Is Amazon's Drone Delivery Finally Ready for Prime Time?

Summary

Hard Fork Podcast Summary: "Is Amazon's Drone Delivery Finally Ready for Prime Time?"

Host/Author: The New York Times
Episode Release Date: December 20, 2024
Duration: Approximately 65 minutes

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Introduction

In this episode of Hard Fork, hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton, the New York Times explores Amazon's ambitious drone delivery initiative, Amazon Prime Air. Set against the backdrop of Phoenix, Arizona—a significant testing ground due to its favorable weather conditions—the hosts delve into whether Amazon's drone technology is poised for mainstream adoption.

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Setting the Scene: Phoenix, Arizona

Kevin and Casey introduce listeners to Phoenix, highlighting its role as a hub for technological experimentation. Casey shares personal anecdotes about his time working at the Arizona Republic, establishing a connection to the location.

• Casey Noon [00:40]: "We are here in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, in a part of town that is known as by the airport."

Kevin emphasizes Phoenix's strategic importance for tech companies like Waymo and Amazon, noting its consistent weather as ideal for year-round testing.

• Kevin Roose [01:03]: "Phoenix has become like the kind of testing ground for a lot of our great technology companies... these drones we're about to see are here."

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Tour of Amazon's Prime Air Facility

The hosts are granted access to Amazon's Prime Air facility in Phoenix, where they meet David Carbon, Vice President and General Manager of Amazon Prime Air.

• David Carbon [04:50]: "You're one of the first. Thank you."

The facility, though modest by Amazon standards, buzzes with activity as packages are prepared for drone delivery. Kevin and Casey observe the streamlined process, from order placement to package handling.

• Casey Noon [02:21]: "This week we're in Arizona to test out Amazon Prime Air, the company's initiative to deliver items to your door in 60 minutes or less via a flying drone."

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Understanding the Drone Delivery Process

David Carbon provides an in-depth explanation of how Amazon's drone delivery system operates within the existing fulfillment network. The process mirrors traditional deliveries until the final packaging stage, where orders designated for drone delivery are placed in specialized boxes.

• David Carbon [06:07]: "And then we'll walk you through that. But the only difference when we get to the end is rather than them put your order into a bag or into an envelope, they put it into a Prime Air box, which we use to put inside the drone."

The hosts witness the packaging process, noting the unique features of the Prime Air boxes, such as a hidden floor that acts as a cushioning "trampoline" to protect diverse items during delivery.

• David Carbon [07:22]: "So that has the cushion at the bottom."

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Drone Technology and Operations

Kevin and Casey are introduced to the MK30, Block 10 drones—comparable in size to a Labrador retriever and equipped with advanced sensing and navigation systems.

• David Carbon [08:42]: "It's got a hidden floor. Right. So you think there's probably about, you know."

The team observes a drone takeoff, highlighting its autonomous operations and redundant safety systems designed to prevent failures.

• David Carbon [11:13]: "We treat them well. They've got no reason not to come back."

Despite initial impressions of noise, David counters that the latest drones are significantly quieter—40% less loud than their predecessors.

• David Carbon [12:35]: "I have to say, it's quite loud when it's coming down and taking off. ... We're 40% quieter than the previous drone."

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Demonstration: Placing and Receiving a Drone Delivery

After a facility tour, Kevin and Casey proceed to a rented suburban house to test a drone delivery. They place an order for Brazilian Bum Bum Cream, entering the delivery specifications via Amazon's Prime Air system.

• Kevin Roose [19:58]: "So it's a pretty standard Amazon checkout process, except for this sort of delivery area thing."

The drone successfully delivers the package within the promised time frame, demonstrating the system's efficacy.

• Kevin Roose [44:35]: "It did not touch down and just drop."

Casey humorously refers to the item as a "Christmas present," highlighting the personal nature of the demonstration.

• Casey Noon [46:07]: "All right. And what do you know, our Brazilian bum bum cream."

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Interview with David Carbon: Challenges and Future Plans

Public Perception and Community Reactions

The episode addresses public concerns regarding drone deliveries, especially incidents on the East Coast where unauthorized drones caused alarm.

• Kevin Roose [20:59]: "Are those Amazon drones?"
• David Carbon [21:04]: "They are absolutely not Amazon drones."

