Good morning.

Where are my besties? They are not here.

What does that mean?

Science corner.

I have a guest host because my besties

abandoned me for Science Corner. Let's

see who it is.

>> Leo, you're one of the fastest growing

channels on YouTube right now.

>> Former box journalist that left to go

independent on YouTube. She went from 0

to 5 million subscribers in just 3

years.

>> I don't know many other YouTube creators

who are going to go to those lengths.

>> There's a lot of very lucrative

fear-mongering going on. That's why I

want to bring a more optimistic point of

view into the conversation to help

people imagine what could go right.

That's why I went independent.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

Cleo Abram.

[Music]

Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for being

here.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> Grab a seat. You were here all day

yesterday.

>> Yeah.

>> How was it?

>> Having a great time. This is my first

All-In Summit. I'm so excited to be

here.

>> Welcome. So, Cleo, you have 6 million

subscribers on your YouTube channel. We

have under a million. Thank you for

having us on your show.

>> Welcome.

How did you do it? What happened? So,

you you were at Vox before.

>> I was. Yeah.

>> And you were an independent director. I

mean, you were doing other projects.

Tell us how you set up this channel on

YouTube, why you did it, and how did it

get so big so fast?

>> Yeah. Huge if True seems to me to be a

bit of a microcosm of this big shift

that we're in with media generally right

now. I was at a media company um and

making what we call explainer

journalism. So taking complicated issues

and making them understandable both to

me and to millions of people. And I went

independent to start this show because

there was something that I felt like I

was missing when I looked out into my

media diet. I really wanted to find a

show that was optimistic that helped me

see where were the people that are

working on hard problems, making them

better every day in a way that I could

understand and I could participate in.

So, I left the media company where I

was, started this show, and had the

opportunity because of what YouTube

offers to reach a global audience very

quickly and find out, oh my god, I'm not

alone. Oh my god, there are millions of

people that also want this kind of show.

And YouTube made that bet that if you

allow anyone to create their best

creative work, the most the widest

audience will watch. And so YouTube has

become in the last 18 months, I think,

the most watched streaming platform on

televisions. So, we're in the middle of

this big moment of change in media and

how media gets made. Um, and I I don't

think most people know that it's really

happening. They know that YouTube shows

can get big, but they don't really

understand this shift that we're in. And

by the way, the shift is also very

exciting for streamers because they're

looking at this and they're saying, you

know, a Netflix of the world, I used to

make a Netflix show as well, can look at

this incredible new wealth of creativity

and IP and say, "Oh my god, who do we

want to work with to give, you know,

upfront

capital to make something that's even

bigger?"

something you and I have talked about

because if you're on Netflix today and

we're going to talk with Neil and Ari

today,

>> you can if you're an independent

director, you go to Netflix, they're

like, "Okay, we'll pay for your

production cost plus 10%." And it's like

quite different than what it used to be

like when you made friends, you could

make the show and then you could

eventually make like a VC. Like you can

make hundreds of millions of dollars if

it worked out and it became a a massive

show, but you're basically capped at

Netflix. But YouTube's quite different.

So there seems to be a financial or

economic incentive both creative freedom

but also this economic incentive to go

to YouTube. But then how does financing

happen? Like where can creators drive

the engine to fund and create new

content?

>> Well, most YouTubers have adfunded

businesses. And so what that requires is

you go out on your own as we did with

huge if true. We went independent. We

started this show. the show grows and

then you are able to get sponsors who in

turn fund better and better work and it

continues to scale. Um, the traditional

model of paying upfront for a show that

then the streamer owns offers something

very different and I think we're in an

interesting flexible moment of change

right now where a Netflix might say,

"Wow, we see a really exciting show on

YouTube. we want to allow that creator

to make something that is a version of

that IP that is bigger and we'll invest

in that upfront. And so what I think

we're seeing is for the same creator and

the same kind of IP, you can have a

really wonderful relationship between

the kind of show that you can make when

you can reach global audiences

immediately

>> and grow and see how far you can take it

with an advertising model. And then at

the same time, you might be able to take

that gem of an idea and say, "What would

I do if I had upfront capital?" So, I

think there's a really interesting way

in which these things all work together.

And some of the headlines make it seem

as as though this is, you know, an

antagonistic moment in media. I think

it's really great for everybody. I think

it's a really, really exciting. I'm also

the optimist, so of course I'm going to

say that.

>> Yeah. But I'm I'm actually curious to

hear what Neil thinks at YouTube. I know

you know him

>> because it opens up a window I think

right now for YouTube to suck up some of

the best content creators in the world

from the more traditional platforms

broadcast and streaming.

>> Yeah, it goes both ways.

>> Yeah. But so just talking about your

show um your show is so great because it

it really meets what I always say is

missing in media today, which is we've

got this deep sort of technimism.

Everyone thinks that technology always

has a catch. There's always something

bad emerging. Robots are going to kill

us all. AI is going to wipe out human

civilization. Nuclear power is going to

melt down and destroy neighborhoods.

Every point of technology has some

negative angle, but then that becomes

the cycle. You watch all the shows on

Netflix, you watch all the movies, Aaron

Brochovich, like the the ones that work,

the ones that seem to resonate, which

means that's what people truly kind of

want are the ones that talk about things

gone wrong. But your show is quite

different. And you talk about what if

things go right. Why do you think that

is resonating? And are we changing or is

it are you kind of capturing a a small

audience and the bigger one still sort

of technopessimistic?

>> Well, the best thing by far about making

this show is realizing that there are

millions of people out there that also

want that same kind of work. I mean, you

see it with Science Corner in so many

ways those are very similar in tone. And

I think from from my perspective when I

when I started this show, I really was

looking for a part of my media diet that

I wasn't getting anywhere else. And

that's what makes making something

yourself on YouTube so special. You're

creating something asking are there

millions of people out there like me?

And and the answer turns out to be yes.

With respect to optimistic science and

tech content specifically the reason why

I make it in the first place. We spend

months on these episodes. We travel all

around the world. We invest a huge

amount in the animations and the

technical explainers so that you can

understand without any background at all

quantum computing and the impacts

supersonic planes and how we're trying

to bring them back. Uh I was in a

zeroravity plane the other day trying to

explain the cutting edge of of gravity

research and theoretical physics. These

are things that millions of people can

understand if you explain them in the

right kinds of ways. And that's what we

try and do every day. And the reason why

we do that is because we genuinely

believe that when people see those

better futures, they'll help build them.

That's what I want to do. I'm not an

engineer. I'm not a scientist. I look

out at the world and I think, "Wow,

there are so many people working on hard

problems. I want to know how I can

participate." And so my hope is that's

what we're doing every day.

>> We used to have that after World War II.

