Delivering the future in drones with Keller Rinaudo Cliffton of Zipline

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2:08Welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So most people who live in cities have relatively easy access to emergency medicine, and most hospitals in cities can get the supplies they need quickly. But in rural areas with fewer roads or with challenging terrain, it's a different story. In some parts of the world, it can take an entire day to get medicine or blood plasma to a distant medical facility. So a few years ago, an entrepreneur named Keller Renato Clifton decided to take on this challenge. And he's doing it with drones. Drones that are delivering critical supplies to hospitals in remote areas around the world.

2:49But before Keller launched Zipline, he started another business called Remotive, a robotics business that would eventually pivot into drones. The company basically built an application on an iPhone that turned it into a mini robot. The more we saw smartphone scaling, the more we felt like, hey, a lot of the components and supply chains behind these phones are going to enable a new kind of robotics company to be built. And so we were asking ourselves, what would the Apple of robotics look like? Is there an opportunity here to build really the first global robotics company? And so we didn't have much money.

3:31You know, my co-founders and I, we were all unemployed, which is a, you know, great motivation for entrepreneurship. And we started building these little, we called them smartphone robots, and they literally used an iPhone as the brain of the robot. You would connect an iPhone to the robot and it could run around on the floor and do telepresence. And that was the first thing that we started selling as a company. And just to describe them for people who don't know what they look like, they're sort of like, it was like a translucent plastic platform with like a motorized track wheel on each side.

4:04So it sort of looks like a toy, but you would mount the iPhone vertically on it like you would do on one of those speakers that you find in hotel rooms. And that would essentially would turn into like a little robot with a smiley face. Yeah. On the screen, on the iPhone screen. Yeah, exactly. We started selling them. We didn't have product market fit figured out, I wouldn't say. It was half a toy, half a telepresence solution, half a way of teaching kids to program, I think we were circling around this intuition that it was a good time to be building a robotics company that knew things were possible.

4:41And also, we needed something that we could sell in a month or two because, again, we had no credibility, no investor was going to give us money. And so we needed to be able to build and sell a very simple product very fast if we wanted to keep the company alive. And so that was the very first thing that we ever built. All right. So the idea was to build this into something, of course, bigger. And I guess you got in touch with the late Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, who was on our show many years ago, an incredible person, incredible entrepreneur. But you had read his book and you got in touch with him.

5:16Why? Tell me the story. Tony was someone who super inspired me. When I graduated from college, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And frankly, school didn't do much to teach you about entrepreneurship. It wasn't even really – it was never clear to me that that was actually an option, like something that you can do. And when I read Delivering Happiness, Tony's book about building Zappos, it totally blew my mind. It was also inspiring because Tony had gone to the same school and, in fact, had lived in the same dorm that I lived in. And so he was just 10 years ahead of me. And so when I was in Las Vegas, I emailed him and said, hey, I'm here.

5:52I am deeply inspired by your book and we're building this robotics company and I want to meet. And I think this is one of the things that's special about Tony and maybe also just special about certain circles of technology and entrepreneurs, which is someone like Tony was happy to meet me even though I was a nobody. He was so impressed with these robot iPhones or these iPhones mounted on these robotic platforms like instantly when you showed it to him? I don't know if anybody could have been that impressed by what we were building. It wasn't very impressive on its face, I don't think. Perhaps, you know, I think maybe he believed more in us.

6:31We were very nerdy. We were very hopeful. We were certainly very naive. So I think maybe he was interested in the bigger vision of trying to build a new kind of robotics company and he was willing to take a bet on three nerds who had no credibility and no money. He made it an investment and you guys, as you say, you set up shop in Las Vegas. And the project lasted I think a little over – about three years. and I guess you sort of wound it down. What happened? Did you come to sort of a, I mean, did you come to a realization that maybe this wasn't going to work? That exact same company is what became Zipline.

7:17So we actually, you know, we didn't necessarily wind it down. We did kind of, over the course of a year, we realized that, you know, building a new kind of robotics company meant that we had to focus on a really big, big, bold vision. And I also kind of realized we did not want to focus on operating in the home. We wanted to focus on a more controlled environment and something where automation would just be a more natural fit. And that's sort of the reason we became obsessed with logistics. But the crazy thing is that that same company that Tony invested in 12 years later has now become Zipline.

