My First Podcast! Musings on eVTOL & Joining a Tech Startup

Alex Lee
Alex Lee
Sep 4, 2018 · 5 min read

Coming out to the Bay Area, I knew I’d meet many smart and talented engineers. One of them being Sean O’Brien, a rising senior at the University of Pittsburgh and an engineering intern at Nissan’s Silicon Valley Innovation Center. He also has an eye for creativity. In his free time, he enjoys nature photography and making podcasts.

Sean asked me to be the tenth guest on his podcast — MakerHUB, a podcast focused on entrepreneurship, design thinking, and all things innovation.

The full podcast is 58 minutes. This was the first time I spoke on a podcast and we did the entire thing in one shot, no retakes. Yes, there were several moments where I wanted to ask Sean for a retake. I resisted this urge. We covered a wide range of topics, from the state of the tech industry in Silicon Valley to perspectives on career decisions. Sean extracted two segments into video format:

1. eVTOL technology & the urban aerial mobility landscape (3 minute 42 seconds)

2. Thoughts on joining a tech startup (4 minute 14 seconds)

The transcript is below (edited for readability). Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer. If you have any questions or thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Or if you’re working in an industrial/ mobility startup, send me a note at alex.lee@alliance-rnm.com


eVTOL Technology & The Urban Aerial Mobility Landscape

Sean: Let’s take the flying car companies. They’re in a spot where wide adoption isn’t going to [happen in the near future]. They’re in it for the long haul. They’re developing technology that may be ready within a couple of years but won’t be [implementable] for a long time.

From the VC perspective, for founders working in a technology that won’t be implemented for a long time, what’s the mentality? How do you keep going day to day when you know it’s such a long road ahead?

Alex: Let’s start with the technology. When it comes to vertical takeoff and landing, we’ve had that for a long time. The Harrier could do that in the 1960s or 70s. That type of technology is not new.

Battery technology certainly isn’t there yet. During the Uber Elevate conference, [the speakers] quoted ambitious claims for battery promises. Lithium ion batteries today, accounting for the margin of safety needed, [don’t] have the energy density required to power urban aerial mobility. I think lithium ion batteries could, theoretically, power urban flight but [you’d have to push] the boundaries of safety. And that’s not okay. So, battery technology isn’t there [yet].

There [will be] some [challenges] with autonomous flight. As long as you have passengers on board, [you have to have pilots on board]. I think the unit economics work out to have a pilot on board in the short term. But in the long term, you need to figure out the edge cases for autonomous flight. [Currently] pilots are on board for emergency situations. There are a lot of complexities around [regulation].

But to answer your question about how the flying car companies push forward day to day: in my opinion, you need to be driven by the vision for what you can achieve in the future, but also [work with a contingency] plan. Something that this vehicle can serve even if urban aerial mobility doesn’t [stick]. Whether it’s selling it to small private owners or the military for evacuation situations. There are [various] channels that you can sell to and that would provide a good revenue stream while you wait for all the other pieces to fall in place.

There are these other ways to make money with eVTOLs. It’s not the sexy way. It’s not what we want. We want flying cars like we’ve seen in the Jetson’s growing up, but it’s a way to sustain [the business].


Thoughts on Joining a Tech Startup

Sean: I’m still deciding what I want to do [for my] career. One thing that [comes to mind is to] join a startup. I think that’s a question ]for many] college students. What’s your take on the appropriate time to join a startup? And when should you be cautious about joining a startup?

Alex: I joined Boeing after graduating from USC. It’s a massive company [that] celebrated its centennial two years ago. I was very fortunate to have joined a nimble group. I really enjoyed my time there, I got to work with a lot of autonomy and move quickly. But that certainly wasn’t the case across the board.

If I could do it all over again, and this is the advice I give to a lot of people coming out of undergraduate or graduate program, I would go to a startup in between early stage and a large corporation: a growth stage startup. The reason is twofold:

One, [brand equity matters]. Let me give you an example of why it matters: I have a good friend who graduated London School of Economics undergrad, worked at PwC as a consultant, went to Baidu to work as a product manager, went to Columbia Business School, and is now working at Bank of America Merrill Lynch as an investment banker.

She gave that general profile to a partner at a VC firm and based off that alone, the partner gave her an interview. And it’s because brand matters. People respond to brands and signals. You go to a reputable university, people are more likely to let you in the door and give you a shot at the [interview]. [Similarly] at a big name company. Your resume doesn’t get you the job. But it’ll [get you] the interview. And that’s why I think brand equity matters.

The second part of this framework is that you want to go to a place that will grow rapidly. And with that growth, you will be promoted and grow [with the company].

Given that logic, if you go to a large and well known public company, say Google Amazon Facebook, you will get brand equity, but you won’t get to move as fast. There is [a lot of] red tape everywhere. [Large corporations need checks and balances to reduce mistakes and prevent improper behavior].

[If] you go to an early stage company, you can move very quickly. And if they grow fast, you’ll certainly grow with them. But it comes with tremendous risk of failure. If you do fail, you’ll get no brand equity out of it.

From a pragmatic [perspective], [I recommend going] somewhere in between. Here are some companies that come to mind:

  • Convoy in Seattle, they provide software for the trucking industry, connecting shippers with carriers.
  • Veem in San Francisco, they allow small/medium sized business to easily send and receive payments cross border for a low fee.

These may be companies you’ve never heard of. Most people probably haven’t heard of them. But people well plugged into the community certainly have. They have say $50M of funding, well-padded so you’ll be there for several years. [If you get in just early enough when they begin to accelerate their growth, you get to ride the wave through.]

You could also go to a large startup: Airbnb, Pinterest, Uber, Lyft. Those could be good options as well but they’re at the brink of going public. I think that’s a little bit too safe, [though] certainly still a great move.

But if you have the conviction to believe in something that most people don’t know, believe in it. Have the conviction to jump in early and ride the rocket ship through. As long as that company is growing and you’re growing with it, you’ll be associated with [the company’s] success.

Alex Lee
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