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Cheeky Pint

Cheeky Pint

Zipline CEO Keller Cliffton on air-dropping blood to Rwandan hospitals and getting to 50,000 aircraft per year

Sep 10, 2025 · 1h 14m

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About this episode

Keller Cliffton joins John Collison to talk about Zipline’s journey to 115 million miles flown, the lost art of American airplanes, building 50k drones a year in California, getting to 99.9% reliability, and US vs. Chinese manufacturing. Books referenced: The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe Skunk Works by Ben Rich Apple in China by Patrick McGee Timestamps (00:00) Intro (00:45) 115 million miles flown (04:10) Why drone delivery took so long (07:38) Getting started in Rwanda (13:31) 51% reduction in maternal mortality (15:33) Access vs. waste (21:45) Scaling globally (24:05) Zipline’s Platform 1 (25:50) The Right Stuff (27:22) Drone design and safety (30:12) Getting to 99.9% reliability (34:39)…