David emphasizes the importance of integrating drones responsibly into airspace and adhering to aerospace regulations to mitigate public nuisance and safety concerns.

• David Carbon [22:15]: "People don't like nuisance."

Technological Hurdles and FAA Regulations

David discusses the complex interplay between hardware development and regulatory compliance, asserting that technological readiness was the primary barrier rather than FAA restrictions.

• David Carbon [26:27]: "Within the US Regulation isn't the holdup. The reality is nobody was really ready to go and execute deliveries at any form of scale."

He touches upon past incidents, including a 2021 crash that caused a brush fire, explaining these as controlled tests essential for enhancing drone safety.

• David Carbon [28:46]: "It's test, right? So if you test for failure, you get failure and you test in controlled environments."

Safety Mechanisms and Collision Avoidance

David outlines the drone's advanced sensing and avoidance algorithms, designed to prevent collisions with static objects, airplanes, and even birds.

• David Carbon [30:08]: "Our algorithms, our sense and avoid algorithm, and our perception algorithm is trained over hundreds of thousands of data sets."

He reassures listeners of the drone's ability to autonomously abort missions if unexpected obstacles are detected.

• David Carbon [33:02]: "But, you know, if they see something dynamically happening that the drone isn't seeing, which, you know, frankly is 0.0% or nothing, that's not going to happen."

Security Concerns and Theft Prevention

Addressing fears of drone tampering and package theft, David explains that deliveries are made to backyards, reducing the risk of porch piracy. Additionally, the precise delivery timing allows recipients to retrieve packages promptly.

• David Carbon [34:00]: "So we just drop it."

Economic Viability and Scaling

When questioned about the profitability of drone deliveries, David emphasizes Amazon's long-term investment strategy, projecting that drone deliveries will become cost-effective as the system scales.

• David Carbon [35:58]: "Our models show that at the end of the day, when we say by 2029, we want to deliver 500 million deliveries, we're cost positive because you can't deliver packages indefinitely at a loss."

He highlights the projected scale of deliveries and the incremental improvements planned for 2025 and beyond.

• David Carbon [53:26]: "2025, there's a bunch of announcements going to come out. We've got features coming on board, we've got multi product ordering..."

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Community Interactions and Reactions

During the delivery demonstration, neighbors and golfers react to the drones, showcasing varied public perceptions—from curiosity to surprise.

• Neighbor Gino [47:20]: "I'm from Amazon."

This segment underscores the novelty of drone deliveries and the initial skepticism often associated with new technologies.

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Environmental Impact

Casey raises concerns about the environmental footprint of drone deliveries. David counters by highlighting the drones' recyclable materials and electric power sources, positioning drone delivery as a greener alternative to traditional van-based deliveries.

• David Carbon [41:57]: "It's a battery powered which not emitting anything along the way. And so really right now... it's the most environmentally conscious way of delivering."

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Conclusion and Future Outlook

David reiterates Amazon's commitment to scaling drone deliveries globally, aiming for 500 million packages per year by 2029. He envisions expanding beyond Phoenix to international markets, including Italy and the UK, and introducing nighttime and low-light deliveries by 2026.

• David Carbon [53:26]: "What we're all talking about... it's just the beginning."

Kevin and Casey reflect on the transformative potential of drone deliveries, acknowledging the mixed public reactions but expressing optimism about future acceptance as the technology becomes more commonplace.

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Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with festive banter and a tech-themed Christmas carol, reinforcing the hosts' lighthearted approach to discussing advanced technologies.

• Kevin Roose [59:54]: "Happy holidays."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Casey Noon [02:21]: "We are here in Arizona to test out Amazon's latest and possibly craziest way of getting goods to customers. Drones."

• David Carbon [06:13]: "We'll put your order into a Prime Air box, which we use to put inside the drone, and the drone then delivers to the house."

• David Carbon [12:35]: "We work really hard on the type of sound of the drone to bring it into modulation that people can actually appreciate."

• David Carbon [22:15]: "People don't like nuisance."

• David Carbon [26:27]: "Within the US Regulation isn't the holdup. The reality is nobody was really ready to go and execute deliveries at any form of scale."

