Josh Ober

Today, Zipline raised $1.5b at a $21.5b valuation. When we started Zipline, flying autonomously in the US was illegal. Which made it really hard to convince investors to give us money! But we were too naive to think that meant we shouldn’t try. We started the company on a cow farm. We worked out of run-down construction trailers so that we could keep engineering, manufacturing, and flight test all unified and in one place. Hiring people from normal companies like Google was hard because we didn’t have a cafe or laundry service. But enough risk takers and rebels wanted to go on an insane adventure with us. They became the early team. We decided to launch in smaller countries and focus on life-saving use cases. We hired incredible entrepreneurs and operators in Rwanda, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, and other countries. For eight years, Zipline expanded our service across Africa, serving thousands of hospitals and health facilities and reducing maternal mortality by 51%. Today, the network saves over 14k lives every year and is cash flow positive. Last year, Zipline launched at scale in the US and the service exploded. We grew flight volumes about 100x over the last 18 months, and now make more than a million deliveries a year per metro. We’re now expanding with our partners to millions of deliveries per day. Normal families love having access to anything they need in 10-20 minutes, no matter where they live. Spend more time with loved ones and less time worrying about errands. Zipline builds drone delivery that is silent and safe. No one wants to hear an extremely loud “swarm of bees” delivering to their backyard or their neighbor’s. Automated delivery needs to be insanely quiet, which guided the overall architecture of our technology delivering from 330 ft in the air. We are 6 times quieter than the closest competitor during delivery. Zipline also now has over 150m commercial autonomous miles (10x the rest of the industry combined) and no safety incidents. Neighborhoods should demand silent and safe delivery! Today, Zipline is announcing two things. First, we just signed the largest autonomous vehicle contract in human history to expand automated delivery nationally with Walmart, our first and biggest partner in the US. We’re starting by scaling to 300 supercenters throughout the country. Second, we’ve raised $1.5b at a $21.5b valuation from existing and new investors, led by Paradigm, WCM, and Layer. Zipline was a hard company to believe in for the first ten years of our history. Investors didn’t think the company was “investable”. Most people didn’t even think Zipline was an economic venture. Thanks to those who have rooted for us along the way. To all of the tens of millions of customers and families who rely on Zipline day in and day out: thank you for helping us build the future. Zipline has grown more than @ryanzip, @keenanwyrobek, I, and all others at the company could have imagined. There is a big opportunity to build a new layer of infrastructure for humanity over the coming years. We want to approximate teleportation. We can build a logistics network that connects and serves all people on earth. We can free human flourishing from the choking constraint of traffic and roads. There are no roads where we’re going. 🚀🌎

𝖫𝖤𝖳'𝖲 𝖦𝖮!!! 🚀 𝖳𝗁𝖾 𝗁𝗎𝗋𝗋𝗒-𝗎𝗉-𝖺𝗇𝖽-𝗐𝖺𝗂𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗉𝗎𝖻𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗌 𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗋 — The Brand GPA 𝗂𝗌 𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾! 🎉

Snap Inc. kicked off its largest global marketing campaign to date, “Open Your Snapchat,” aimed at showcasing how the application’s camera opens the door to activities including connecting with culture, ecommerce and engaging with friends and family. adweek.it/3j2In10

.@NFL launches @Snapchat AR portal celebrating tomorrow’s kickoff techcrunch.com/2020/09/09/sn… @TechCrunch @anthonyha

Max Kellerman: “Damian Lillard is like Steph Curry, but a Steph Curry who gets better in the biggest moments.”

The NFL’s own social team went behind the league’s back, created this video with players, met with Goodell after doing it and then got the league to come out with an apology for its previous inaction. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.

President Trump's account on Snapchat will no longer be promoted on the app's Discover page for news, after the company determined that his public comments could incite violence nyti.ms/2U5IvRS