>> I always tell people like uh the

Disneyland opened up in 1955. There's a

YouTube video called the Disney History

Institute. It's the channel and it shows

like what Tomorrowland was like when you

when Disney opened in 1955 and it was

all about like we're building this

better world with all of these crazy

technologies. Rockets to the moon,

plastic so we could all have cheap

furniture. Like there were all these

there was a crazy device that they had

in the kitchen called the microwave

where you could cook in 30 seconds so

you wouldn't have to like sit around and

cook for hours. But we've lost that. Um,

and I really hope that your content

resonates with more people and that we

get there again. So, Cleo's going to

join me this morning for two really fun

panels that we're going to have. Um, and

we're going to kick it off now.

We used to look up in the sky and wonder

at our place in the stars.

How thrilling must it be to truly

discover something or understand

something that no human on earth has

ever seen or understood? He was a member

of both the supernova cosmology project

and the high supernova search team to

discover that the universe is

accelerating. A leader in all of these

undertakings.

>> That's one of the big questions of

cosmology.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome

Alex Filipeno.

Wow.

Wow. This is so fantastic to see you all

here. Good morning, David. Uh, thank you

for inviting me to Science Corner. It's

such a pleasure. Most of you probably

don't know that in fact David was a

student of mine at UC Berkeley 28 years

ago and became an astrophysics major. In

fact, you know, so I feel like I had

some influence on him. I'll take some

credit. Uh, you know, uh, as Joe Sai

said yesterday, teachers want their

students to become more successful, to

become better than they are. Uh, and I

always knew that David would be very

successful in his career, but I didn't

know that he'd be quite this successful.

So, good good job, David. You know, I'd

also like to uh Yeah,

I'd also like to officially acknowledge

California's 175th birthday today,

California admission day. Uh so, yep, we

were told that yesterday and I looked it

up and it's true. So, you know,

California is be is beginning its uh

176th orbit around the sun. May may may

it be revolutionary, so to speak. Right.

Get it? Get it? Okay. Uh,

okay. Well, it's my pleasure to be uh

speaking today about the James Web Space

Telescope as just one example of an

amazing mission where humans are

pursuing science and exploring the

universe. It's an amazing device and uh

it's already brought us so many

interesting results. Now, it was

launched on Christmas Day 2021 aboard an

Aryan 5 rocket and it's a wonderful

example of how international

collaboration and cooperation in this

case between the US, Europe, and Canada,

can lead to incredible achievements in

very complex projects.

There are many comparisons with NASA and

issa's Hubble Space Telescope, which has

been serving us well for over three

decades. The primary one is that the web

has a much bigger mirror. And a mirror

can be thought of as a gigantic eyeball,

a collecting area that brings together

faint starlight from distant parts of

the universe. And so the bigger the

collecting area, the fainter the object

you can see. And web has six times the

collecting area of Hubble. So it's a

more powerful telescope.

Fundamentally, the web was designed to

explore our origins. Where did we come

from? How are we evolving? What's going

to happen far far in the future? How do

galaxies like the Milky Way galaxy form?

And how do they evolve with time? Now,

we know now that many galaxies merge

together like the group that you're

seeing here in a beautiful web image. By

the way, to the lower right of the word

time there, there's a star with a a

bunch of spikes. Ignore the spikes.

They're not beautiful. They're ugly,

okay? They're just a consequence of the

interaction of light with the telescope.

So, ignore the spikes. But here are a

bunch of merging galaxies. Now, the

first image NASA released publicly a

little over three years ago was of a

tiny part of the sky. Imagine a grain of

sand held at arms length. Imagine how

small that looks. Yet in that tiny patch

of the sky, there are thousands of

galaxies. These fuzzy things you see out

there, you can count them if you're if

you're interested. Over the whole sky,

we can see about a trillion galaxies, a

million million galaxies.

And some of them we see forming just a

few hundred million years after the

explosive birth of the universe, the

so-called big bang. And one of the

interesting aspects of this image is

that galaxies started forming and

evolving earlier than expected. And so

we're working on that interesting puzzle

right now.

How do stars like our sun form? Well,

they form in stellar nurseries. Giant

clouds of gas and dust. Fine little

particles that collect up as a result of

gravity. and the central densest regions

collapse and and form these stars. But

they're hidden from view when looked at

with most telescopes because we can't

peer through the dust. The web looking

at infrared wavelengths, heat

wavelengths is able to peer inside and

see newly formed stars and stars that

are still forming. We can also look at

discs of gas and dust around newly

forming stars. This is essentially the

mechanism by which our solar system

formed about 4 and a half billion years

ago. Debris around the newly formed sun

that collected gradually to form bigger

and bigger objects, planets.

All right. How about the death of stars?

This is a snapshot, a preview of the

sun's future in about 7 billion years

when the outer atmosphere will start

getting gently ejected off, leaving a

hot dying star in the middle that makes

the gases glow. The star, the fainter of

the two that you see there, looks faint

because there's dust, fine little

particles that have formed in the

ejected gases. These particles consist

of elements heavier than hydrogen and

helium that were cooked up in the

nuclear furnace of the star during its

life. These dust particles can later

form new stars, planets, and ultimately

life. And to get most of the heavy

elements, you need the explosions, the

cataclysmic disruptions of certain

varieties of stars at the end of their

lives. our sun won't explode in this

titanic way, but some do. And here's one

that we started studying about 40 years

ago. Analysis of the web data shows the

kinds of elements of which we are made.

The calcium in our bones, the phosphorus

in our DNA, the oxygen that we breathe,

the carbon in our cells, the iron in our

red blood cells. These elements were

created through nuclear reactions in

stars billions of years ago. And humans

understand that is that cosmic or what?

As Carl Sean used to say, we are made of

star stuff.

We can move closer to home and image

planets in our own solar system like

Neptune here with its moons and rings.

And those bright spots on Neptune are a

storm which has been developing. And so

you can monitor planetary storms and

come to a better understanding of

climate on Earth.

We can move to other stars and search

for planets orbiting them. So-called

exoplanets.

It turns out that nearly every star you

see in the sky has a collection of

planets around it. They're just really

hard to see here. To see it, the web

telescope had to place a disc in front

of the star where that little

five-pointed thing is in the circle,

revealing the exoplanet orbiting it. And

the hope is that through studies of the

atmospheres of these exoplanets, we will

find places where life could have arisen

and maybe even did arise independently

of life on Earth. And we don't have such

evidence yet. But once we do have

compelling evidence for life elsewhere,

it'll be one of the most monumental

discoveries in all of humanity.

Well, you could say this is all very

interesting, intellectually titillating,

but so what? Why spend national funds on

pure research of this type, not applied

research that will lead in the short

term to new gizmos, pacemakers, and

iPhones and things like that? Why should

we pursue this kind of research with

taxpayer money? It's a legitimate

question. Okay. So, let me give you

three reasons. The first is that of all

known animals, humans are the only ones

with the curiosity to ask complex

questions, abstract questions, questions

about their very origins. And we have

the intellectual capability to pursue

answers to those questions and the hands

with the posible thumb with which to

build machines like telescopes and

particle colliders to help us answer

those questions. If some subset of

humanity were to not do this, we would

be selling ourselves short as homo

sapiens. Now, you don't need many of us,

but it's good to have some. The second

point is that astronomy is a gateway

science. It's like the bug that bites

kids and gets them interested in STEM

fields. Most won't go on to become

astrophysicists. Okay? Again, that's an

okay thing. But they'll be more

motivated to pursue fields of science

and technology which will lead them to

careers that are more immediately

beneficial to society. computer science,

engineering, medical physics, applied

physics, those sorts of things. I see

this all the time as a board member of

the Shabbo Space and Science Center and

also at Lick Observatory in the hills

east of Silicon Valley where I conduct

much of my research and public outreach.