7:51Yeah. So, all right. So initially it started out as like, let's use the iPhone to be the brains of a little toy robot. But what I mean, you sort of came to this, this realization that maybe you need to focus on something like, as you say, like logistics, something that that could have a larger impact and where there could be a bigger market. And when you were thinking of logistics, were you initially thinking, maybe we can create robots that can deliver things or that can work in a warehouse or something like that? I think there were a couple aha moments. One is that I met a guy named Mick who had founded a company called Kiva.

8:31And probably most people won't know what Kiva Robotics, but they had just been acquired by Amazon. And they built these amazing orange robots that could run around inside a warehouse and basically go to a shelf, pick up the shelf, and then bring it to a human packer to pack something into a box. And if you saw one of those warehouses, you would see all of these autonomous orange robots just running all over the place, moving things. And I remember seeing that thinking, wow, what an incredible company. And somebody is going to build that for outside the warehouse. And whoever builds that, I just remember thinking that is going to be a world-changing company.

9:08All right. So it's round 2014, and you're kind of trying to figure out what can I do in this area of logistics. you know that you sort of have some experience with robotics. How did you get to drones, to aircraft? I mean, our backgrounds when we started building Zipline were already in automation, robotics, and autonomy. Yeah. We had this sense that it was probably going to be possible to build an automated instant logistics system for the planet, but there were so many things standing in our way. And to be honest, like every expert that we spoke to told us that this idea was stupid. It was never going to work.

9:48We were wasting our time. What was the idea that you would talk to people about? We had this sense that if you wanted to deliver something very quickly over a distance of anywhere from, say, 10 to 50 miles, you wanted to do that with a vehicle that was 10 times as fast as traditional logistics, half the cost, and zero emission. And so we had a sense, just reasoning from first principles, that what you really needed was a vehicle that was electric, that was autonomous that weighed more like 50 pounds rather than 4 ,000 pounds. And if we wanted to go really fast, we knew we probably needed to fly rather than drive.

10:23Wow. So you're thinking like a Jetson's world. I had grown up reading all of this great kind of hopeful optimistic science fiction. And the funny thing is, you know, this is totally normal in most science fiction books. And so I think I had this sense that if technology had advanced to a point where we thought it was possible to build this product, we were pretty confident that it was something that people would want. So you guys start to do the research into the world of logistics. And presumably, you spent quite a lot of time just digging into this world for a while to figure out where you could kind of get in, where you could sort of start to work on something.

10:57I mean, it's totally fair. When we started building this, our backgrounds were not in healthcare. They were not in aerospace. And we didn't even know that much about logistics. So A lot of investors who are looking at us or even experts were saying, what do you guys know about this space? You're totally clueless. You don't know what you're talking about. The reality is I think the one thing that I had experience is that graduating from school, I had been rock climbing full time for nine months and got a chance to travel to a lot of different countries in the world. I had seen, I at least had this sense that logistics, the kind of logistics that we take for granted in the United States is not broadly available globally.

11:38And I think that that was a kind of important insight. It was that logistics does a good job of serving the golden billion people on earth. But for the 7 billion people who don't fall into that category, your access either sucks or is non-existent. And we've been pretending for 100 years like this problem is somehow excusable or unavoidable. And we felt like it was not either of those things. But how did you come across that information? I mean, obviously, it's available to know, but where did you first hear about this issue? I was spending some time, you know, in 2013, we were already starting to think, okay, if we're going to build a new kind of logistic system, we're going to need to find a public healthcare system we can integrate with.

12:19So that already meant we needed to be looking outside the US. We were focused on countries where we thought this sort of technology would have a really outsized impact in terms of healthcare access. And so I was in Tanzania. And I actually met a researcher in Tanzania who had built this really cool early warning alert system using cell phones, unsurprisingly. And so he had several hundred primary care facilities and hospitals using the system. Each of them had a cell phone. And they would text into a database when they had a patient who was having a medical emergency and needed something specific in order to save their lives.

