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: You did.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: I've got like a little video up on the YouTube channel.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we were standing around.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's pretty cool.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: You guys have this...
27:43
SPEAKER_01: It's like I get to see a lot of weird stuff,
27:46
SPEAKER_01: but when I walked onto your campus at Half Moon Bay,
27:50
SPEAKER_01: it was insane.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: You have these tree-like... Do you guys call them nests?
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll call them docks.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay, docks.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: So they sort of have these arms with all these drones attached to them,
28:02
SPEAKER_01: and we're just standing around talking,
28:04
SPEAKER_01: and every...
28:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
28:06
SPEAKER_01: every few seconds there's another one that gets,
28:10
sort of pops off and it goes up in the air and then we're
28:13
standing around and all talking.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: And so people know, I mean, the drone,
28:20
It's about the size of,
28:21
I would say,
28:22
at least my microwave,
28:24
maybe a little bit.
28:26
It's like this little container with propellers on it and kind
28:31
of like styrofoamy
28:33
SPEAKER_01: or very lightweight.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: Are you thinking about the droid?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
28:35
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
28:35
SPEAKER_00: it's probably worth saying you saw Platform 2,
28:37
SPEAKER_00: which is our next generation technology.
28:40
And Platform 2 is really designed to solve the problem of
28:44
enabling teleportation
28:45
SPEAKER_00: directly to customer homes.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: And so platform two,
28:48
SPEAKER_00: we can actually install docks,
28:51
SPEAKER_00: which you can kind of think of as like a supercharger,
28:54
SPEAKER_00: except instead of a supercharger for electric car,
28:56
SPEAKER_00: a dock is a charger for an aircraft.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: So we install docks on the side of buildings,
29:00
whether it's a hospital system or a Walmart or a Sweetgreen or
29:04
any of our other customers.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: And once we've installed that dock,
29:07
SPEAKER_00: now that building has a teleportation capability directly to the home.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: So an employee or a team member there can just take a package and
29:16
SPEAKER_00: load it into the system.
29:18
The system can now automatically,
29:21
there are two parts of the system,
29:23
a zip and a droid.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: The zip is the main vehicle that flies out to your home.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: and it's carrying something that we call a droid.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: The droid,
29:31
SPEAKER_00: the zip stays at 300 feet,
29:32
SPEAKER_00: and we lower the droid all the way down to the ground,
29:36
SPEAKER_00: and the droid's actually controlling its own position in an X and Y axis.
29:40
So the advantage of doing it in this way is that we can deliver
29:43
in a very quiet way
29:44
SPEAKER_00: and very precisely.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: And keep the main vehicle completely far away from you.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: You can't hear it.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: You can hardly see it.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: You, like,
29:54
SPEAKER_01: We were right under it, and you could not hear that main vehicle.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: And the droid comes down on a tether, right?
29:59
SPEAKER_01: And you guys are,
30:01
SPEAKER_01: like you said,
30:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
30:02
SPEAKER_01: there's these systems in place to keep it from jostling around.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's coming down in this pretty...
30:10
SPEAKER_01: extremely precise location.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: I remember you guys put two bags of cookies right next to each other.
30:17
With that technology,
30:19
I've seen you guys have had deals with companies like Walmart
30:24
and Panera.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: I know you're saying this just launched.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: When do I see one of these outside of my house?
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Where do you live?
30:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm in Silicon Valley.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm in Malibu.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Well,
30:38
SPEAKER_00: unfortunately,
30:38
SPEAKER_00: California,
30:39
SPEAKER_00: for some of the reasons that we've already discussed on this call,
30:42
SPEAKER_00: California isn't like the number one state that we're launching in.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: We're pretty focused on Texas next.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: We're launching in Dallas.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: Great.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: So we build it all and then Texas gets it first.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:54
Yeah.
30:55
I think there's some other companies that are also falling into
30:57
that category that
30:58
SPEAKER_00: you've spent significant time with.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
31:02
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:03
we got to go to places where it's easy and efficient to build infrastructure.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: And the good news is there are a lot of states in the U.S.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: that are all in on building infrastructure and,
31:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:13
SPEAKER_00: and building the infrastructure of the future.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: So you're saying, but like Texas, Texas is first this year.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, we launched, yeah, we launched in Bentonville last week.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll launch Dallas-
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Very soon.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: And what can people order in Dallas?
31:28
SPEAKER_00: You'll be able to order a lot of things.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: You know,
31:30
SPEAKER_00: we have a partnership with Texas Health Resources,
31:32
SPEAKER_00: which is the largest hospital system in Dallas.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: We have a big partnership with Walmart there.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: And then we have a partnership with like 10 different food partners.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: So anything,
31:41
SPEAKER_00: health care,
31:42
SPEAKER_00: quick commerce or food,
31:43
you'll be able to order through the app and get delivered to
31:45
you in just a few minutes.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: So the health care,
31:47
it's like you're getting your prescription or some kind of
31:50
medicine delivered to
31:51
SPEAKER_01: your house.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: And then the other partners, it's what?
31:54
SPEAKER_01: Is it food?
31:55
SPEAKER_01: Like, are people going to do sandwich?
31:59
SPEAKER_01: What are they going to do?
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they already are.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're already delivering like a ton of food items in Bentonville.
32:05
I think you should think of it just like DoorDash,
32:06
except 10 times as fast and half the cost.
32:09
SPEAKER_01: And how many pounds can they deliver?