Kids love this stuff. Just like I and

some of my friends were inspired in our

youth by the American lunar landings.

What an amazing accomplishment that was.

We are on the moon. Wouldn't it be great

to contribute to this grand enterprise

and go boldly where no one has gone

before? It's just an an incredibly

inspiring uh moment and

the Hubble and web and things like that

are providing that moment for kids now.

And then there are the technological

spin-offs and unanticipated applications

like quantum physics for the latter.

Over a century ago, there were two

outstanding questions in physics. What

is the nature of light? And why are

atoms stable? And you could say, well,

as long as we know how to make light

bulbs and as long as the floor doesn't

collapse underneath me, who cares what

light really is and why atoms are

stable? You don't need to know, do you?

Well, physicists over a century ago like

Einstein, Schroinger, Heisenberg, Boore,

Plunk, they cared about the workings of

nature simply to satisfy their

curiosity.

No practical applications immediately in

sight. Fast forward a century, you

couldn't imagine today's world without

an understanding of quantum physics. One

example, lasers, a 13.5 billion dollar

industry in the US with innumerable

applications.

Computer chips. Moore's law with three

and even two nanometers per pixel. Now

we have the equivalent of half a billion

transistors on the head of a pin. That

is amazing. That's quantum mechanics,

folks. quantum quantum electronics. And

then specifically from something like

the web, lots of uh spin-offs, infrared

detectors, similar ones are now used in

medical imaging, night vision systems,

and environmental monitoring.

Cryogenetic engineering, you had to cool

down the telescope. This led to advances

in cooling systems now used in quantum

computing, uh superconducting

electronics, medical imaging, and so on.

And as just one other example in many

precision optics and materials segmented

goldcoated mirrors and deployment

mechanisms for the web led to

innovations in robotics metrology and u

high precision manufacturing. So those

are just some of the spin-offs from the

web itself. So I hope I've convinced you

that spending some small amount of money

on research of this type is exciting, is

important, extends our grand vision as

pioneers of the universe exploring our

origins. And to give you just a sense of

scale, over a 10 bill o over 10 years,

the $10 billion cost of the web was one

$6 hamburger per US taxpayer per year.

That's what you contributed to the web.

Thank you very much. I hope that you

feel it was worth it, okay, to give up

this one hamburger. Now, listen. Um, if

you're interested in this sort of stuff,

I give much longer talks with more

details to corporate groups and others.

Just contact me if you're interested.

Thank you so so much for being here.

[Music]

>> Thanks, Alex.

>> All right. Good to see you. Grab a seat.

So, Alex, you are one of the world's

greatest scientists and science

communicators. So, David and I have

prepared a set of rapid fire questions

for you.

>> I'll give rapid fire answers

>> based on what our audience might have

seen in headlines or might be

understanding and want to know more

about about not just James Webb but

generally.

>> Yes. I just gave one example of web

time. Yeah.

>> Mhm.

>> Yeah. So, one of the places I want to

start is searching for life on

exoplanets. I think many people might

understand that James Webb is doing that

but might not fully understand how and

what the implications might be. So as a

way to understand this if we were

looking at Earth from 100 light years

away.

>> Yeah.

>> What would we see and how would we

understand that as life?

>> Yeah. Yeah. So what you want to find is

some sort of chemical disequilibrium.

Now that sounds fancy but what do I

mean? In the case of the atmosphere of

Earth, the simultaneous presence of

oxygen and methane is very curious

because methane oxidizes. That is, it

reacts with oxygen very quickly. And so,

you wouldn't expect any methane in the

atmosphere unless there were some more

or less continuous source of that

methane. And although methane can be

produced through chemical means having

nothing to do with biology, it's also

produced by biology. uh you know Carl

Sean called it boine flatulence right uh

so it's the decay of uh of biological

organisms and so if we were to find that

in another exoplanet atmosphere that

wouldn't be absolutely definitive but it

would be sort of a a flash point wow we

better study that planet more because

that's one that could have life yeah

>> and we're seeing that

>> yeah we're beginning to see that we've

not seen methane and oxygen in any other

uh planetary atmosphere yet but Um uh

certainly there there are interesting

signs of of elements that are reported

by the web through these kinds of

atmospheric studies.

>> One of the other big discoveries with

the web was these early massive

galaxies.

>> Yeah. I mentioned the early massive

galaxies. Yeah.

>> And there was a paper that followed.

Yeah. You and I talked about this and

there's been a lot of social media and

nerdy YouTube videos. Yeah. about this

paper and the theory that these early

massive galaxies may actually disprove

the big bang theory by saying these

early massive galaxies are responsible

or account for what we see as what's

called the cosmic microwave background

radiation which may mean that the what

we assumed was coming from the early

universe from the big bang may actually

come from these galaxies and it's like

do we have it all wrong we may and these

papers are getting a lot of attention is

the b big big bang theory disproven

moving now with this discovery.

>> The the big bang theory is in on is on

very solid ground. There are many

details we don't understand. The basic

tenets, however, of the theory are just

three-fold. The universe long ago was

hot. It was dense and it was expanding.

Nothing in those studies

uh contradicts any of that. Uh as I

mentioned, the early formation of

galaxies is an interesting puzzle. It

means that our understanding of how

galaxies formed and evolved is still

incomplete. But that's part of the fun

of doing science. There's new things.

You know, the cosmic microwave

background radiation is the the

afterglow of the big bang. And it turns

out it uh agrees to very high precision

with a very single temperature. Meaning

that the universe everywhere was the

same temperature then expanded by the

same amount and we see see the same

temperature everywhere. There's no way

you can do that with galaxies forming at

a range of times and distances. They

would each contribute light that would

not give this so-called black body

thermal spectrum. And there are many

other details of the microwave

background, the spots and stuff that are

not at all addressed. So, a lot of these

theories, you know, as scientists, we

can dream up things and we just kind of

put them out there to be explored more.

But of course, the media likes to

highlight the the really snazzy sounding

things. And so sometimes, often the very

speculative ideas get way too much

attention. We're exploring them, but

they're probably wrong.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. Okay.

>> So, I don't need to throw out what I

learned in high school.

>> No, no. The Big Bang is on very solid

ground.

>> What about the theories coming out?

We've been talking a little bit about

this um on whether or not we are inside

a black hole.

>> Oh yeah. Are we inside a black hole?

Yeah. So a black hole is a region of

space where matter is compressed so much

that nothing not even light can escape.

