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Ziplines cofounder and CEO Keller Cliffton charts the companys recent expansion from transporting blood for lifesaving transfusions in Rwanda to retail deliveries across eight countriesincluding high-profile partnerships with the likes of Walmart, Chipotle, Panera, and the Mayo Clinic. Ziplines do-good health efforts and commercial deliveries are all part of Cliffton’s vision for a radical, new transportation network that meets consumers desire for accessibility and speed. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I’ve been watching Zipline’s evolution over the years with fascination. You first popped up on my radar for using drones to deliver medicines in hard-to-reach places in Africa, and then I saw a similarly named company doing drone delivery for restaurants and retailers that I thought, like, is this the same place? And then of course it is. You recently announced an expanded partnership with Walmart to provide deliveries in Texas, in the Dallas area. How different is it to do business with a Walmart versus, say, a hospital in Rwanda? When we started Zipline, our backgrounds were in automation and robotics, and it seemed to us like it should be possible to build an automated logistics system for Earth. We were seeing all of these logistics failures. I mean, first of all, logistics really only serves the golden billion people on Earth. If you’re in the 7 billion people who aren’t in the golden billion, your access either sucks or is nonexistent. And as a result of that, about five and a half million kids lose their lives every year due to lack of access to basic medical products. So, we felt that it really should be possible to use robotics and autonomy to solve logistics in an entirely new way that would save lives, save time, save money. You’re right that we actually spent the first eight years of the company’s history operating exclusively in Africa. In 2016, when we launched commercially, we were 20 people. Nobody believed that this was going to work. Everybody thought it was a stupid idea. And investors assured us that there was no chance we were going to get regulatory approval to do what we wanted to do, which was to fly autonomously and quickly, and deliver things over large distances. It was obvious to us that we needed to find a use case that was so incredibly important that even a conservative regulator would sort of roll out the red carpet and work with us as a partnership to make it happen. And that first partner was the Ministry of Health in Rwanda, and that’s how it all started. We started delivering blood transfusions to 21 hospitals across the country of Rwanda. And now when you think about what the Zipline is, how much is social impact? How much is business impact, environmental impact? Well, interestingly, those three things were core parts of our mission from day one. Saving lives was a big part of what we were doing for the first three, four years, but also saving governments money was a big part of what we were doing. And always we had this underlying mission of transitioning logistics to a zero emission future. It was taking products that were traveling in cars or motorcycles or trucks to a future that was fully electric and far more efficient. Today we deliver 75% of the national blood supply of Rwanda fully autonomously outside the capital city. We’ve delivered about 22 million doses of vaccines in the last 18 months. And then expanded to all medical products. Then it expanded to animal healthcare products and animal vaccines. Then it expanded to quick commerce products and delivering things to hotels and homes. Now we’re building a new national postal service on top of it. People could have the impression that, okay, you started with this high-stakes lifesaving stuff and now you’ve added sort of convenience, whatever, getting your lunch delivered. But really it’s all about funding the socially minded work. Is the retail business there to fund the socially minded work? And if I hear you right, you always wanted to go broader and that this was a more systemic effort, that the social part of it was a way to get to that. Well, I mean, we think that people deserve access to lifesaving medical products. They also deserve access to economic opportunity. I mean, these things are important. If you’re trying to start a business and you live in a rural part of a country, if you don’t have access to logistics, you can’t start your business. If you’re trying to buy products for your family, you have a right to buy the best products or the cheapest products available rather than just what might happen to be available at the store right next to you. So I think logistics plays a bigger role in our lives than we realize. Logistics should serve all people on Earth equally, and that really is the promise of bringing autonomy and robotics to bear in logistics. Bringing down logistics costs dramatically, making delivery faster but more universally available, is [a way] you can save lives. You can also save people money and time. I mean, they’re all important. It’s true that probably nothing will compare to delivering a blood transfusion to a mom with postpartum hemorrhaging, which is what we did for the first four years of the company’s history. But our customers have really led us here. Is there any difference in the commercial sphere, like with a Walmart or a Panera store? Same product, same regulatory paradigm, same operations and maintenance, same software. Yeah, it’s really, Zipline builds one product, and that’s just automated logistics. And turns out that if you can design a way of delivering things directly to people’s homes that is 10 times as fast and half the cost and zero emission, it has a lot of important use cases. The demand for instant delivery has increased dramatically. I mean, it’s now become a expectation for consumers, not just in the U.S. but internationally as well. We’re using technology that’s 100 years old to serve that demand. And so we actually think it’s not surprising that the way that we’re solving the problem today is really inefficient and bad for the environment and expensive. With a new market, you want to build new technology that can serve that market. And your drones are autonomous, so there’s no one remotely manipulating a joystick to move them around and guide them. How are they getting from, whatever, from the Panera to me and my home? So Zipline builds the largest drone delivery system on Earth. We are a robotics company that designs every part of the system, whether it is the drone or the aircraft, it’s about 60 pounds, 8-foot wingspan. We deliver 8-pound payloads. These vehicles can fly anywhere from 25 miles to 150 miles depending on what version of the system we’re talking about. Zipline builds all the software, all the regulatory software, the customer ordering app that consumers can use. We design the flight control algorithms, multivehcle deconfliction, communications architecture. The reality is, it just took a long time to build all these different parts of the stack to make the technology available, reliable, capable of operating in all kinds of weather. Zipline has now flown about 100 million commercial autonomous miles. That means that we’re the largest commercial autonomous system on Earth. To put that number into perspective, that is going from the Earth to the moon and back 200 times. Or that is the equivalent of driving every single road in the United States 24 times. So although people still in the U.S. think drone delivery might be impossible, or was promised to us by this big tech company and they didn’t deliver. The reality is actually that the technology is working, and it’s working at scale.