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Up to eight pounds.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Eight pounds.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Like,
32:14
SPEAKER_00: unless you're having a really,
32:15
SPEAKER_00: like,
32:15
SPEAKER_00: maybe you have 10 people over and you're having a huge party.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: But even then, we just do two deliveries.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: If you were,
32:21
SPEAKER_01: okay,
32:21
SPEAKER_01: when we were hanging out,
32:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
32:23
SPEAKER_01: this is one of the wildest sort of concepts to me.
32:25
I mean,
32:26
you were talking right now about sweet green or whatever,
32:30
in and out.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: So you, you, I know there's two, there's two models to this.
32:36
There's one where maybe you kind of like put this on your
32:39
rooftop or in the parking lot.
32:41
And then there's also this model where you had almost like
32:44
today where we drive to a
32:46
SPEAKER_01: to a drive-through window,
32:50
almost having just like a little window inside of the
32:54
restaurant where somebody
32:54
SPEAKER_01: just plops the order in and it's being carried out.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: I just found this like crazy.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: So you...
33:02
I know these things take time and you have to put
33:04
infrastructure in place,
33:04
SPEAKER_01: but this is what you expect people,
33:06
SPEAKER_01: restaurants,
33:06
companies to do is actually build some of this onto their
33:12
physical infrastructure
33:13
SPEAKER_01: to support all this.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's pretty easy.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: It's no more complicated than installing an electric charger per car.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: So if you're going to install it,
33:20
SPEAKER_00: if any of these restaurants would,
33:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
33:23
SPEAKER_00: many of them obviously have installed
33:26
you know,
33:26
whether it's a Tesla charger or some kind of different EV charger,
33:30
very similar.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: We're just going to install the dock onto the side of the wall.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Once you have that, it's really easy to load the vehicle.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: Now,
33:37
SPEAKER_00: you can load it from outside,
33:38
but I think what you're kind of alluding to is a lot of times
33:41
we're actually just
33:41
putting a tube straight through the wall so that the droid can
33:43
lower right into the building.
33:45
And the cool thing about that is we're really just taking
33:48
inspiration from the way
33:49
SPEAKER_00: that pneumatic tube systems work in hospitals,
33:51
SPEAKER_00: if you're familiar with that,
33:52
SPEAKER_00: or banks,
33:53
SPEAKER_00: where
33:53
SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to leave the building.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: You just put it straight into the tube and it shoots.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: In this case,
34:00
SPEAKER_00: instead of shooting something somewhere else in the hospital,
34:02
now you're just teleporting it directly to the customer's home
34:04
that it needs to go to.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: So in that model,
34:06
Zipline has a building somewhere full of drones and it's going
34:12
to that restaurant
34:13
SPEAKER_01: and sort of sucking the order up?
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Or these restaurants all have their own systems?
34:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: We are building charging infrastructure all over Dallas.
34:25
A lot of it,
34:26
we can do bigger installations like on the side of a Walmart.
34:29
Some of them might be smaller installations and some of them
34:32
might just be charging.
34:33
So in the same way that you might have like a Tesla
34:36
supercharger parking lot.
34:40
We'll just have some space and we might have 50 or 80 or 100
34:43
aircraft just charging there.
34:45
But the cool thing is that the vehicles allocate themselves
34:48
dynamically in a metro.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: So wherever there's demand,
34:51
SPEAKER_00: the vehicles can kind of pre-position themselves to serve that demand.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: And you physically make the aircraft in a factory in California?
35:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to be last to get this.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: You got to come visit.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: You got to come see it.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: No, no.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, as a state, we're going to be last to actually get some uses.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, things could change.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, like there could be...
35:16
SPEAKER_00: There could be changes that change that plan.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: I think that would be awesome.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: But again,
35:22
the reality is actually there's just a lot of states and a lot
35:25
of countries,
35:25
SPEAKER_00: frankly,
35:26
that are like fighting for this kind of innovation and
35:29
technology and are saying like,
35:30
SPEAKER_00: we want to leapfrog into the future.
35:32
We want to find ways of delivering that are less expensive,
35:35
faster,
35:36
zero emission.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, to a certain degree...
35:43
some states,
35:45
some cities are just really,
35:46
really hungry for innovation and this kind of change.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: How did you
35:53
SPEAKER_01: as an individual end up here because like,
35:57
SPEAKER_01: is this something you,
35:59
SPEAKER_01: you mentioned at the beginning you were,
36:00
you were into robotics and that I know you have this like
36:03
actually incredibly
36:05
SPEAKER_01: impressive background in science and biology as well.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: I mean, when you were a kid, did you imagine you would be running like a,
36:14
SPEAKER_01: Was this even remotely some kind of vision you had that you'd be running,
36:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:19
a robotics logistics company dropping off food at people's
36:23
houses through the air?
36:26
SPEAKER_00: No,
36:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
36:26
SPEAKER_00: I,
36:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
36:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
36:28
SPEAKER_00: I worked in a restaurant all through high school,
36:30
SPEAKER_00: like 40 hours a week,
36:31
SPEAKER_00: making $6 an hour.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know that, I didn't even know startups were really a thing.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: I didn't grow up in a place where startups, you would talk about that.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: I got through almost all of college without realizing that startups or
36:45
SPEAKER_00: entrepreneurship was a thing that you could do.