And it turns out that in a sense our

universe, if you look at the total

amount of matter, dark matter and dark

energy and all that stuff, visible

matter in the volume out to which we can

see, okay, that has uh about the right

value to make the universe as a whole,

wh

it resembling a black hole, h

that would mean that our universe is

finite. We don't actually know whether

it's finite or infinite. We actually

only know that it's much bigger than

what we can see. And mathematically

there is some correspondence between the

equations governing a black hole and

those governing the universe. But there

are some important differences like a

black hole is a physical structure

within our four space-time dimensions

like right here. Whereas applying that

to the whole universe is um it's a

qualitatively different idea. But there

are some mathematical correspondences

that um that that are useful and

interesting. I personally doubt that we

are uh a a giant black hole. Some people

say it's actually a black hole that was

given birth

from another universe. And for that

there's really no evidence. Um,

>> but Alex, one of the the many things

that blows my mind about astrophysics

and cosmology, the further out we look,

the faster objects are moving away from

us

>> to a point that at a certain distance

from us, the objects in whatever

direction we look are moving away from

us at nearly the speed of light or even

faster. And so that becomes the

observational limit of our ability to

see or ultimately experience our

universe. That there's this boundary

that without crossing the speed of

light,

>> we will never get to and we will never

see what's beyond it.

>> Right?

>> That's our observable universe.

>> That feels pretty up.

>> Well, you know, space can become really

big. Okay. And in fact, you know, good

student, you asked me the right

question.

>> You need some help?

>> Ah, thank you very much, my assistant.

Okay, so I've got these galaxies here.

They don't expand, by the way. They're

held together by by gravity in in the

case of real galaxies, but then the hose

between them expands. So, let's expand

it here. Try not to aim at your eyes or

David's eyes. That would be very bad

lawsuits and stuff. But anyway, from the

perspective of our galaxy here, the the

more distant ones, you know, with each

bit of space expanding can and do go

away faster than the speed of light. And

Einstein wouldn't wrap me on the

knuckles for that. Einstein simply said

that no material object or no

information can travel through a

pre-existing space faster than light.

But space itself expanding, especially

if it expands exponentially, which we

think it did early on in its existence,

it grows faster than the speed of light,

and you get a truly humongous universe,

maybe even an infinite universe. And

yeah, most of it we can't see, but there

are other independent volumes out there

where we could be having this

conversation right now or or you could

not like what I said and punch me in the

face, but then I would respond by p

punching you in the face. In other

words, all these possibilities could

occur in these parallel observable

universes beyond the observable part

that we can see. And it's freaky, but

this is the kind of stuff we get to

think about. And I'll ask you the

question I asked you on the phone the

other day, which is there's mathematics

that shows that the geometry may be

inverses inside of a black hole or some

some some things are reversed or

inverse. What's the right term?

>> Right.

>> Therefore, is the expanding universe

that we see our version of being inside

of a black hole which is effectively an

accelerating contraction towards the

singularity.

>> Yeah. So um what David is referring to

is that if you look at the mathematics

of a black hole from our perspective,

what we call space and time outside

reverse their meaning. Um time becomes

space and space becomes time in terms of

directionality. So for example, if

you're in a black hole, there's no way

you can avoid the so-called singularity

where you get squished into nothing

because it's in your future no matter

what you do. Now applying that as you

wanted to do to the whole universe. I

don't think that the correspondence is

such that the expansion that we see is

the reversal effect of um this um going

toward the singularity because uh well

because of some technical issues. Again

if you look at the mathematics there are

some interesting correspondences but

they shouldn't be taken too too

literally in most cases.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. So the question I would be

wondering if I were in the audience

listening to we have a expanding

universe. It is uh potentially infinite.

My question would be so where is

everybody?

>> Yeah. So yeah where are they all the

fairmy paradox?

>> Is the great filter in front of us is

the question.

>> Yeah. I actually think the great filter

is in front of us. That's a an idea

where uh civilizations such as ours

rarely get past this point uh where they

can achieve interstellar travel easily

and stuff. Something happens either

intentionally or unintentionally or

through neglect they get destroyed. All

right. And uh I I I actually think that

first life at our level is very rare.

I'm not saying we're alone, okay? But

very rare. And the second punch of the

one-two punch is that there's almost

always a great filter. And so rarely do

civilizations reach interstellar

capability to the extent where they

colonize a galaxy. If it had happened

even once in our Milky Way, we would

easily see the aliens here. Not just the

sketchy UFO evidence, okay, that's been

presented. Doesn't reach the bar of

credibility and science, by the way. Uh,

but we would be the aliens more likely,

right? Because they would already have

colonized Earth and we would have been

the aliens. So, I think they're

>> makes sense to maybe not travel and just

transmit information back and forth and

maybe we just don't know how to see or

understand the information that's being

sent our way and we don't know how to

transmit it.

>> Yeah, certainly communication techniques

could be different. So, I I'm not saying

we know at all. And, you know, there

could even be this dark forest where

they're intentionally,

you know, uh not transmitting toward us

cuz they don't want us to know about

them. They're sort of maybe even

pursuing us and stuff going to kill us

before we kill them. Um these are all

possibilities you know but um I think

the most likely in my view is that the

what I said and also the vastness of

space means that we wouldn't be able to

communicate or or hear from um aliens

that were much farther away than you

know 100 or a thousand lighty years and

the galaxy is 100,000 light years in uh

space in in extent. So unless they

colonize the galaxy, if they're very

rare, we won't see them because the the

signals are too faint and they haven't

had a chance to to get here. You know, I

>> I want to give you an opportunity to

share with us uh what's going on with

respect to hiring graduate students and

funding research right now.

>> Yeah.

>> I've heard from lots of scientists uh

that NIH grants have been cut.

>> Yeah.

>> And it's affecting their ability to hire

and build out their labs and do some of

their research. are you seeing the same

today and maybe just give us a sense of

on the ground what's going on with

respect to what you're seeing in

funding.

>> Yeah. Uh the issue is a very serious

one. Um in a sense, you know, science is

is under attack to some degree,

intentionally or unintentionally, maybe

part of a a broader thing. Uh but it's

it's having an enormous effect. The

number of National Science Foundation

graduate fellowships, for example, was

cut in half this year. NASA funding has

been cut in half and I'm all for going

to the moon and Mars. But if all of the

remaining NASA funding goes toward those

ideals, then nothing will be left for

professors and their students and

postocs to analyze the great data that

the Hubble and Web and all that are are

giving us and and various space

telescopes are now in jeopardy of not

being launched. The Nancy Grace Roman

telescope and stuff. So graduate schools

are um now reluctant to to accept new

graduate students and to hire new

postocs because frankly we don't have

the funding with which to do so. And I'm

personally very worried about my own

research group. I'm not taking on any

new researchers until I personally can

fund my existing group. That's got to be

my my primary concern right now. and I

don't know how I'm going to do it, you

know, and others throughout my field and

even in a sense you could say more

immediately useful fields like NIH you

said, right? Cutting the funding there.