• David Carbon [35:58]: "When we say by 2029, we want to deliver 500 million deliveries, we're cost positive because you can't deliver packages indefinitely at a loss."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Hard Fork provides a comprehensive look into Amazon's Prime Air, shedding light on the technological advancements, operational strategies, and challenges faced in bringing drone deliveries to the mainstream. Through firsthand observation and insightful interviews, listeners gain a nuanced understanding of the future landscape of package delivery.

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For full access to Hard Fork and other New York Times podcasts, subscribe at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Transcript

[Kevin Ruse]

This podcast is supported by Google Gemini.

[Google Gemini]

Imagine an AI assistant that doesn't just spit out answers, but that you can have a real conversation with. You can use Gemini to brainstorm ideas, prepare for something big like a test or presentation, or to just learn something new. And the best part is, it's easy to use to get started. All you need to do is start talking. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. You can download the Gemini app on iOS or Android free of charge. Must be 18 to use Gemini live.

[Kevin Ruse]

Oh, right.

[Casey Noon]

Well, here we go. Kevin.

[Kevin Ruse]

Casey, where are we?

[Casey Noon]

We are here in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, in a part of town that is known as by the airport. And it's got a lot of really amazing things such as a Marriott and some office buildings. You know, believe it or not, Kevin, a younger version of me lived just a few miles away.

[Kevin Ruse]

You were in Arizona?

[Casey Noon]

I was sort of cutting my teeth, as they say, practicing the trade of journalism at the Arizona Republic. And then after I did it for six and a half years, I was allowed to leave. And so I did.

[Kevin Ruse]

I also feel like Phoenix has become like the kind of like testing ground for a lot of our great technology companies. You know, like Waymo. They were in Phoenix before they were in a lot of places. These drones we're about to see are here. Cause it's like, it has good weather year round.

[Casey Noon]

It's hot and dry.

[Kevin Ruse]

Hot and dry.

[Casey Noon]

Which turns out to be a good recipe for testing new technology.

[Kevin Ruse]

Exactly. And maybe they're a little more loose about stuff like regulation.

[Casey Noon]

Oh, no, they are a lot more loose about regulation. I knew it was time to leave Phoenix when I went into a coffee shop and I went to order coffee, and there was just a guy sitting reading with his gun on the table. And I thought, there's no call for that, sir. There's no one is like, he just.

[Kevin Ruse]

He really said, if you touch my java.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, he really said, don't talk to me before I had my coffee.

[Kevin Ruse]

I'm Kevin Ruse, a tech columnist at the New York Times.

[Casey Noon]

I'm Casey Noon from Platform.

[Kevin Ruse]

And this is hard fork.

[Casey Noon]

This week we're in Arizona to test out Amazon Prime Air, the company's initiative to deliver items to your door in 60 minutes or less. Us via a flying drone.

[Kevin Ruse]

All right, Kasey, we are here in Phoenix. What are we doing here?

[Casey Noon]

Well, today we have been invited to sample Amazon's latest and possibly craziest way of getting goods to customers. Drones. And the idea of using drones to deliver packages in the air is not a New one. Amazon first released at least the concept of a drone delivery program more than a decade ago. And since then, the company has tested drone delivery service in Lockford, California, and they also offer a version of it in College Station, Texas. But this new program here in the West Valley Phoenix metro area of Arizona is the next major step for Amazon to prove that this service can work at scale. So the company invited us to check it out. We said yes. And then all hell broke loose on the east coast as seemingly everyone who looked out the window in New Jersey saw a swarm of drones.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yes, and we won't spoil it, but let's just say we got to the bottom of whether these drones belong to Amazon or not.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, we got a conclusive answer on that one.

[Kevin Ruse]

And we. We also learned a lot more about Amazon's drone program, their aspirations for it, why it's taking so long to get these things up into the sky. And we actually got to see a delivery ourselves.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah. And, I mean, look, if you're listening and you have concerns about a bunch of drones becoming the default way that Amazon delivers goods, so do we. This was one of the reasons why we wanted to actually come down to the facility, talk to the people who run it, because that's not obviously a good idea to us. And so we wanted to put some of those questions to them. At the same time, I will admit, it is cool to watch things fly and take off and land, and that is another reason why we wanted to do this.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yes. So let's go over to the Amazon facility and see how these things are delivering packages. All right, so we are here at an Amazon facility. This is Saz 2 outside of Phoenix, and we're here with David Carbon. He is the vice President and General manager of Amazon Prime Air. Did I get your title correct?