36:48
I didn't really have any role models in my life that would have
36:51
caused me to be like,
36:52
SPEAKER_00: oh,
36:52
SPEAKER_00: wow,
36:52
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
36:53
SPEAKER_00: that's a possible path.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: I think I was a huge nerd growing up.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: I loved reading science fiction.
37:00
I think I've always kind of believed the future will definitely
37:05
be super weird and
37:06
SPEAKER_00: different than it is today.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: And then in college,
37:09
I did get this chance to work building DNA computers and kind
37:13
of exploring a pretty
37:14
SPEAKER_00: dramatic new field of science that
37:17
I was just really interested in because it seems so obviously
37:19
like the future.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: And so when I was graduating from college,
37:23
I think I had some sense of how cool it is to get to work on
37:30
things on like the
37:31
SPEAKER_00: frontier of what's possible in engineering or in science.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: And then I read a book by Tony Hsieh called Delivering Happiness.
37:40
And Tony had actually lived in the exact same dorm that I had
37:44
lived in just 10 years earlier.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: And so
37:47
That was this moment for me realizing,
37:49
oh,
37:50
wow,
37:50
like,
37:51
that's like a thing you could do.
37:52
You could go just try to build something from scratch and try
37:55
to find a team of,
37:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
37:57
SPEAKER_00: nerds and misfits to do something.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I ended up doing.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: It's a big shift because I posted a video about the delivery,
38:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:06
SPEAKER_01: when we were hanging out.
38:07
And then I had these,
38:08
like,
38:08
pretty famous biologists in there being like,
38:11
oh,
38:12
wow.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: I haven't heard of that guy.
38:14
As soon as I saw that name,
38:16
I remember all these papers he wrote at Harvard.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: It seemed like you're being modest.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: I think these DNA computers were no joke.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: This has to be the only podcast where during our first episode,
38:35
SPEAKER_01: we also talked about DNA computers.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: I think, yeah, I actually saw that response.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of cool.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: It was Adam Marblestone, who's a brilliant scientist in his own right.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think I got really lucky.
38:54
I got to work with a professor directly,
38:58
basically just him and me,
38:59
him and I.
39:01
And
39:02
He took a huge bet on me as an undergrad,
39:05
as a freshman and sophomore with no experience.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: And we got to build something together that wound up,
39:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:11
SPEAKER_00: it was wound up,
39:14
SPEAKER_00: I think,
39:15
SPEAKER_00: having a really big impact on a field of science.
39:17
And that field of science has continued to develop and grow
39:20
dramatically over the last 20 years.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: So, but like at some point you just, you...
39:27
SPEAKER_01: you just had kind of like this other calling.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
39:29
it was to go make a company and robotics was just where you
39:33
settled as the most
39:34
SPEAKER_01: interesting thing at the time.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
39:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
39:38
SPEAKER_00: when I graduated from college,
39:39
I actually was a full-time professional rock climber for a year
39:43
and a half.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: It was a cool thing to do.
39:45
You know,
39:45
it seemed like I was never going to get a chance to do that
39:47
again in my life.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: And then I just started getting really, really interested.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, it wasn't like at that time...
39:56
SPEAKER_00: DNA computers didn't seem like a possible career path,
39:59
SPEAKER_00: unless I wanted to go into academia,
40:01
SPEAKER_00: which I think I knew I didn't want to go into academia.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: And so trying to find, I guess I was just in search of something
40:10
SPEAKER_00: That would be important for the world.
40:11
And we felt like robotics and we had seen the crazy scale that
40:16
smartphones were
40:17
SPEAKER_00: achieving in like 2011,
40:18
SPEAKER_00: 2012,
40:19
SPEAKER_00: 2013.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And it seemed very obvious to us that,
40:22
SPEAKER_00: oh,
40:22
SPEAKER_00: wow,
40:23
all the components that go into a smartphone are basically the
40:25
components that you
40:26
SPEAKER_00: would need to build really powerful robots.
40:29
And yet everybody's building mobile apps and no one is focused
40:32
on robotics.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: So when we started Zipline,
40:35
SPEAKER_00: I think it just seemed like an amazing opportunity to take a lot of these
40:40
components that had gotten to crazy scale and go build new
40:43
versions of hardware
40:46
SPEAKER_00: that could
40:47
SPEAKER_00: change the way people live their lives.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just change that.
40:50
SPEAKER_01: Can you make money professionally rock climbing?
40:53
SPEAKER_01: Not really.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Is that like a spectator sport?
40:57
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't sound fancy, and it's less fancy than it sounds.
41:00
I got paid to go travel around the world and got to go to
41:05
really cool places,
41:06
SPEAKER_00: but I also spent a fair amount of time living out of my Honda Fit.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: But people come watch, or how does that even work?
41:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
41:14
SPEAKER_00: there are like competitions that you can climb at,
41:16
but then there's a lot of going to new kind of like exotic
41:18
locations and trying to
41:19
SPEAKER_00: do first descents of climbs.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: Do you still do that?
41:23
SPEAKER_00: I do.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: It's a huge part of my life.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: I love, I love rock climbing.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, all right.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: Going back to deliveries just for a second.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: The, okay.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: So when,
41:31
SPEAKER_01: when Amazon does this thing on 60 minutes,
41:34
SPEAKER_01: I went back and watched it before we hopped on this interview.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: Um,
41:39
SPEAKER_01: I guess to Jeff's credit,
41:41
SPEAKER_01: he does actually say this is years away during the segment,
41:46
SPEAKER_01: although he says this isn't science fiction,
41:49
SPEAKER_01: this is fact.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: He seemed like he was couching it,
41:54
but he also seemed like he was giving the impression that it
41:57
was going to happen
41:58
SPEAKER_01: the next day,
41:58
SPEAKER_01: and this was 2014.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: Has that been detrimental to...