These are researchers who are going

doing things that are going to be good

for humanity soon, not these

unanticipated spin-offs. But the kind of

stuff I do should be supported as well.

>> Yeah. Well, um, you know, I was a

physics and math major. I don't know if

I would have gotten the math degree,

I'll be honest. But, um, I took Alex's

Astro 10 class cuz I was partying a

little bit too much that year and I'm

like, I got to take an easier class. I

heard it's a great 800 people in the

class. The most inspirational class I've

ever taken and every student that's

taken it says the same. And Alex became

nine times, 10 times, I don't know how

many times, the favorite professor at

Cal Berkeley. And I think you can all

understand why his contributions to

students and to science are profound.

So, please join me in thanking Alex.

>> Thank you. Thanks so much.

Regulators are now approving drone

deliveries.

>> There is one company that is huge in

this space. They're called Zipline.

>> Keller Renado Clifton is the co-founder

and CEO of Zipline, the world's largest

autonomous logistics and delivery

system.

>> We should get back to like building real

things in the real world.

>> What they've been showing is way more

advanced than anything from Google or

Amazon. What nerds are working on during

the weekends in their garages today are

what will be the giant companies of five

or 10 years from now.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Zip

Lines Keller Ronaldo Clifton.

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

Well, good morning everybody. So, David

was talking a little bit about

technesses. I hadn't heard that before,

but by a quick show of hands, how many

of you have read an article in the last

year about robots trying to kill you or

take your jobs?

Okay, so basically everybody, the cool

thing is today we get to talk about

robots that save lives. And I thought

it'd be cool to just take you back to

2016. Uh in in 2016, you know, we had

been our our backgrounds were in

automation and robotics. We had this

simple naive idea that it should be it

should be possible to build a new kind

of logistics system a fully automated

logistic system that would be 10 times

as fast half the cost and zero emission.

The first contract we signed was with

the government of Rwanda to deliver

blood transfusions primarily to moms

with postpartum hemorrhage um at about

21 different hospitals across the

country. And so I thought it'd be cool

to just show you this video. It's

actually a video I took on my iPhone. So

nothing nothing fancy but you can

actually see uh what we call zips that

this is the very first version of this

autonomous aircraft that we had built.

We were delivering using a really simple

paper parachute to a hospital called

Cubai which is in a rural part of

Rwanda. Here we were delivering I think

three units of packed red blood cells

and platelets. We could deliver to a

couple parking spaces um in a way that

was about 10 times as fast. Uh and you

can see the women in this in this video

are like what the hell did we just see?

which is funny. You know, I was taking

the video. I kind of looked up at them

and they were looking at me very

suspiciously. You know, we often try to

describe, it's a funny thing about what

we do. We try to describe uh what we're

going to do to either to doctors or to

nurses or hospital administrators and

they look at us like, you know, we're

completely crazy or on drugs.

You know, and so we have to do the first

delivery. Once we do that first

delivery, a doctor looked at me and

said, "It's as though Jesus Christ is

delivering blood from the sky." But

what's what's hilarious is that, you

know, you get about seven days the way,

you know, the way we work as humans, you

get about seven days of science fiction

amazement and then people are completely

bored of it. Like it's totally normal.

In fact, I had one nurse look at her

watch and then look at me and say, "It's

30 seconds late."

Which made me realize, you know, humans

go from science fiction to entitlement

in approximately 7 days, which is great.

That's what technology should do. you

know,

it should fade into the background like

let doctors and nurses do the work that

they were trained to do which is save

lives and logistics should just work.

That was always the vision. So, quick

tour of the distribution center. Uh, you

know, Zipline builds uh designs,

manufactures and operates these vehicles

completely from scratch. This is one of

our flight operators launching a zip.

Accelerates from zero

to about 100 km an hour in a third of a

second. From the moment the vehicle

leaves the end of that launcher, it's

fully autonomous. It will fly out up to

100 miles to make a delivery to a

hospital and then fly all the way back.

Why do we have to have a launcher like

that? Because we don't have runways,

obviously, and the vehicle has no

landing gear. So, taking off is one

thing. Landing is even a little bit more

complicated. We were inspired by

aircraft carriers. This vehicle, as it's

flying back,

We're aiming for a 1 centimeter tail

hook on the back of that aircraft. This

really only possible with autonomy and

you know robotic solutions that can be

far far more precise in controlling

these kinds of vehicles than humans. The

system at this point can recover an

aircraft about every 60 seconds and we

operate about 20 distribution centers uh

across eight countries. So people always

think like oh uh you know drone delivery

it's not really real. So I thought it'd

be cool to actually just show you a time

lapse. This is one of our distribution

centers. You can see it's 1:00 a.m. The

system operates 24/7, 365. They never

take a day off. It's, you know, 3:00

a.m. here. You're seeing fulfillment

operations where we're packing and

loading packages, getting them packed

into vehicles. Here you can see the

launcher and the recovery system with

like sunrise just happening in the back

at 5 or 6 a.m. Um, this is a second

distribution center, another fulfillment

center. And so this is all basically

both fulfillment centers across the

country of Rwanda, which is the smallest

country we operate in today. But the

cool thing is you can see that at 8 a.m.

every single one of these little

triangles on the map, this is what we

call the sky map, is an autonomous

aircraft going out making a life-saving

delivery of blood, vaccines,

transfusions, infusions, cancer

products, almost the entire public

healthcare supply chain. And by 10:00

a.m., there are 50 autonomous aircraft

out making deliveries simultaneously to

all of the 500 hospitals and health

facilities that we serve in the country.

So, I actually used to show this uh

video to investors and we would get to

the end of the presentation and they

would say, "Oh, I think my favorite

slide was that simulation of what this

could look like one day." And I got so

pissed off because it's like it's not a

simulation that happened yesterday. So,

we put we put the CCTV on the right hand

side so you can actually see the teams

doing this work so people understand

this is this is not like far future.

This is happening day in and day out in

a way that is saving lives.

And you know on that point it's not just

about making logistics more efficient.

It turns out that if you can deploy AI

and robotics infrastructure for

healthcare you can save a lot of lives.

The system has been able to reduce

maternal mortality as measured by the

University of Pennsylvania by 51% across

the hospitals we serve.

Had had you told us when we were

starting the company that we were going

to reduce maternal mortality by 5%. We

would have said hell yes we have to do

this. The a new study came out uh a

couple months ago actually showing a 60%

reduction in under five childhood

mortality due to malnutrition. One of

the new products we've begun delivering

in the last few years. And when this was

studied uh uh by a major global health

institution for the cost effectiveness

of delivering vaccine, it was found to

be the most cost effective way of

delivering vaccines to zero do children

ever studied. So, it turns out that, you

know, yeah, it's exciting.

People think about robotics as being

expensive or fancy or maybe solving

problems for rich people. It's not just

that. We can solve some of the most

important problems that we face as a

world. We can um we can make this

technology work for um for everybody.