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E-Commerce
Its spring, and nature is pulling me away from my computer as I write this. The sun is shining, the world is warming up, and the birds are chirping away. And that got me thinking: What if a smartphone app could translate all those chirps for us? No, Im not talking about an app that will translate bird sounds to human speech (although that would be neat). Rather, the app we’re about to go over tells you what specific species is making any bird sound around youkind of like Shazam, only for nature. All you have to do is hold up your phone and press one button. Its an app Ive personally used a bunch over the years and happily rediscovered this year. Its especially nice when travelingor if youve moved and youre not sure which birds are in your area. One way or another, if you’re hearing chirping and you aren’t sure what animal is responsible, youre in for a treat. Unearth all sorts of little-known tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. A spiffy new discovery in your inbox every Wednesday! Animal intelligenceShazam style Ready to fly into uncharted nature territory? The app you need is called Merlin Bird ID, and its created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University. Its completely free, and it can work both online and off. You dont even need to create an account. To get started, install the free Merlin app for Android from Google Play, or get the iPhone version from the Apple App Store. While the app is free, you will be asked to provide an email address to sign up to the university’s newsletter before you can use it. (You can unsubscribe whenever you like, of courseand it appears you can enter any email address, too, even if it maybe isn’t associated with your primary personal inbox.) After going through a few screens of setup, youll get to the core part of the appa big green microphone button with Sound ID on it. Tap the button, and Merlin will start recording audio from your phones microphone. If there are audible bird sounds in the area, it’ll then attempt to compare those to bird calls in its database and tell you which exact bird is behind them. Merlin is impressively effective at identifying birds based solely on their sounds. It works really well, and itll keep recording and list multiple bird species if more than one creature is making noise around you. You can tap each bird species for more information, too. Merlin can handle multiple birds at once, if you’re in an area with a cacophony of creatures. It really is that simplebut theres more you can do, if you’re so inspired. For example, you can replay your recordings later so you can get to know all the birds you encountered. And, you can download offline birds for various regions so you can even identify birds if youre off in the wilderness and dont have an active data connection. Thats alljust a free app provided by a university that works well and has no ads or other asterisks. It’s earned itself an underground cult following for a reason. Merlin is available as a native app for both Android and iOS. It’s completely freeno catches. And it doesnt sell or share your data. Its created by a science lab at a university. Keep the tech tools coming with my free Cool Tools newsletter! You’ll get an instant introduction to an incredible audio app and a new off-the-beaten-path gem in your inbox every Wednesday.
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E-Commerce
Just over a month ago, economists were so frightened of a potential recession they refused to call it by its name. The dreaded R word kept the financial punditry quaking in their boots on news showswhich feels a bit quaint now that were seeing signs of a possible stagflation on the horizon. Despite sounding like Yosemite Sams reaction to setting his drawers on fire, stagflation is just about the worst possible economic condition. As a portmanteau of stagnant and inflation, this kind of recession hits us with the triple threat of sluggish economic growth, rising inflation, and high unemployment rates. Until stagflation hit the United States in the 1970s, many economists did not believe this kind of economic crisis was possible. Since recovering from the 1970s-era stagflation, the U.S. has never experienced (or come close to experiencing) another boutalthough stagflation in the Japanese economy in the 1990s proved that this phenomenon is not unique to America. To better understand what stagflation is, how it develops, and what we can do to protect our finances, I spoke to Kevin Matthews II, former financial adviser and founder of the financial education firm BuildingBread. Drawing on his economics degree from Hampton University and his experience teaching over 400,000 investors, Matthews has been raising the alarm about possible stagflation since March. Heres what he shared. Recession vs. stagflation While no one jumps for joy over a recession, anyone older than the age of 20 has likely lived through more than one. Recessions are relatively common and follow a predictable pattern. According to Kiplinger, since the end of WWII, the U.S. economy has experienced a recession about once every 6.5 years, with an average recovery time of 11.1 months. This means that economists, despite their apparent terror about mentioning the word, understand recessions. We’ve gone through recessions before, Matthews says. We have answers to recessions. Stagflation, on the other hand, isnt normal. The U.S. economy is facing the first significant threat of stagflation since the 1970s. Unfortunately, stagflation does not have a clear answer, according to Matthews. Its worse than a recession. This concern was echoed by economist Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. In a speech on April 15, 2025, Posen forecast that the U.S. economy has a 65% chance of entering a recession. But the worse news is that the situation could become a stagflationary recession, which he believes the Federal Reserve is unprepared to handle. Pulling the economy in opposite directions Matthews describes stagflation as the economy moving in two different directions