How Consumer Drones Became Modern Infrastructure | Alec Wilson

Alec Wilson, COO at Spexi Geospatial, encountered his first drone while flying a helicopter in Vancouver, BC. He then helped establish drone regulations before meeting the founder of Spexi, who was flying the planes Google Maps and Google Earth use to image the world. On today’s episode, Alec joins Bryce to explain how consumer drones have evolved to create an entirely new kind of infrastructure – one that outperforms helicopters, planes, and satellites at scale. (00:00) - How Consumer Drones Became Modern Infrastructure | Alec Wilson (00:56) - How did consumer drones enable the world's first autonomous aerial data network? (02:05) - How Alec was introduced to drones (02:55) - When regulations and drone technology converged (03:35) - How Alec (COO) met Bill (CEO) imaging for Google Maps and Earth (04:45) - The trick to drones as infrastructure? Keep it under 250 grams. (08:45) - How Spexi created a standard through autonomous flight (10:01) - How Spexi's autopilot enables drone infrastructure at city to continental scale (10:47) - Why use drones instead of planes or satellites? (13:17) - How are drones evolving and what does it mean for the people piloting them? (16:08) - What you need to fly with Spexi on the LayerDrone network (18:07) - Thanks to our sponsors Click here to watch a video of this episode. Click here to view the episode transcript.