[David Carbon]

You did. You're one of the first. Thank you.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay. And we're going to see their new drone operation. And we're in the middle of this facility, which is huge, but apparently very small by Amazon standards, where things are moving around and being packed and shipped off to people. Maybe for the holidays. Casey, you look great in your safety vest.

[Casey Noon]

Thank you. Thank you. As do you. As do all of us. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's hear more. Let's go see some stuff. Let's see how it works.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah. Now, the part of the facility that handles the drone deliveries. Do you call that the drone zone?

[David Carbon]

It's very good. We should have had we thought about it, but now we call it the paddock from Drone Delivery Center.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay.

[David Carbon]

And that's at the other end of this facility.

[Kevin Ruse]

Well, that's not as catchy as the drone zone. So if you want to take that name, it's free. I'll give it to you without a royalty.

[David Carbon]

It's not. It's not as catchy. We're too far into it now to change, so we're sticking with.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay, well, call me next time when you're doing something.

[David Carbon]

I will. It is very good.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay. All right. So you're doing these drone deliveries now, but you're processing them out of a facility that also processes deliveries that go out on vans the traditional way. When an order comes in that's going to be sent to a customer on a drone, does it go through the same process up until the very end, or does it sort of get, you know, put off into a separate process? As soon as the thing comes into.

[David Carbon]

The warehouse, it pretty well follows the same process till the point that it becomes a prime air package.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay.

[David Carbon]

And then we'll walk you through that. But the only difference when we get to the end is rather than them put your order into a bag or into an envelope, they put it into a primair box, which we use to put inside the drone, and the drone then delivers to the house, which you folks will see tonight.

[Kevin Ruse]

Cool. All right, let's take the tour.

[David Carbon]

Okay, so these are picking stations.

[Kevin Ruse]

So we're looking at some employees sort of picking and packing. These are the packers that are rope some boxes. They're putting it onto a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt's taking it up and away. This is the special drone box.

[David Carbon]

This is a special drone box.

[Casey Noon]

To the naked eye, it looks like an ordinary box.

[David Carbon]

It's got a hidden floor. Right. So you think there's probably about, you know.

[Kevin Ruse]

Oh, so it's got some padding in there.

[David Carbon]

Yeah. So that basically acts what we call as a trampoline. It's got some give in it.

[Kevin Ruse]

And every delivery goes in this box, whether it's a tuba, toothpaste, or something that might take up the whole box.

[David Carbon]

Y.

[Kevin Ruse]

So here's a order. It's just come in, and it's going into one of the special drone boxes.

[Casey Noon]

That has the cushion at the bottom.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yes.

[David Carbon]

So his item. His item was picked from behind. He's now going to pack it.

[Kevin Ruse]

This is like a super small item that's going into a fairly large box.

[David Carbon]

That's why I'd like to go and ship. In 1980, it looked like it might.

[Kevin Ruse]

Have been like a tube of lipstick or something. I couldn't tell, but it was like.

[David Carbon]

A gift card, I think. Oh, it was a gift card. Could be. So now what happens is the package goes to what we call a water spider.

[Casey Noon]

A water spider?

[David Carbon]

Yeah. Water spider is manufacturing operations term for somebody that takes a package from one point to the next. So what we're going to do, we're going to walk the package down the path it would take to get to the paddock. So we shouldn't dilly Deli because somebody's whiting.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah.

[Kevin Ruse]

Let's go. Let's go, people. Okay, so we are here at the paddock. David, what happens when a box gets out of the warehouse and comes over to this facility?

[David Carbon]

This is the official handover. There should be music when this happens. This is the official handover from the sub same day centre. That's now a package given to the drone airport. And then they'll put it in the drone and send it on its way.

[Kevin Ruse]

So these are the new version of the Amazon drones. These are the MK 30s, right?

[David Carbon]

MK 30, block 10.

[Kevin Ruse]

They're larger than I thought they were. They're like the size of like a Labrador retriever or something.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, I've never heard them described as.

