#070 - Fully Autonomous Drones with Adam Bry, CEO of Skydio

Skydio is a very special drone company with a thought-provoking inaugural product. R1, the company's first drone, costs $2,499, is fully autonomous, and it's marketed mainly to hobbyists. So why does a startup's initial product, targeted for consumers, have me so excited? Well, the answer is not what their technology is currently capable of, but what it represents for the future of commercial drones. When designing R1, Skydio took a unique philosophical approach to what's currently available on the market. R1 is different than other drones - it flies itself and doesn't even come with a controller. Adam Bry is CEO and co-founder of Skydio. He graduated from MIT, was one of the early team members of Google X's delivery drone initiative, Project Wing, and then started Skydio. I sat down with Adam to learn about what's possible right now with the powerful onboard processors and AI that guides Skydio drones, unscathed, through crowded, obstacle-laden environments. We discuss the design inspiration behind R1, a future Skydio platform and SDK, and how commercial drones will continue to evolve.