About this episode
Keller Cliffton joins John Collison to talk about Zipline’s journey to 115 million miles flown, the lost art of American airplanes, building 50k drones a year in California, getting to 99.9% reliability, and US vs. Chinese manufacturing. Books referenced: The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe Skunk Works by Ben Rich Apple in China by Patrick McGee Timestamps (00:00) Intro (00:45) 115 million miles flown (04:10) Why drone delivery took so long (07:38) Getting started in Rwanda (13:31) 51% reduction in maternal mortality (15:33) Access vs. waste (21:45) Scaling globally (24:05) Zipline’s Platform 1 (25:50) The Right Stuff (27:22) Drone design and safety (30:12) Getting to 99.9% reliability (34:39) Multimodal logistics (38:15) Zipline’s Platform 2 (44:03) US drone regs and the FAA (48:02) Progress and stagnation in US aviation (51:30) If Keller ran the FAA (54:24) 30% WoW growth in Texas (58:25) Why Texas and not California? (01:00:28) Building 50k drones in California (01:06:18) US vs. Chinese manufacturing (01:11:30) Advice for hardtech founders