[Kevin Ruse]

That, but maybe a little bigger, I don't know.

[David Carbon]

Yeah. For the listener, it's probably about the size of a Labrador, but if you think about it, it's probably 3 1/2ft as fuselage and everything else is control surface. So an upper and a lower control wing and then six motors around it. The front part is systems like cameras, forward facing, two on the outside, two looking down. And then you've got your battery on the top, you've got your compute underneath and everything else is empty space for a package.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah. Let's go see a takeoff. I want to see this, this Labrador go.

[David Carbon]

So now go. Stay within the green line.

[Kevin Ruse]

Stay within the green line. No funny business. So we're seeing one of these big MK30 drones. It's like on the sort of like launch pad. It's got a. We're in sort of, you know, a section of a parking lot that's been sort of fenced off.

[Casey Noon]

This is the airport. We're in the airport.

[Kevin Ruse]

We're in the airport. Yes. And we are watching.

[David Carbon]

So federally regulated takeoff airport. Yeah, essentially.

[Kevin Ruse]

And yeah, it's sort of pointed upright and it's going to take off vertically.

[Casey Noon]

It is blue and white. It has that Amazon logo on the tail. If you were picturing like a drone, like you would get your child for Christmas. This is not that. It is Much larger.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah. This, this. How much do these things weigh?

[David Carbon]

80 pounds. Just under 80 pounds.

[Casey Noon]

Like a Labrador.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah, I have. I have a Labrador. About £80. Yeah.

[David Carbon]

So now we're hot. Right. So watch. Watch this.

[Casey Noon]

Okay.

[David Carbon]

It'll run through a sequence now. You'll see those motors spin.

[Casey Noon]

Okay, it's powering up.

[David Carbon]

Says I'm good. Motors have just lightly spun. Now they spin.

[Kevin Ruse]

Nine.

[David Carbon]

Now we're sort of activate.

[Kevin Ruse]

Seven, six.

[David Carbon]

Checked each motor profile.

[Kevin Ruse]

Four, three, two, one.

[Gino]

Buy a little gift card.

[Kevin Ruse]

Have a good trip.

[David Carbon]

So if you think about it, you only hear it for about a minute at either end, and then it's gone.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah, it's like a temporary very loud swarm of beasts.

[David Carbon]

But it's not very loud. It's not very loud at all.

[Kevin Ruse]

If I'm taking a nap and one of these things flies over, you won't hear it inside. You don't.

[David Carbon]

No way.

[Kevin Ruse]

But if I'm out on the hammock, I'm waking up the hammock.

[David Carbon]

If you've got the benefit of having a hammock. Right. But you can't hear that. You can see it. You can't hear it.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kevin Ruse]

Now I can't. What is the range of these things? How far away can they go?

[David Carbon]

11 kilometers, 12 kilometers.

[Kevin Ruse]

Ultimately, I'm American. You're gonna have to put that in miles.

[David Carbon]

Like eight miles?

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, eight miles.

[Kevin Ruse]

Have you ever lost one?

[David Carbon]

No.

[Kevin Ruse]

They just don't come back.

[David Carbon]

No. Well, we treat them well. They've got no reason not to come back. So we're two launch pads, three landing pads so we can deconflict and cycle. I see. This is one coming back. So we can run both these pads at the same time. So what the drone's doing is stopping. It's checking in its conformance volume that nothing is obscuring its path. And it's clear to land and it'll come down and it'll land on the pad. Fully redundant safety system so there's no single points of safety critical failure.

[Casey Noon]

And is an operator landing this? Or it is.

[David Carbon]

No, it's.

[Casey Noon]

It's all automatic, autonomous.

[Kevin Ruse]

Now, I have to say, it's quite loud when it's coming down and taking off.

[David Carbon]

I have to disagree.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah, I mean, that just seems like if that's flying through your neighborhood, you're going to notice.

[David Carbon]

Let's take you where we're going today, where you'll have general aviation helicopters, Cessnas and golf carts. And then let's revisit your idea.

[Casey Noon]

Okay.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay.