42:05
SPEAKER_01: The field,
42:05
SPEAKER_01: I feel like it set people's expectations,
42:08
SPEAKER_01: like this was going to happen a long time ago.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know that.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it helped and hurt at the same time.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm not totally sure.
42:18
The reality is that I think the approach we've always taken is
42:22
just that what the
42:25
SPEAKER_00: competition's doing actually doesn't matter very much.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: I think that what matters way more is can
42:30
you build a product that is extraordinarily magical and that
42:34
people really want to
42:35
SPEAKER_00: use and integrate into their lives.
42:37
And so Zipline focused first and foremost on building
42:40
life-saving products and then
42:43
SPEAKER_00: got that to massive scale.
42:45
And now we're focused on building this kind of like
42:48
teleportation capability
42:50
SPEAKER_00: directly to customer homes.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is what the competition does doesn't
42:56
SPEAKER_00: matter that much.
42:56
I mean,
42:57
when we got started,
42:58
I remember seeing that video of him talking about that.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, oh, we're going to be a fast follower to Amazon.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
43:05
SPEAKER_00: had you told me that,
43:06
SPEAKER_00: hey,
43:06
SPEAKER_00: 10 years in the future,
43:08
SPEAKER_00: Zipline is going to be the largest commercial autonomous system on earth,
43:12
SPEAKER_00: and we'll have 20 times the scale of the rest of the industry combined,
43:18
SPEAKER_00: including some of the biggest tech companies in the world,
43:20
That would have seemed impossible to me,
43:22
but that is the future that we live in.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: I think it's just better not to overly focus.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: I think it can be easy to get intimidated or like,
43:29
SPEAKER_00: oh man,
43:29
SPEAKER_00: these people have like infinite money.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: This tech behemoth is coming after us.
43:34
The reality is that it's actually really hard for big companies
43:38
to innovate in
43:39
SPEAKER_00: fundamental new industries and create great products.
43:43
Like why on earth was Tesla allowed to have a 10-year head
43:47
start building electric vehicles?
43:48
SPEAKER_00: So it's super obvious that
43:52
I think it's hard,
43:52
yeah,
43:53
it's hard,
43:53
you know,
43:54
resource curse is a real thing.
43:55
Sometimes infinite money,
43:56
it makes it really,
43:57
really hard to build good products.
43:59
SPEAKER_01: So,
44:00
SPEAKER_01: but like,
44:00
SPEAKER_01: sometimes when we talk,
44:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
44:03
SPEAKER_01: tell me if I'm wrong,
44:03
SPEAKER_01: I sense like a little bit of frustration because,
44:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:06
SPEAKER_01: you guys do have competitors now that,
44:09
SPEAKER_01: and I realize,
44:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
44:10
SPEAKER_01: after seeing both like how quiet your stuff is,
44:15
SPEAKER_01: how accurate is the safety,
44:17
SPEAKER_01: that there's a lot of
44:19
engineering that goes into this and you can't just just copy it
44:22
or anything like
44:23
that but you know it feels like there is competition i i feel
44:26
like um people don't
44:30
lots of people don't know your track record i mean is there
44:34
like some frustration
44:35
that you've been doing this for a while and and now you know
44:38
there's there's other
44:38
people um chasing something similar as well no i wouldn't
44:43
describe for sure i mean
44:44
SPEAKER_00: you know i mean we're
44:45
SPEAKER_00: What do they say?
44:47
SPEAKER_00: Imitation is the purest form of flattery or something.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember the exact quote, but I don't know.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: I think that no frustration.
44:54
I think it's probably a little surprising to me the degree to
44:58
which Americans don't
45:00
SPEAKER_00: know about stuff that's happening outside of the U.S.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: I think it's surprising to me that we were able to grow like so much so
45:06
SPEAKER_00: dramatically outside the U.S.
45:07
and like basically most people living in America still think
45:11
that drone delivery is
45:12
SPEAKER_00: completely impossible.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: let alone happening at massive scale.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think that that's interesting.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: But to be honest, that's probably helped us more than it hurt us.
45:23
Like it really enabled the company to stay super focused and we
45:26
didn't have like
45:27
SPEAKER_00: some crazy spotlight on us.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: And we didn't have a crazy target on our back either.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: We just could focus on like, we knew what the problem was.
45:33
We knew that we could dramatically improve maternal mortality
45:36
and improve childhood
45:37
SPEAKER_00: vaccination rates.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: And we knew it was life-saving and we knew exactly what we needed to do.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: And we were able to spend
45:43
SPEAKER_00: you know,
45:44
SPEAKER_00: six to seven years just focused on that,
45:46
SPEAKER_00: making the technology really reliable,
45:48
SPEAKER_00: making sure it works in the real world 24-7,
45:51
SPEAKER_00: 365.
45:52
And so I think it was honestly probably a pretty big gift for
45:56
Zipline that we got
45:57
to stay out of all the crazy hype cycles and just focus on
46:01
getting the job done.