So, you know, stepping back, Zip Lines

now surpassed 115 million commercial

autonomous miles. We serve about 5,000

hospitals and health facilities

globally, over 1.6 million deliveries

like that one you saw in that video. Um,

and zero safety incidents, which is

important, not just saving lives, but

safe for the communities that it serves.

It's actually become the largest

commercial autonomous system on Earth of

any kind, ground or air, based on those

flight miles. So, I now thought it'd be

kind of cool to just show you a bit

about how this technology is evolving,

how what we what we started doing in

2016 is evolving and into the next

generation technology and launching in

the US.

[Music]

[Music]

We play this.

[Music]

Wow, that was so cool.

>> We love the fun.

[Music]

So if you're like okay that's cool but

when can I use it? Uh the news is ve the

good news is very soon. So just to give

you a sense it's you know as we started

doing this focusing on healthcare

focusing on operating outside the US a

lot of the biggest brands in the US

started to get pretty excited and saying

hey we want teleportation from our

hospitals or our primary care facilities

or our stores or our restaurants

directly to customer homes. And so, not

only did a lot of the biggest health

care systems in the US um sign up to

start using Zipline, but we've also seen

these additional major verticals in food

and retail. Um we've been scaling

incredibly fast with Walmart over the

last 6 to9 months. We just launched

Chipotle along with a lot of other

amazing food partners over the last

month. I'll show you a little bit more

about what that looks like. One of the

kind of amazing things, you know, over

the last 3 months, the service has been

growing about uh between 20 and 30%

week-over- week. So it's more than

doubling flight volume every month. This

is a little bit startling. Uh we only

launched Dallas, which is kind of the

major metro we're scaling in in the US

right now in April. And uh by July, so

ju just just to give a sense the

customer behavior that we're seeing.

Customers are ordering three to four

times per week from Zipline. The service

has a net promoter score of 94. And I

was talking to a grandma a couple weeks

ago. Uh she's 78 years old. She's

ordered from Zipline 350 times in the

last nine months. We were we were doing

a little customer research and she's

showing me on her phone, you know, like

clicking around ordering everything she

needs for the day. She's double click,

you know, Face ID, Apple Pay. She's

like, "It's on its way. It'll be here in

8 minutes. This woman's living in the

future." But by by July, we were

actually sufficiently nervous about uh

you know, about the capacity of the

system. We we ended up turning off all

the demand generation marketing um

because we were trying to slow down

growth. So, you can see the impact that

turning off our marketing had on the

growth of the system.

which is approximately zero. And we were

trying to figure out why that is. And

basically, it just turns out that having

a robot deliver whatever you need to

your home in less than 10 minutes is

really good content for Tik Tok.

Um, a lot of our different customers

have been making tons and tons of Tik

Toks of of of receiving these deliveries

and a you know, a lot of these videos

have gone viral like they they get seen

8 10 12 million times. We're delivering

to universities, to offices, to hotels,

to town homes, to apartment buildings.

So, every time one person is getting a

delivery, there are 10 other people who

are like, "What the hell is that? And

how do I get it?"

Even cooler than that, uh, you know, as

we're launching new sites in Dallas, you

know, the first site that we launched in

April, it took us about two and a half

months to get to 100 deliveries a day,

which was kind of like the the, you

know, uh, break even point for the site.

Uh, the site that we launched two weeks

ago hit 100 deliveries a day in 5 days.

So, we're seeing the sites themselves

ramp way, way faster. And a big part of

that is that it's getting simpler and

simpler for us to build this

infrastructure. So, just for you to kind

of get a sense for what the

infrastructure looks like, you know, we

integrate right into the side of

hospitals, primary care facilities,

stores, restaurants, you basically can

just think of it like a magical portal.

Zipline is just building a magical

portal in the wall. And now any

healthcare worker or Walmart employee or

Chipotle employee can just pass whatever

they want through this magical portal

and it's teleported directly to the home

that it needs to go to. Um, we do this

uh for a lot of different kinds of

buildings. We also have what we call

zipping points. You can see there on the

bottom right. Zipping points can be

installed in 1 hour. So, if you're a

business and you want to access a

zipline, we show up, boop, drop a

zipping point. And now that business is

enabled with zipline, it can deliver in

this way. Just to give you a quick sense

for what this infrastructure looks like,

you know, we're now building these

sites. We're launching about one a week.

Um, by Q1 of next year, we expect to

accelerate to about one a day. But this

infrastructure is relatively quick to

build um and enables up to 500

deliveries a day from a site like this.

quickly. You know, one of the one of the

cool things is that customers are all

just using the Zipline app to order

these things. And when they are ordering

for the first time, you type in your

address. We actually show you a

satellite image of your home and you

tell us exactly where you want us to

deliver. You can pick the dinner plate

level area, whether it's in your

backyard, side of your house, your

parking lot, apartment buildings. We can

even deliver onto roofs. You can scroll

and see all the different brands that

are available on the app. Order whatever

you want. Um, and the average time of

delivery right now is 18 minutes. A lot

of deliveries happen in under 10

minutes. In fact, you know, we just

launched Chipotle 2 weeks ago. The first

delivery happened in under 7 minutes

from like the customer ordering to it

being delivered to their house. So, I I

think it's going to redefine what is

what is possible in terms of instant

delivery in people's minds. And just to

hint at something cool that we can't

announce just yet,

it, you know, we'll be adding a lot of

people's favorite brands to the service

very soon over the coming weeks. And you

know, I joked before, just last thought,

I had joked before about like this sense

of like science fiction to entitlement

in about 7 days. We do enjoy that

science that period of sci-fi amazement.

And you know, just to, you know, the

similar version of like Jesus Christ

delivering blood from the sky. It's

pretty cute to see families and and and

kids actually, you know, kids are

telling their parents like what do they

want to do for the weekend? They want to

go and watch the zipline, you know, the

zipline aircraft. And so we we do take

these pictures just when we're at the

sites of people like hanging out on the

hoods of their cars. Uh or, you know, a

mom with her kids sitting in her lap or

the kids like looking through the you

know, the window of the car just

watching the system operate. And that

brings me to my last kind of provocative

point, which is that,

you know, our parents had this

incredibly inspiring mission, right? The

United States was in the this

geopolitical race to get to the moon,

the space race, and it united all the

best engineers. It inspired us. It made

us dream with optimism about what the

future could represent. And we did

something impossible. We put men on the

moon in 9 years. Obviously, the US is in

a similar technological race today. It's

a race for AI and robotics. But what

does winning that race for the US really

mean? So I want to leave you all with

just a slightly provocative answer to

that question. But first, who knows what

city this is? Shout it out if you know.

>> Yes. Okay, good. There are nerds in the

audience. This is Wakanda. So Wakanda is

a fictional radically advanced uh

African city hiding in plain sight from

one of my favorite movies, Black

Panther. And the provocative idea is

that we can go build this in the real

world. Like I think that winning the AI

and robotics race for America isn't just

us building like exquisite AI technology

to serve, you know, the richest people

on the coast of this country. It's about

extending the reach and influence of the

United States. It's using AI and

robotics infrastructure to lift the rest

of the world up with us. Like these

countries want to be leaprogging into

the future. They want access to the best

technology that America has to offer.

