Kitty Hawk Acquires 3D Robotics

The autonomous aerial vehicle company, Kitty Hawk, founded and run by my former Udacity boss, Sebastian Thrun, has acquired 3D Robotics, the drone company founded by Chris Anderson. Anderson will become COO.

Some personal/professional news: I'll be joining @kittyhawkcorp (Larry Page & Sebastian Thrun's eVTOL company) as COO as part of a 3DR acquisition. The path from drones to remotely-piloted passenger aircraft is becoming increasingly clear, especially from a FAA cert basis…

— Chris Anderson (@chr1sa) June 11, 2021

Like Sebastian, Chris is many things. Probably most famously, he is the author of The Long Tail, which popularized that concept with the tech community. He is also the father of five children, the former editor-in-chief of Wired, and a popular tweeter.

I know Chris principally from his organization of DIY Robocars, which is a kind of Homebrew Computer Club for the Bay Area autonomous vehicle community. Although I’ve never built a DIY robocar myself, I regularly pack my son up and drive him to the East Bay to watch the competitors zip their autonomous cars around the indoor track.

I am excited to see what Chris Anderson and the 3DR team does for Kitty Hawk.

A thread on the boom-bust-boom cycles of autonomous transportation

Right now air taxis are hot (See this excellent article by @eringriffith and @CadeMetz)

Indeed, I've just joined @kittyhawkcorp, Larry Page and Sebastian Thrun's air taxi companyhttps://t.co/w8QpjzxCMP

— Chris Anderson (@chr1sa) June 13, 2021