E42: The Autonomy Revolution with Hayk Martiros of Skydio

In this episode, Nathan Labenz sits down with Hayk Martiros, VP of Autonomy at Skydio. Martiros leads the autonomy team, which holds the state of the art in complex autonomous flight. Skydio is the largest drone developer in the US, and recently raised $230M to expand its US manufacturing 10-fold, bringing its valuation to $2.2 billion. In this discussion, Hayk and Nathan discuss why Skydio will not weaponize its drones, Skydio’s systems and AI approach, and the considerations of choosing an autonomous system over a human agent.

We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com.

LINKS: SymForce: https://github.com/symforce-org/symforce End-to-End Learning of Geometry and Context for Deep Stereo Regression (Skydio’s 2017 paper): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.04309

TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Episode Preview (01:12) Nathan’s episode intro (07:44) Hayk’s story (11:21) What is Skydio? (14:59) Sponsor: Omneky (16:56) The core driver of Skydio’s business (20:21) Skydio’s AI approach (23:56) Updating the voltage 30,000 times per second (24:52) How is the Skydio system built? (34:07) The loops in the Skydio system (36:00) SymForce, Skydio’s open source library and Hayk’s creation (41:06) Writing symbolic expressions as a roboticist (42:14) Writing an expression for a toy race car (47:58) Skydio neural networks (51:29) Going from designed systems to end-to-end systems (58:17) How much does a Skydio drone and dock cost to install? (01:00:19) The cost savings of using a Skydio drone (01:02:59) Are $1 drone missions in the consumer’s future? (01:06:22) Vertical integration vs platform (01:09:29) The advantages and disadvantages of drones (01:11:17) Running LLMs on a drone (01:14:36) Power consumption going to compute vs mechanics (01:18:26) Hayk’s predictions for consumer autonomous systems (01:21:51) Standards for choosing autonomous systems over humans (01:25:23) Skydio’s societal impact (01:28:34) Universal basic income (01:30:27) Skydio drone usage in defense (01:34:34) The Ukraine-Russia conflict (01:38:02) Hayk’s experience with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

TWITTER: @SkydioHQ (Skydio) @CogRev_Podcast @labenz (Nathan) @eriktorenberg (Erik)

SPONSORS: Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. Shopify powers 10% of ALL eCommerce in the US. And Shopify's the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, and 1,000,000s of other entrepreneurs across 175 countries.From their all-in-one e-commerce platform, to their in-person POS system – wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. With free Shopify Magic, sell more with less effort by whipping up captivating content that converts – from blog posts to product descriptions using AI. Sign up for $1/month trial period: https://shopify.com/cognitive

Thank you Omneky for sponsoring The Cognitive Revolution. Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work, customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention "Cog Rev" for 10% off.

This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We’re launching new shows every week, and we’re looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co.

MUSIC CREDIT: MusicLM