46:02
And like that side of the business,
46:04
I mean,
46:04
it's the humanitarian stuff sounds amazing.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, my sense is that to the extent that you're
46:13
backed by venture capitalists and you want to you want to
46:16
change logistics globally
46:18
and all that i mean it's it is this next stage of the business
46:21
around this more um
46:23
traditional consumer focused device that it would be like what
46:28
people out here
46:29
would think of as the the promise of the the big money-making
46:33
business is that is
46:34
that the right way to think about this yeah i think it's you
46:37
know you got to know
46:39
SPEAKER_00: as a startup you got to know
46:41
like what's your minimum viable product how do you make sure
46:43
you don't bite off
46:44
more than you can chew that's probably you know the number one
46:47
mistake committed is
46:49
like you just work on something that's too hard and you end up
46:51
just running out of
46:52
money before you can ship something so i think it's especially
46:55
easy to do in
46:56
hardware because hardware is just so much more expensive and it
46:58
takes so much more
46:59
time um so the reality for us is that like we knew we had to uh
47:04
we knew we had to
47:07
SPEAKER_00: keep it really simple we had to move lightning fast and uh
47:11
SPEAKER_00: you know, the product was way harder to build.
47:14
Even platform one was way harder to build in scale than we were
47:17
really expecting.
47:17
So it's a very good thing that we selected a use case that was
47:20
very narrow and
47:21
SPEAKER_00: focused and quote unquote simple.
47:26
And as the company's grown,
47:28
as,
47:28
you know,
47:29
our vision has been able to expand.
47:31
And I think as we kind of look at the overall global logistics market,
47:35
I mean,
47:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
47:37
SPEAKER_00: the biggest,
47:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
47:38
practically one of the biggest markets on earth is how do you
47:41
deliver things
47:42
SPEAKER_00: directly to homes?
47:43
SPEAKER_00: And that market is,
47:44
SPEAKER_00: by the way,
47:45
growing incredibly fast because people are just ordering in
47:48
different ways.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's a bit like,
47:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
47:54
you want to build the Model S before you have the ability to
47:56
build the Model 3.
47:57
And Zipline needed to go build Platform 1 before he had the
48:00
ability to build a far
48:02
SPEAKER_00: more complicated platform
48:05
a scalable product serving a vastly bigger market,
48:09
which is what Platform 2 does.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: Just to leave people with a vision of where you think this is going,
48:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
48:20
SPEAKER_01: could you lay out,
48:22
SPEAKER_01: it's always hard to predict the future,
48:24
SPEAKER_01: but lay out what you think.
48:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's start here.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: What do the skies look like in the United States five years from now?
48:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, the sky will look exactly the same.
48:39
SPEAKER_00: That's a very important point.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: You won't really be able to see these vehicles.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: And again, the scale is just off.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: People think of it as like, oh, you're going to see all these things.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we know because we're at massive scale in countries like Rwanda.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: And you generally don't notice anything different.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: Like if you know what to look for, you can see.
48:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're like, oh, wow.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: Like there are quite a few aircraft flying up there.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: But you aren't going to hear them.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: You're not really going to see them.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: The sky isn't going to look any different.
49:02
I have this cool,
49:02
didn't we show you that cool when you came and visited?
49:04
Didn't we show you that cool picture that kind of looks like a
49:07
Windows XP background?
49:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: We have this thing that we like to show people,
49:11
SPEAKER_00: which is a picture from one of our test sites,
49:12
SPEAKER_00: which happened to be very beautiful.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: So it's just these like rolling green hills, beautiful bluebird sky.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: And we show people this picture.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's special about this picture?
49:22
SPEAKER_00: And everybody's like, I have no idea.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: Is that like a Windows XP background?
49:26
SPEAKER_00: And then as you start to zoom in,
49:27
you realize there are actually 37 aircraft in a holding pattern
49:31
in that picture
49:32
SPEAKER_00: because we're doing some like high volume testing.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: And like the point is,
49:37
even with an absurdly high number of aircraft in a single
49:41
airspace at one time,
49:42
SPEAKER_00: you can't even see them or hear them.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
49:45
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: That's fair and important to get across to people.
49:51
But okay,
49:51
but if we- But your broader point,
49:52
what does the future look like?
49:53
SPEAKER_00: No,
49:54
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
49:54
like what quantity of stuff that I buy on a regular basis am I
50:01
getting delivered to
50:02
SPEAKER_01: my house by a drone?
50:05
I think that the best way to think about it is that if you just
50:09
look at the instant
50:10
SPEAKER_00: delivery market in the U.S.,
50:12
SPEAKER_00: there are about 4.5 billion instant deliveries done in the U.S.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: every year.
50:16
SPEAKER_00: So this is not really including UPS or FedEx or most of Amazon.
50:22
But 4.5 billion instant deliveries every year,
50:24
that market is growing super,
50:26
super fast.
50:27
We actually think there might be demand for 20 or 30 or 40
50:31
billion instant
50:32
deliveries if they're a way of doing it that wasn't super
50:35
expensive and bad for the environment.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: And frankly, also kind of slow, like an hour is not actually that fast.
50:43
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times if you get food delivered over the course of an hour,
50:45
SPEAKER_00: food actually tastes kind of cold and not that good.
50:47
So if you were to make the experience dramatically better,
50:49
you get 10 times faster,
50:51
you get
50:53
SPEAKER_00: less expensive.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: How big is that market?
50:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's really big.
50:56
It'll be one of the biggest markets for any industry in the
51:00
United States.
51:02
And the majority of things that are being delivered are less
51:07
than five pounds.
