The Method

The Method E1: Inside Zipline with Keller Cliffton It was illegal to fly autonomously in US airspace when Keller Cliffton started Zipline, and most investors "weren't willing to invest in illegal things." Zipline launched in Rwanda instead, flying blood to 21 hospitals. It's now valued at $21.5 billion. @Keller, co-founder and CEO of Zipline, sat down with @sophiadew at Zipline's South San Francisco factory to break down why they started in Rwanda, why each 10x jump in scale breaks everything, and the case for 50 billion US instant deliveries: 00:00 the closest thing to teleportation 01:38 why Zipline launched in Rwanda first 03:14 the UPenn study and a 51% drop in maternal mortality 04:17 why tech keeps solving "rich people problems" 06:00 bringing Zipline to the US and going back to square one 07:28 why every 10x breaks the company 09:16 running teams like special forces 10:42 people patting the droid to say thank you 11:19 the case for 50 billion US instant deliveries 13:30 from pro rock climber to "happy to fail" @zipline

What can you learn from Zipline?

Zipline CEO @keller pitched Rwanda's health minister on delivering every medical supply by drone. Her response: "Keller, shut up. Just do blood." "The customer, in this case the Minister of Health of Rwanda, was the expert. We weren't. Her name was Agnes Binagwaho. She was this incredible public servant." "We were saying, we'll use autonomous aircraft to deliver all products in the public healthcare supply chain to every hospital and health facility in the country. At some point she was just like, Keller, shut up. Just do blood." "She was the one who gave us this very narrow, focused beachhead, where she was like, Keller, show us that the technology can do this one thing, because this would be game changing for a health system." "It's really lucky that she did because we actually spent the first year falling on our faces and hardly able to deliver to 1 hospital, let alone 20." @zipline

> be Keller Cliffton > apply to Harvard at the last minute > write admissions essay in one night > get accepted, study biochemistry > build Harvard's first rock-climbing wall > graduate in 2009, become a professional rock climber > spend years living out of a Honda Fit > get inspired by Tony Hsieh to become an entrepreneur > co-found robotics startup Romotive in 2011 > build robots controlled by iPhones > visit Tanzania in 2014 > see hospitals struggling to get medical supplies > pivot to autonomous delivery drones > rename the company Zipline > launch in Rwanda in 2016 > set out to deliver blood to 21 hospitals > expand into Ghana and the US > partner with Walmart and healthcare providers > deliver so fast that its closest thing to teleportation > surpass 3 million deliveries > grow Zipline to a $21.5 billion valuation

Zipline CEO @keller on how drone deliveries went from "Jesus Christ himself is delivering blood from the sky" to "it's 30 seconds late" in just 7 days: "You'd go and meet nurses and doctors at a remote hospital and say, now you just send a text message, and an autonomous vehicle's gonna deliver it 10 or 15 minutes later. People are looking at you like you're totally crazy." "One doctor told me, it's as though Jesus Christ himself is delivering blood from the sky. People would form these huge crowds to watch deliveries for the first few days." "What is amazing to me is that by day 7, people are 100% bored of it. It's completely normal. I had one doctor come out, and we were watching a delivery together, and she just picked it up, looked at her watch, looked at me and was like, it’s 30 seconds late." "Humans are so good at adapting to the new normal that something goes from science fiction to entitlement in approximately 7 days." @zipline

Every world-changing company starts with someone who sees things differently. The Method goes beyond the company to understand the person behind it, how they think, and the future they’re building toward. A new @MTSlive original mini-doc series by @sophiadew.