12:56And so he had this real-time database of all of the medical emergencies that were occurring across these 300 health facilities and hospitals. And I remember seeing that database and realizing that it was basically a database of death because half of the system had been built. But they were receiving all of these emergency requests. And it was like, OK, thanks for letting us know. Good luck. and there was no other half of the system that could deliver what was needed quickly. So these network solutions had advanced to the point where we have the information we need. We know that there is a medical emergency occurring and we know exactly the product that is needed to save that person's life.

13:38But logistics has not advanced enough to actually solve the problem. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, how Keller shifted from rolling iPhones to flying couriers. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This Lab.

13:59One of the coolest things I did last summer was take my family to Athens, where we saw the Parthenon and the Agora and all those amazing neighborhoods and ancient historical sites. And one of the things that made it so awesome was the home we booked on Airbnb. We literally had a view of the Parthenon from our bedroom window. There was a hot tub on the top floor. We could sit in it overlooking the entire city. And we had a kitchen and access to markets. And we were in walking distance from all of the things you would want to see. It made the trip so, so amazing. And when you take your own vacation, that's actually a great time to host your home on Airbnb.

14:38Your place with your cool art collection and your handy kitchen gadgets. It might just be what someone else needs to feel right at home on their next trip. Plus, your earnings from hosting provide you with another income stream and could even help offset the cost of your next trip. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. You know, one of the most surprising things about how I built this is just how many pitches we get every year. Tens of thousands of businesses reach out hoping to tell their story. Now, while we do try to read most of those pitches, we can't possibly read all, but we choose most of our guests through our own deep research.

15:21And that means my team and I spend hundreds of hours digging into companies, what they make, who's behind them, and whether their journey can inspire you. And that's exactly where Claude has become such an incredible thinking partner in my creative process. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough, the thinking partner that works with you to explore the things that fascinate you. Whether you're researching late-night curiosity spirals or working through complex creative challenges, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems together. For example, imagine I'm about to sit down with the founder of a snack company.

15:58I'll want to know what products they've released, how they've evolved, and which competitors they're up against. In the past, it could take hours to track down reliable details. We'd search articles, databases, reports. Now, Claude can give me a clear answer in seconds, and then I can decide what to dig into further. It doesn't replace my process, but it sharpens it. And that means I can spend more time doing what I love most, focusing on the human stories, the lessons, the decisions, and the struggles behind the businesses you hear on this show. Experience what collaborative thinking feels like at claude.ai.hibt and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.

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18:16Welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. My guest today is Keller Renato Clifton, And the co-founder and CEO of Zipline, it's a company that uses drones to deliver medical supplies and other consumer goods on demand. All right. So before the break, you had talked about how, you know, because the infrastructure challenges, getting medical supplies to rural hospitals in Tanzania is obviously a huge challenge. And it's interesting because it's a similar story in Africa with cell phones, right? Like a lot of people didn't have access to telephones because there weren't telephone lines installed all over the country.

18:51And then all of a sudden cell phones come and they essentially solve that problem. And so sort of a similar idea, right, which is the infrastructure of roads aren't there. But you knew that if you could somehow fly, you could basically bypass that problem. Exactly. And that kind of infrastructure is often referred to as leapfrogging infrastructure. You know, the first people who said that they were going to build cell phone networks in Africa were widely called idiots. People thought that was totally unrealistic because landlines hadn't really succeeded in taking off in Africa. Right. And obviously now, you know, a lot of the countries we operate in have better cell service than the United States does.

19:31You've seen this incredible leapfrogging technology where you sort of get the technology, the use case right, and it can actually grow in these developing economies faster than anybody really appreciated. Let's now sort of break down how you did this because you land on this idea. There are a lot of things you've got to do. You've got to find a country with a regulatory environment that is willing to work with you to allow you to fly these drones and deliver medication. The other thing is you've got to build the planes. You've got to build the infrastructure, the hardware to create these safe, autonomous planes that can, I guess, drop a parachute of medical supplies.

20:13So let's start with that. How did you start to develop the technology? I mean, drone technology was around, has been around for a while. So did you start with off-the-shelf equipment? When we initially had this idea, we started talking to a lot of different customers to try to figure out what exactly did this need to do? Like what was the actual problem we were defining and what needed to be the specifications of the thing that we were going to go build? We started to understand that if you could deliver something really quickly over a range of, say, 80 to 100 kilometers, so 50 plus miles, that could have a massive impact.