And if we go and extend, we want these

countries building on US AI and robotics

infrastructure, not that of our

geopolitical adversaries. And if we can

do that, we can make the world a safer

place, a wealthier place. We could

potentially eliminate maternal mortality

and childhood mortality in a lot of

these countries. And in doing so, we can

secure US technological and

manufacturing leadership for the decade

to come. So, thank you all.

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

So, we want to do a little bit of time

travel with you today. We want to go

back to your origin story and then we

want to play it out into the Wakanda

future that you're imagining.

>> Cool.

>> So, taking it back to where you began,

why start in Rwanda?

>> Yeah. You know, it's funny. Everybody

makes this assumption that like the most

advanced technology in the world is

going to start in the United States and

then trickle its way out maybe to you

know and it'll start in the rich cities

right and then maybe it'll trickle

trickle its way to rural areas in the US

and then after years it might trickle

its way out to like developing

countries. I think that paradigm is

largely wrong and it has a lot to do

with you know which countries at least

over the last decade it had a lot to do

with which countries are hungry and

entrepreneurial and willing to move

super fast to build new kinds of

regulatory paradigms. Um, and Rwanda is

this, you know, it's kind of like the

Singapore of Africa. It moves incredibly

fast. It's very entrepreneurial. It's

kind of a startup country. And it it was

perfect for us to work with them. Um,

they wanted to take this risk on us when

we were 20 people. We were totally naive

nerds who had no idea what we were

talking about. In fact, I remember this

conversation with the Minister of Health

in 2016 where I was saying, "Oh, you

know, we're going to use autonomous

aircraft to deliver all the different

medical products in your health system."

And she looked at me and was like,

"Keller, shut up. Just do blood." And

she explained to me, you know, that 50%

of blood transfusions are going to moms

with postpartum hemorrhaging. 30% are

going toward kids with severe anemia due

to malaria. And she was like, just show

us that you can do that. And so it's

interesting like that was the best

advice the company ever received. And um

you know, we've really just been kind of

like following their lead for the last

eight years as we've developed the

technology from there.

>> The reduction in maternal mortality when

you showed that stat, I got goosebumps.

It's just incredible. Yeah. And by the

way, you know, I think a lot of times

people in the US think like, oh, you

know, those poor Africans like, uh, it

gets unbelievable that they have those

kinds of, you know, healthcare problems.

We have this exact same problems in the

US. You know, people in the audience may

not know, but, um, the US has the

highest rate of maternal mortality of

any developed country. Um, and you know,

rates for African-American women are

three times that, you know, the average.

I mean, we have a lot of challenges with

rural rural healthcare in this country.

So I I think honestly um people probably

think that these countries are more

different than they are. Almost every

health system is dealing with the same

kinds of challenges.

>> So you come to the United States, you

launch it here. Tell me about the first

period of launching in the US.

>> Yeah, we um we originally launched kind

of the the first version of the

technology, the fixedwing technology

that you could see in 2020. Um honestly,

it's it's shocking. I mean, we were

delivering like birthday cakes and

rotisserie chickens via just those like

paper parachutes. It's pretty unfancy,

but customers loved it. Um, they and and

this is kind of we were rapidly

iterating um to build something that we

thought would be like the future version

of logistics, which is ultimately

platform 2. It's the video I showed

today. And we we only launched platform

2 on January 15th. And then we really

only started scaling it in April or May.

So, this is all happening in real time.

A lot of those videos we showed were

just from yesterday or the day before.

What has it felt like?

>> Um, you know, it's stressful. Hardware

is incredibly hard. Um, you know, we

have been scaling a hardware product

while like the tariff craziness has been

going on through, you know, March and

April and May. Um, you know, building a

global supply chain. I mean, you know,

Zipline just put into perspective like

we designed the flight computer, all of

the avionics on the aircraft. We design

the aircraft itself, all the mechanical

um components, the primary structure and

then from a software perspective, it's

flight control algorithms, multi vehicle

deconliction, communications

architecture. We design, we we build

unmanned traffic management system that

we provide to the regulators like the

FAA and then we also design that app

that you saw which is our customer

ordering platform. So um you know all of

that and then you also have to figure

out supply chain and maintenance and

manufacturing and operations logistics

like all of it has to work for the end

customer to just have this magical

experience of like teleportation and um

you know I yeah there's no part of it

that doesn't feel desperate and

stressful as you're kind of scaling a

system at that level of of exponential

growth as you're launching in the US. Do

you have a sense, Keller? Are you going

to beat the unit cost to deliver with

delivery drivers today? And by how much?

Can you give us a sense on if I want

Chipotle, why would I go to the Zipline

ordering system or use Chipotle's app

and have Zipline kind of fulfill for me?

What's the cost difference going to be

percentage-wise, do you think, over

traditional food delivery?

>> Yeah. So I mean interestingly people may

not realize you know instant delivery

has grown incredibly fast like

especially through co but even before

there are now 5 12 billion instant

deliveries being done every year just in

the US and that's not like Amazon or UPS

that's just the instant deliveries and

we're using a 4,000 lb gas combustion

vehicle driven by a human to deliver

something to your home that weighs on

average 4 to 5 lb. So, you know, if

aliens were to land on the planet and

look at the way we're solving that

problem, they would conclude there's no

intelligent life on Earth. Like, this is

a bizarre solution. Um, I think, you

know, the reality is we have this new

demand and and the demand is vast.

People want things delivered quickly and

they want like to have more time with

their family rather than spending time

in traffic or like in a store. Um, but

we're using technology that's 100 years

old to solve that problem. So, I think

all you have to realize is that instead

of using a 4,000lb gas combustion

vehicle driven by a human, you should

use a 50 lb vehicle that is autonomous

and electric.

And that's kind of just reasoning from

like physics first principles. Like you

don't have to be, you know, a genius. As

soon as you've realized that, I think

you know something really fundamental

about the future that few people

actually understand. And so we think

it's it's very inevitable that um that

and by the way that if you were to just

extend the customer ordering behavior

that we see with um with our customers

today there would be 50 billion instant

deliveries happening in the US. Wow.

>> So this is kind of a

>> based on the order idea. Yeah. Basically

if you make the deliveries less

expensive 10 times as fast and just a

way better experience order a lot more.

Not that surprising. So, I think the the

reality is actually, you know, these

kinds of systems will yes, definitely be

less expensive than using a 4,000lb gas

combustion vehicle. Um, but I think more

importantly, the reason customers are

using them so much is it's just a way

better experience when you can have

something delivered in 7 minutes or 8

minutes or 12 minutes. Um,

>> does it need to be much cheaper?

>> Um, I think it will be naturally, but I

don't believe it needs to be. I mean,

it's the reason that like Whimo right

now is more expensive and people prefer

Whimo to to

>> What's the weight limit and then how

much of the market does that address?