at once. On the one side is inflation, where goods and services cost more money. On the other side is a slowing economy, where high unemployment leads to lower discretionary spending. This contradicts the traditional economic belief that inflation and unemployment are inversely related, as described by the Phillips curve. According to this economic theory, higher unemployment coincides with lower inflation and vice versa. Which is why the stagflation of the 1970s came as a surpriseand why economists still disagree about what exactly causes it. But this time around, we know exactly why were facing a potential stagflationary recession. Its because of Trumps tariffs. This is definitely an anomaly Even though stagflation is already rare, Matthews regards our current situation as a weird and unique case. In the 1970s, the stagflation was partially oil related, he says. OPEC, which included a bunch of different countries, banded together to economically harm the U.S. The oil embargo wasnt the only driver of the 1970s economic crisis, but it was part of the reason consumers felt the effects of stagflation from 1973 to 1982especially the long lines at the gas pump Grandpa is always going on about. In 2025, its Trumps tariffs that are causing both inflation and stagnation. This is very much a man-made problem, says Matthews. In theory, we could just not have tariffs and things would go back to normal. Unfortunately, in addition to the unforced error of Trumps tariffs, our economy is also grappling with the chaos of how the tariffs have been implemented. Things keep moving so quickly, Matthews says. Tariffs are paused then unpaused. They go from 10% to 20% to 104% to whatever it is by the time this day is over. Consumers and businesses cant plan their purchases. In other words, even if the president immediately called a halt to the tariffswhich would probably end the specter of stagflationthe uncertainty and chaos weve already experienced would still affect the economy. At a time like this, people dont want to invest in the United States, Matthews explains. Companies dont know where to build or invest or hire. The Feds on/off switch With Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell recently in the news, you might be wondering why the Fed doesnt do something to nip the potential stagflation in the bud. Couldnt the notorious Jerry P lower interest rates to fix this? (The president has certainly wondered the same thing out loud and repeatedly.) Unfortunately, nothing the Fed can do will improve the situation. The Fed technically only has an on and off switch, explains Matthews. All it can do is raise rates or lower them. During periods of high unemployment and slow economic growth, the Fed might lower rates to encourage spending. With lower interest rates, its cheaper to buy things, which can help spur economic growth. This is why the president has been publicly melting down about Powells refusal to lower interest rates. Trump believes that lowering rates will stave off a recession. But we’ve also recently experienced significant inflation. Normally when you see prices rise because of inflation, the Fed increases interest rates to stop people from spending, Matthews says. Higher interest rates lead to lower demand, which helps to slow inflation. While inflation has cooled from its peak of 8 percent in 2022, many economistsincluding Powellare warning Trump’s trade policies will create another period of inflation. Lowering interest rates is not only pointless in the face of tariff-induced inflation, but lower interest rates also traditionally increase inflation. So lower rates wouldnt help. On the other hand, if the Fed raised interest rates, purchases would become even more expensivewhich traditionally slows economic growth and increases unemployment. Although raising interest rates to a sky-high 21% in 1979 was how Fed chair Paul Volcker ended the 1970s era stagflation, remember that his actions came after six years of ineffectual policies based on bad economic adviceand it took another three years for the economy to recover after his historic rate increase. Pulling a Volcker on the Fed rates should be considered the nuclear option. As much as we might want to appeal to Jerome Powell Kenobi as our only hope, the Feds on/off switch is not equipped to prevent stagflation. Preparing your finances While the average American cant control U.S. economic policy, there is a lot you can do to secure your own financial house for the possibility of stagflation. As a bonus, these strategies will also help your bottom line if the stagflation never comes to pass: Build your emergency fund. This advice is on the personal finance greatest hits album for a reason: having money set aside for an emergency is always a good idea. But right now, Matthews suggests putting aside more than you normally would. Things might get a little more expensive than you expect, he says. Also, a bigger emergency fund will help just in case you face a layoff. Pay off high-interest debt. Whatever you can do to eighty-six your expensive debt can help you be more flexible if the economic shift hits the fan. Stay invested. You may be tempted to cash out your 401(k) and bury the money in the backyard, but Matthews wants you to remember that staying calm and keeping your money invested is still the best long-term strategy. Surviving stagflation Of all the cultural trends from the 1970s, stagflation is the last one wed choose for a comeback. (Yes, even behind Jell-O Salad.) When it comes to stagflation, the Feds hands are tied and the U.S. economy may be in for a rough one. To add insult to injury, this stagflation reboot was entirely preventable. But even though you cant affect policy decisions or economic forces, you can focus on your personal economic health. Building a robust emergency fund, paying off high-interest debt, and staying invested can all help protect your financial house in case we do fall into stagflation. Were in a very, very strange position, Matthews says. Focus on controlling what you can control.
Category:
E-Commerce
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