20:50impact. We would be able to serve hundreds of hospitals and health facilities from a single distribution center. You could keep more medicine centralized. You could send things just when it was needed. It would save a lot of lives. This is what we were hearing. And so we started building the first product in 2013. By 2015, we were flying nonstop at our test facility, which was in Half Moon Bay. And around that time, we were about 15 people. I started spending a lot of time talking to governments trying to find someone who would be our first customer. And that was when we ended up having this conversation with the government of Rwanda.

21:23And I actually remember, you know, in that conversation, we were saying, hey, we have this cool technology, we can do teleportation to any hospital or health facility, we can deliver any medical product to any hospital or health facility instantly. And I remember the Minister of Health looking at us at the time, and she basically looked at us like we were goofballs and said, look, shut up, just do blood. And as she was explaining it to us, she was someone who was a true expert in running this kind of national health care system. And she was explaining that blood transfusions, 50 % of them are going toward moms with postpartum hemorrhaging.

21:5930 % are going toward kids. It's a total logistics nightmare because you have packed red blood cells, platelets, plasma. Each of those has different shelf lives and different storage requirements. Plus you have all the different types of blood, A, B, A, B, and O. So getting the right thing to the right place at the right time to save someone's life was really hard and there was a lot of waste in the system. And this was a product that was absolutely crucial for family health. And so she ended up saying, look, just here, deliver blood to these 21 hospitals and prove that it can be done. And so we ended up signing a$200 ,000 contract with the government of Rwanda to deliver blood to those 21 hospitals.

22:34And that was how we got started. Wow. And why Rwanda? I mean, I'm just curious. I mean, probably a lot of people are like, Rwanda, huh? But actually, Rwanda is quite innovative around taking risks like this and trying new things, right? A lot of people may find it surprising, but the reality is Rwanda, you know, has really modeled itself on Singapore. It is a small, highly efficient, technocratic, fast-moving, innovative country in East Africa and, you know, run by a lot of very visionary leaders who believe in technology. And, you know, they often talk about being a proof-of-concept country. They want to be the first adopter of new technologies and show how it works and then, let other countries follow in their footsteps.

23:17And so they're unique for a lot of reasons. I also have to say, when we were signing that initial contract, when we were launching during that first year, we would be on constant calls with executives and government leaders Saturday, Sunday, Sunday early morning, Sunday late at night. And I just remember thinking, no US government official would be talking to us at this time. I think that by virtue of what that country has been through over the last 30 years, it is extraordinarily entrepreneurial and willing to work hard to move the country forward. All right. So initially, the idea is let's figure out a way to get medical supplies to people in rural parts of Rwanda and eventually will expand beyond Rwanda.

24:01But really, you start with blood, blood supplies, right? And blood has to be refrigerated, right? It has to be kept at a certain temperature. It has to be delivered fairly quickly. You could do all of these things in the plane, right? Well, we thought we could. Okay. But? We were wrong. I mean, I joke because we were very naive when we were launching in 2016 in Rwanda. We thought that we had a system that was going to be reliable. We thought we had it figured out. We thought we knew how to integrate with a national health care system. We thought we knew how to work with a national airspace regulator.

24:44We were basically wrong about all those things. We had no idea what we were doing. Honestly, it reminds me, I saw this flag in a gymnasium recently. It's like a big flag, you know, like an inspirational flag. And the slogan on it is, we do this not because it is easy, but because we thought that it would be easy. And when I saw it, I was like, this is a perfect description of Zipline in 2017. know, like full of optimism thinking that we had this figured out. We had signed this contract to deliver just blood, right, a very narrow part of the overall healthcare system to just 21 hospitals. And we thought, oh, that's great.

25:20We'll just knock that out and then we can expand to other things. But for the first nine months, we only served one hospital because everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We were really struggling to get the system to work reliably. The technology wasn't as reliable as we thought it would be. We didn't have a lot of the integrating software that we needed to really make the system integrate with the overall health system built. So we had to be building that. And the team was pulling constant all-nighters working through the weekend. I mean, it was a really painful time, and it was not clear that the company was going to survive those nine months.