>> Yeah. I mean, right now we the the

system is designed to deliver up to 8 lb

and 8 lb gets you like 95% of all

packages delivered by Amazon. I think

it's like 95% of food delivery orders.

So, suffice it to say, you're not going

to deliver flat screen TVs in this way

anytime soon, but the vast majority of

stuff actually fits and can be delivered

like this. So while this is all

happening, while zipline is exploding, I

think many Americans came to believe

that the the era of drone delivery had

somehow passed, that this wasn't a near

future that they were going to

experience. Why do you think that

misconception happened? And what should

all of the people in this audience go

out and say to the people who might ask

them what they've seen here?

>> Yeah. Well, it definitely didn't help

that the CEO of one of the largest

companies in the in the world went on 60

Minutes in 2013 and promised everybody

drone delivery in the next like, you

know, one or two years, right? Maybe

some of you guys saw that interview.

>> Who was it?

>> I don't even know what that interview

was.

>> Jeff from Amazon. Yeah. He was like

2013. He's like, "Oh, well, you know,

we'll be doing

Yeah. So, he I mean, they promised, you

know, they announced Amazon Prime and

they said by 2015, you know, it'll be

serving, you know, everybody in the US."

And um I think that that you know people

probably believed it right like and and

then I think people were really

disappointed when it didn't happen and

maybe you know similar trend that you

see hap happened with autonomous

vehicles you know autonomous cars which

is that like 2015 so many companies were

raising you know billions of dollars and

it was like right around the corner and

people could see it working for the

first time. But obviously it's a whole

decade later today that we actually now

see Whimo and robo taxi scaling

commercially. The reality is with these

kinds of technologies, I think you

always have like the bubble and and the

max hype and then you have the trough of

disillusionment and then you have the 8

to n years of the actual hard work of

making the technology work. And you

know, Zipline um launched in 2016. We've

spent 10 years driving the economics

down, driving the reliability up. You

you kind of saw that statistic of 115

million miles with zero safety

incidents. Um that's hard. It requires

time to get manufacturing technology uh

operations, maintenance right in a way

to achieve that. And um you know, but

the but the the good news is that uh I

think with with both autonomous cars and

with this technology, we're now you

know, we've now done the 10 years of

hard work and we now see it scaling in a

way that like just fundamentally

changing the way people live their

lives. I mean, when you when I talk to

that grandma or you like you talk to a

mom who's using Zipline every single

day, it's like they're getting hours

back a week to spend with their family

or their loved ones so they don't have

to spend stressing out about trying to

like get kids buckled into a car and

like drive to a car or and obviously

that's like, you know, that's that's the

retail use cases, let alone the

life-saving implications this has for

healthcare logistics.

>> What are the competitive barriers?

Google's had, I think, in X a drone

delivery. I don't know what the status

is. Amazon obviously has invested by the

way I thought it was like either Elon or

someone from Google or Jeff. Um and then

uh there have been a mtoan I think out

of China famously shown videos of

delivering food to the Great Wall with a

drone. How much advantage is Zipline

versus others and how quickly can they

catch up? Like help us understand how

hard the tech is? What did you have to

engineer to get the unit costs

advantages that you're having today and

how persistent will that be? I mean, you

know, I I think there are a lot of

people out there, you know, we saw over

the last 10 years so many companies or

teams, they would like buy a quadcopter

off the shelf and duct tape a Snickers

bar to the bottom of it and then

manually fly it a mile and they get

like, you know, Techrunch to write an

article about it and be like, "It's a

Kittyhawk moment. Drone delivery is

here." Um, and you know, we've seen that

like 50 times at this point. I think

people have kind of know that it's not

real. Um the you know the the trick is

designing a system that can operate 24/7

365 in a way that people can depend on

with their lives that works in all

weather that can be reliable and safe

and they can achieve hundreds of

millions or you know billions of

autonomous miles. um that's hard to do.

That takes time. And um you know, I

mean, Zipline uh has now spent a decade

scaling these systems. And and I think

the realization is there's no like

off-the-shelf hardware you can buy for

this because there's you can you can

look at like these cheap plastic

quadcopters that DJI makes refer to

China or you can look at like Predator

drones, but something in the middle

which is more automotive grade,

something that can do, for example, a

million miles just a single aircraft. um

that's hard and it kind of has to be

built from scratch. So we honestly don't

worry that I mean our competition is

motorcycles and cars. Like if we are

better than motorcycles and cars, I mean

I'm very confident someone is going to

build a multiundred billion dollar

company in automated logistics over the

next 5 to 10 years. Like it's so obvious

that this needs to exist. The demand is

like unbelievably vast. It's going to be

one of the biggest markets on earth. And

uh you know I think a lot of people are

excited about a lot of different kinds

of robotics but this is the area of

robotics that in my opinion is going to

scale the fastest and is like most ready

for prime time. You

>> want to talk about Wakanda?

>> I do. So just to jump ahead. Yeah.

>> If we were interviewing you here in 10

years you're back. What do you hope

you're saying about the impact of drone

delivery both on the golden billion but

also for everybody else? And to your

point earlier the relationship between

those two things and those two groups

might be closer than we think.

>> Yeah. the the thing that always really

inspired us, you know, you talk about

logistics. I mean, logistics is boring,

right? Like I mean, who wants to work in

logistics? It's incredibly boring. You

just do the same thing day after day,

just like doing the same deliveries. But

that's also what makes it great for

robotics and automation. And I think the

thing, the key thing to realize is the

golden billion that Cleo is talking

about, right? The richest billion people

on Earth. Like the go my assumption is

we're all in the golden billion. Like

our access to logistics is really good.

There are 7 billion people on earth who

are not in the golden billion whose

access either sucks or is non-existent.

And as a result of that, five and a half

million kids lose their lives every year

due to lack of access to basic medical

products. This is not like oh we have we

need some advanced therapy to it's like

no no we couldn't get them the basic

almost free drug that they needed to

save their life. You know we making

excuses for decades about why we can't

solve these problems. And so I think

like logistics is boring, but it's kind

of only boring when it's like working

well for you. And I think that, you

know, the the the thing that gets me so

excited about why does AI and robotics

matter? Why should we be applying it to

this industry? It's not just like make

people's lives better, give them new

kinds of economic opportunity, save them

time, you know, let them spend more time

with their kids. It's also because like

reducing the cost of logistics,

automating it, expanding it, um

improving the performance of these kinds

of systems is going to extend access to

logistics to 7 billion people on Earth

who don't have it today. And that is

going to save lives, increase economic

opportunity. I think it's going to make

the world a more stable place. And and

and so that's that's really our vision.

It's like um it's time to stop making

excuses. We should eliminate these

problems. And the thing that gets me

excited about, you know, you I mean I

know we're both kind of like solar punk

techno optimists, right? Um like that's

the future that I want to build that I

want to tell my kids about. And um you

know, if we can play a small part of it,

that would be a good life.

>> That's the future I think we all want to

be part of.

>> Amazing. Guys, please join me in

thanking Keller and Cleo. Did you guys

love Science Corner?

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