Founder and CEO @Zipline. Previously, built DNA/RNA computers and climbing walls. Harvard grad. Ex-professional rock climber.

San Francisco, CA
Joined April 2010
What if your dinner could fly over traffic instead of sitting in it? We are now scaling to provide Uber Eats more than 1 million autonomous deliveries a day. Uber is becoming an investor in Zipline. We’ve entered the scaling era for robotics and physical AI.
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Life is short. Skeptics are probably right more often than they are wrong, but they also don't go on epic adventures or get to work on projects that move humanity forward. Ignore the skeptics and build the future!
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Cloud logistics
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Delivering the cake for a 90th birthday backyard celebration. Teleportation-like delivery will soon be available everywhere
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Austin maintenance hub ready to receive aircraft. @zipline’s 5th metro in the US.
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Full conversation with Dara
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Zipline has flown over 140 million commercial autonomous miles. We have individual aircraft that have flown more than 1 million miles. Average car drives 150k before being trashed. The service is already much safer and more reliable than people expect
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If you want to see how weird the future will look, check out this delivery to a rooftop pool frat party
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Drone delivery to rooftop pool deck frat party. The future is way weirder than we imagined 😆
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Zipline update, from our command center
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Keller Cliffton retweeted
Hiring a Staff Controls Engineer at @zipline . Looking for someone who’s shipped complex products in industry, takes broad ownership of hard problems, and drives them to the finish line. Independent, critical, first-principles thinker. Flight dynamics/controls experience is a plus, not required. If that sounds like you, apply here: zipline.com/open-roles/78100… Learn more about Zipline in a recent podcast by Sequoia Capitol with @Keller and @EricWattage xitter.cf/Alfred_Lin/status/2074… You can also reach out to me directly with a couple of examples of your industry excellence and why you want to work at Zipline.
Drone delivery is about to be cheaper than cars. But the drone is only 15% of the work to get there. A decade after starting in Rwanda flying blood to one hospital, @zipline has flown 140M+ autonomous miles with zero safety incidents, expanded to the US and to food delivery and household items, and delivery costs have fallen from $300 to $12 - now cheaper than a car. Getting there meant building almost everything from scratch: flight computers, motors, GPS modules, even the air traffic software regulators use to track them. And it meant a discipline most engineers find nearly impossible. That's the reality behind Zipline, the largest autonomous system on Earth. @Keller and @EricWattage joined me and @gradypb to talk more about their journey. 00:00 Introduction 02:28 Early Vision and Regulation 04:09 Rwanda Launch Hard Lessons 06:49 Scaling to 24/7 Impact 09:35 Real World Ops Surprises 11:15 Safety Redundancy Failover 20:24 Precision Delivery Pod Tech 25:34 Building the Drone Network 26:51 Fleet Commanders Explained 28:22 Scaling to a Million a Day 29:51 Autonomy Enables 24 7 Ops 31:52 Reinventing Air Traffic Control 36:08 Why Zipline Is Vertical 41:40 First Principles Delete Parts 44:45 Market Explosion and Closing Thoughts
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Huh. I have a theory this is how growth investors are choosing to reach out to companies as well. Over last few months, Zipline got a ton of cold outreach from various funds that are all expressing the exact same investment hypothesis. Feels like one mind behind them telling them exactly what to say and invest in… The similarities and timing are uncanny At what point is the human intermediary removed and the AI just reaches out to the company directly? 🤖
Underappreciated risk imo
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Keller Cliffton retweeted
The errand you least want to run just learned how to fly. Prescription delivery is now live with @ClevelandClinic
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Keller Cliffton retweeted
Difficulty Levels of Startups: Insane: Robotics Hard: Hardware Medium: Consumer Software Easy: B2B SaaS
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Solar punk
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We design the autonomy algorithm of the pod to be "shy". We love excited kids, but pods prefer to have a little bit of space 😎
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