51:09
SPEAKER_00: And so generally,
51:10
SPEAKER_00: we're using a,
51:11
SPEAKER_00: you know,
51:12
two to 3,000 pound gas combustion vehicle driven by a human to
51:16
deliver something to
51:16
SPEAKER_00: your home that weighs five pounds.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: You just have to reason from first principles,
51:22
SPEAKER_00: kind of like a physics perspective,
51:23
SPEAKER_00: to know that actually makes no sense.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: That is a bizarre way of solving the problem.
51:27
Like if aliens landed on Earth and looked at the way we were
51:31
solving that problem,
51:31
SPEAKER_00: they'd be like,
51:32
SPEAKER_00: oh,
51:32
SPEAKER_00: there's no intelligent life on Earth.
51:34
So I think that it's quite obvious from a physics perspective
51:38
that if you want to
51:39
SPEAKER_00: deliver something that weighs five pounds,
51:41
SPEAKER_00: you probably want to do that with a vehicle that weighs about 50 pounds.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: And the vehicle should be electric and it should be autonomous.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of like all you have to conclude.
51:50
SPEAKER_00: So you think a lot.
51:51
SPEAKER_01: A lot.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: And, like, eventually, do we start getting bigger versions of these?
51:59
SPEAKER_01: Is that what you're thinking?
52:00
SPEAKER_01: Or you just stick with all this volume on what you can handle today?
52:06
SPEAKER_00: That's a really cool question.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I can't... I mean...
52:12
SPEAKER_00: The reality is scaling to two or three or four billion deliveries a year,
52:16
SPEAKER_00: you know,
52:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
52:18
SPEAKER_00: Zipline would be one of the largest companies on Earth.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's important to kind of point out,
52:22
SPEAKER_00: like,
52:22
SPEAKER_00: we're really just focused on logistics.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, we're a logistics company.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: We're an instant delivery company.
52:27
We think that someone's going to build an automated logistics
52:29
system for Earth.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: And that'll be one of the biggest companies like that.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: That's that's really the core vision.
52:34
SPEAKER_00: I do think it is a lot of people who come in and spend time with us.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: And so I think you're asking the same question.
52:39
SPEAKER_00: It is very provocative to and it's so obvious to say,
52:45
SPEAKER_00: like,
52:45
SPEAKER_00: well,
52:46
SPEAKER_00: gosh,
52:46
SPEAKER_00: like pretty soon you can put a human in it.
52:48
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I think it's a really interesting, cool idea.
52:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't based on what I've seen,
52:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't think the iPhone moment for that product has quite arrived.
52:57
But I also am not convinced that it's more than like,
52:59
I don't think it's 10 years away.
53:03
But I think that,
53:04
you know,
53:05
the whole point,
53:06
my feeling is like carrying humans is,
53:09
SPEAKER_00: Pretty serious, sacred thing to do.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: And you better be darn sure that this system is extremely reliable.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: So in the same way that,
53:17
SPEAKER_00: you know,
53:17
SPEAKER_00: SpaceX delivered cargo and then delivered humans,
53:21
it makes a lot of sense to me that I want to get ziplined to
53:24
many billions of
53:24
deliveries of packages before we consider whether we would
53:28
build something that
53:28
SPEAKER_00: would scale up and carry people.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, and I know you guys hate to like...
53:35
SPEAKER_01: put specific numbers on things.
53:37
SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate how large you're saying this market can get.
53:40
SPEAKER_01: I still,
53:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm still,
53:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
53:43
SPEAKER_01: five years from now,
53:44
like this is a regular occurrence or it's going to take a bit
53:47
longer to have that.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: Well,
53:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
53:50
SPEAKER_00: again,
53:50
it kind of matters geographically because this is going to
53:52
expand in the same way
53:54
SPEAKER_00: that if you're living in San Francisco,
53:57
a completely autonomous car driving you around as a taxi
53:59
service is now totally normal.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell exactly,
54:03
but it seems to me like Waymo might be the same size as Uber in
54:06
San Francisco now.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: There are so many, you know, getting an autonomous car is extremely easy.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: Some cities, you don't have access to that.
54:13
And I think this is going to be a little similar because we're
54:15
rolling out metro by metro.
54:17
So by the end of this year,
54:19
autonomous delivery is going to be a very normal thing in Dallas.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: And most people will have access to it.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: Millions of homes in Dallas will have access to it.
54:28
And then it's just a question of how quickly can we add
54:30
additional metros?
54:31
And like,
54:31
it's something that,
54:32
does it have to work in a city that's a little more suburban?
54:36
SPEAKER_01: Like, can this work in Manhattan?
54:39
SPEAKER_00: It's a good question.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: So everybody always asks about Manhattan.
54:42
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's always like, can it work in a city?
54:45
SPEAKER_00: And whenever I hear that question,
54:46
SPEAKER_00: I know exactly what's kind of implied,
54:47
SPEAKER_00: which is,
54:48
SPEAKER_00: can this work in Manhattan?
54:48
SPEAKER_00: Because that's how people think.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: When people think of a city, they think of New York City.
54:53
SPEAKER_00: The reality is almost no cities in the U.S.
54:55
SPEAKER_00: look like New York City.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: Very few cities look like Manhattan.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: The majority of cities look way more like Dallas or like Phoenix,
55:00
SPEAKER_00: where I grew up,
55:01
SPEAKER_00: or like Seattle,
55:02
SPEAKER_00: or like Denver,
55:03
SPEAKER_00: or like Houston,
55:05
SPEAKER_00: or any of the Atlanta.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: So
55:09
SPEAKER_00: You know,
55:10
SPEAKER_00: to a certain degree,
55:11
SPEAKER_00: yes,
55:11
SPEAKER_00: we are kind of,
55:12
we're more focused on those kinds of cities like Manhattan or
55:16
like downtown Chicago,
55:18
SPEAKER_00: which are like really skyscraper land.
