About this episode
Keller Cliffton is the co-founder and CEO of Zipline, the world's largest commercial autonomous delivery system, which today serves 5,000 hospitals across multiple countries and saves an estimated 17,000 lives per year. In this episode, Keller breaks down his extreme hiring philosophy that has powered Zipline for over a decade. He also walks through Zipline’s full origin story: from a near-dead home robot startup to a scrappy bet on drone blood delivery in Rwanda, to 135 million autonomous miles flown.
In today's episode, we discuss:
Why Zipline hires teenagers over PhDs
Why the best startup employees are "heat-seeking missiles for pain"
The 5 leadership attributes Zipline has never shared publicly
The brutal firing advice that shaped Keller’s leadership
How Rwanda’s health minister changed Zipline’s trajectory
References:
Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com
Alfred Lin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linalfred/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com
Apple: https://www.apple.com
Brian Chesky: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianchesky/
Cleveland Clinic: https://my.clevelandclinic.org
Netflix: https://www.netflix.com
Paul Kagame: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulkagame/
Reflect Orbital: https://www.reflectorbital.com
Sequoia Capital: https://www.sequoiacapital.com
SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com
Sphero: https://www.sphero.com
Tesla: https://www.tesla.com
University of Washington: https://www.washington.edu
Walmart: https://www.walmart.com
Zipline: https://www.zipline.com
Where to find Keller:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellerrc/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/Keller
Where to find Brett:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