55:21
SPEAKER_00: That's more complicated.
55:22
But also like that's actually where instant delivery services
55:25
today work the best.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: So it's not really where the need is the highest.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
55:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is, it's been an awesome chat.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: It's a, a,
55:36
SPEAKER_01: Super interesting, compelling view of the future.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: This is a funny one.
55:43
SPEAKER_01: I feel like lots of people will want this and the convenience.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: It is one of those things where you,
55:54
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
55:56
SPEAKER_01: even way more than self-driving cars for me,
55:58
SPEAKER_01: it takes a little wrapping your head around where all this could go.
56:03
SPEAKER_01: And just like,
56:04
SPEAKER_01: like picturing it,
56:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
56:05
SPEAKER_01: I,
56:06
SPEAKER_01: I get your point that like,
56:08
it's not like you're going to look up and the sky will be dark
56:10
and these things
56:11
SPEAKER_01: will be flying all around.
56:12
SPEAKER_00: You'll hardly know.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: You'll hardly know it's even happening.
56:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: But,
56:16
SPEAKER_00: but I think,
56:17
SPEAKER_00: look,
56:17
SPEAKER_00: the point I would make is I,
56:18
SPEAKER_00: I,
56:19
SPEAKER_00: I think with any new technology,
56:21
SPEAKER_00: it's always actually really weird and hard to wrap your head around it.
56:24
SPEAKER_00: Like,
56:25
You know,
56:25
people had a hard time wrapping their heads around the iPhone,
56:28
if you remember.
56:29
I saw a video with Steve Ballmer where he was clearly
56:32
struggling to wrap his head
56:33
SPEAKER_00: around the iPhone.
56:34
SPEAKER_00: And that's when the iPhone was launching.
56:36
He's like,
56:37
well,
56:38
we'll see how many people are willing to pay $800 for a cell phone.
56:41
SPEAKER_00: That worked out.
56:42
SPEAKER_00: Ha ha ha.
56:42
SPEAKER_00: Worked out well for him.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it didn't end well.
56:45
SPEAKER_00: So I think,
56:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
56:46
SPEAKER_00: but the funny thing is Zipline has seen now many,
56:50
many cities and metros and even countries go through the
56:53
process of kind of like
56:55
SPEAKER_00: adopting this kind of technology.
56:57
SPEAKER_00: And what I would say is that we know exactly what it looks like.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: Basically for the first seven days,
57:02
there's this sense of pure sci-fi amazement because it's like
57:05
really feels magical
57:06
SPEAKER_00: that you push a button on your phone and now something is instantly in an
57:10
SPEAKER_00: automatically way delivered to you just a few minutes later.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: with no human in the loop.
57:15
SPEAKER_00: It feels very magical.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: You know,
57:17
one doctor told me it's as though Jesus Christ himself is
57:20
delivering blood from
57:21
SPEAKER_00: this guy because,
57:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
57:22
SPEAKER_00: we delivered a blood transfusion.
57:25
SPEAKER_00: And there's, like, seven days of sci-fi amazement.
57:27
And then on day eight,
57:28
people are completely bored of it and totally ignoring it.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's completely in the background.
57:35
One doctor,
57:37
one technician,
57:37
I actually was standing out,
57:38
like,
57:39
watching...
57:40
as she was receiving a delivery and she looked at her watch and
57:43
then she looked at
57:43
SPEAKER_00: me and said,
57:44
SPEAKER_00: it's 30 seconds late.
57:46
SPEAKER_00: With this like very annoyed look.
57:48
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wow, this is amazing.
57:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, humans go from science fiction
57:52
SPEAKER_00: to entitlement in approximately seven days.
57:55
SPEAKER_01: And that's... That sounds about right, yeah.
57:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
57:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, it is.
57:59
And you hear the same stories about people riding in autonomous
58:01
cars where they're,
58:02
SPEAKER_00: like,
58:02
SPEAKER_00: really uneasy and scared for the first,
58:04
SPEAKER_00: like,
58:05
SPEAKER_00: two minutes.
58:06
SPEAKER_00: And then they're kind of, like, relaxed for a minute.
58:08
SPEAKER_00: And then the rest of the ride, they're just on Instagram.
58:09
And just,
58:10
like,
58:10
completely oblivious to everything else going on around them.
58:12
SPEAKER_01: I've totally had that experience, yeah.
58:15
SPEAKER_00: Right.
58:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
58:17
SPEAKER_01: That one's nuts.
58:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, we adjust very quickly to...
58:22
SPEAKER_00: the new, and we very rapidly become entitled and dependent on it.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's like,
58:28
SPEAKER_00: oh yeah,
58:28
SPEAKER_00: of course you can summon an autonomous car,
58:31
SPEAKER_00: or of course we have like a smartphone,
58:34
or of course you can just press a button and get something
58:36
delivered to your GPS
58:37
SPEAKER_00: coordinates in five minutes.
58:39
SPEAKER_00: I think humans just become very quickly used to it.
58:42
And so a lot of the homes that we've been delivering to
58:45
actually for years in Bentonville
58:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, we have homes that place orders three or five times a week.
58:51
SPEAKER_00: They completely rely on it.
58:52
SPEAKER_00: It totally changes the way they can grocery shop.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: It's just like having access to teleportation.
58:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think the market for teleportation is really big.
59:01
Like once people experience logistics that works around their
59:05
schedule rather than
59:06
SPEAKER_00: vice versa,
59:08
and once they can just push a button and it's instantly
59:10
teleported to you,
59:12
SPEAKER_00: I just,
59:13
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
59:13
SPEAKER_00: it's going to change a lot of behaviors and it becomes a pretty big part,
59:16
SPEAKER_00: I think,
59:16
SPEAKER_00: of how people live their lives.
59:18
So we're talking like average burrito time goes down from like what,
59:23
like 20 minutes to?
59:26
SPEAKER_00: Well,
59:26
SPEAKER_00: depending on where you live,
59:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
59:27
SPEAKER_00: I think it probably goes more from like 45 minutes to like five minutes.
59:32
SPEAKER_01: The five minute burrito delivery.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm here for it.
59:37
SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Keller.
59:37
Especially important,
59:38
you know,
59:38
like if I have a,
59:39
I mean,
59:40
I have young kids at home,
59:40
like,
59:41
If your kids aren't feeling well,
59:42
you wake up in the middle of the night,
59:43
you need something.
59:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're just like, you know, fast logistics.
59:48
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes it is about convenience,
59:50
SPEAKER_00: but sometimes,
59:53
SPEAKER_00: you know,
59:54
SPEAKER_00: sometimes convenience has a really big impact on our lives.
59:56
It's not just about like people who are lazy or want something
59:58
delivered faster.
59:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes it's, you know, makes you more productive.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to waste your time.
1:00:02
And a lot of times it's like makes a really big difference if
1:00:04
you can get something
1:00:05
in the middle of the night that makes your kid feel better or
1:00:07
makes you feel better.
1:00:09
Well,
1:00:10
now you're making me feel like a schmuck for focusing on the burrito.
1:00:17
SPEAKER_01: Keller, thank you so much for your time.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
1:00:20
I think we're going to come out again with our cameras to show
1:00:23
people what these,
1:00:26
like I thought the doc was one of the cooler things I've seen
1:00:30
in a long time.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_01: So we'll give people a better picture of what all this looks like.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, thank you so much for your time.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_00: It's an honor.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: And you got to come to Nest Z.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_00: Nest Z is like three times the scale of Nest Zero,
1:00:44
SPEAKER_00: which you visited.
1:00:45
So if you thought Nest Zero was impressive,
1:00:47
Nest Z is going to like completely blow your mind.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_01: I want to go to the biggest, baddest Nest.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_01: Although that other one is like on the...
1:00:57
edge of the pacific ocean among those i know it's very
1:01:00
beautiful well maybe maybe
1:01:01
maybe do both maybe do both but ness z i mean i took alfred
1:01:04
lynn from sequoia out
1:01:05
there on saturday and he was just like blown away because he
1:01:08
visited starbase the
1:01:09
week before yeah and then he visited ness z and he's like holy
1:01:12
shit i think he just
1:01:13
had this sense that you know there are a lot of similarities
1:01:17
between those two
1:01:18
efforts and it's just really worth seeing ness z it is weird
1:01:21
man it was like um
1:01:24
It was like walking into a movie set in the future or something
1:01:28
like that.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was strange.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: The other crazy thing about these is that they...
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: when you hold the actual sort of...
1:01:38
SPEAKER_01: The droid and even the droid...
1:01:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:01:40
SPEAKER_01: they're just like a lot...
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: The droid is kind of...
1:01:44
SPEAKER_01: It is kind of styrofoam-y,
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: isn't it?
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, it's not...
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, I guess in my head, I was like, aerospace grade materials.
1:01:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: Well,
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: oh,
1:01:53
SPEAKER_01: this is going to be some hardened package and,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: making it light in hindsight makes all the sense in the world.
1:02:00
But anyway,
1:02:01
there's a lot to the design of it that was like surprising to me.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: It also has to be,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
1:02:06
SPEAKER_00: in the exact same way that,
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
1:02:07
SPEAKER_00: Starship is made out of stainless steel and that's like a very weird
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: counterintuitive thing.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_00: But again, you have to design the thing for the specific use case.
1:02:17
SPEAKER_00: And for us, like we care a lot.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:02:19
the thing needs to be extremely light and it needs to be pretty
1:02:22
cost effective to manufacture.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: Nope, that makes all the sense of the world.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for your time, man.
1:02:29
And I appreciate hearing some of the story,
1:02:32
how we got here and where we're going.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm really pumped to show you around Nessie.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: And whenever you want to come visit Pattern, come visit Pattern.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_00: You can see DNA computers.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: They're going to have DNA computers curing cancer in patients next year.
1:02:45
I'm all for that because I'm still not sure I understand how a
1:02:50
DNA computer works at all.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_01: And I would like to... Not that complicated.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_00: We can explain it to you.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_00: If you wrote a book about SpaceX and Tesla,
1:02:58
SPEAKER_00: you can definitely get your head around DNA computers.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm in.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm in.
1:03:07
core memory is hosted by me ashley vance it is produced by me
1:03:13
and david nicholson
1:03:15
our guest today was keller renato clifton our theme song is by
1:03:22
james mercer and
1:03:23
john sortland and our audio is edited by john sortland thanks
1:03:28
for listening