[David Carbon]

Because I think this thing's 40% quieter than the previous drone. And we're in the 70s from decibel rating. And if you listen to the acoustics of the drone, it's pretty soothing. Right. If you think about noise like a buzz, a mosquito buzzing is a pain. Right. But that doesn't mean the decibels are high. Right. It's the type of sound. Right. So we work really hard on the type of sound of the drone to bring it into modulation that people can actually appreciate, rather than think, maybe you.

[Kevin Ruse]

Should put some, like, Christmas music on the things. Like, have them. Have them, like, sing a little ice.

[David Carbon]

Cream sandwich that would cause you to come out of your affluent humming.

[Kevin Ruse]

I love the Wicked soundtrack.

[Casey Noon]

People.

[Kevin Ruse]

People love Wicked. You can just play the Wicked soundtrack.

[David Carbon]

I fortunately, just when I watched it without me, so I feel very good. I'm not a musical guy, but, like, to put in perspective, your idea of it's loud. We're about, what, 12ft away from where it's taking off? Yeah.

[Kevin Ruse]

I mean, if I were next, if I were this close to a normal plane, I would have to be wearing.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, if one or two of these landed in your neighborhood during the day, I don't think you would really notice or might. I think if this becomes the dominant way that people get their Amazon deliveries, it might be more initial.

[David Carbon]

It'll never be the dominant plane.

[Casey Noon]

No.

[David Carbon]

No. No way. And ultimately, we'll never do much more than 10% of what people are going to water anyway because of what we can take. This is just another option to get people what they need really quickly.

[Kevin Ruse]

Well, David, thank you for the tour of your. What do you call this? The launch pad?

[David Carbon]

Haddock.

[Kevin Ruse]

Haddock.

[Casey Noon]

Haddock, yeah.

[Kevin Ruse]

And not to be confused with haddock, which is a type of fish.

[David Carbon]

No, it's not a haddock. It's not a fish.

[Casey Noon]

But you can order a haddock through prime air if you go to the right place, I think.

[Kevin Ruse]

I haven't checked that out.

[David Carbon]

I'm pretty sure we're done.

[Casey Noon]

No. No groceries yet. Okay.

[David Carbon]

We're not dropping fish from the sky.

[Casey Noon]

Stay tuned for maybe that wouldn't be a great future announcement.

[David Carbon]

That'd be messy, isn't it?

[Casey Noon]

That'd be messy. But now we get to go do a drone order of our own.

[David Carbon]

Yep.

[Casey Noon]

Is that right?

[David Carbon]

Yep. We're gonna go to local property. Yep. And we're gonna order. And seeing is believing. Right. This is the key. When you go to someone's house and you see what a regular backyard looks like or A regular front yard. Cause we're delivering to empty space. You see the dynamic nature of an environment and that's when you really see the genius. Like this at the end of the day is a choreographed paddock. Right? This is the way it's meant to run. When you see what's happening in someone's house, that's cool. Yes, cool.

[Kevin Ruse]

Let's go see that when we come back. This podcast is supported by Google Gemini.

[John Chase]

Using Gemini is as easy as having a conversation. You can interrupt it, add details, ask follow up questions, and Gemini will adapt to you in real time. But the best way to learn about Gemini is to try it. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today. Must be 18 to use Gemini live.

[Casey Noon]

Hey, it's John Chase and Mari Uehara from Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from the New York Times. Mari, it is gift giving time, John. We have over 40 gift guides like gifts for people who have everything on that list. I particularly love the self watering planter. I struggle to keep plants alive. So this is like a perfect solution. Check out all of Wirecutter's gift recommendations for yourself and everyone [e-mail] holidayguide.

[Kevin Ruse]

All.

[Casey Noon]

Right, so after our tour of the Amazon facility, Kevin and I, along with our producers Rachel and ryan, drove about 12 minutes to a nearby house that Amazon had rented to test drone deliveries. The house was in a suburban neighborhood, lots of neatly laid out homes with similar sized front and backyards. It had a pool and it jutted up against a golf course, which wound up being kind of funny. So we sat down at a table there with David, who, as a reminder, oversees all aspects of the Prime Air program, not just here in Arizona, but all over the world.

[Kevin Ruse]

I would like to try placing an order with Prime Air and seeing it come to this place where we are. We're in like a rented house in the suburbs of Phoenix. Can we place an order and then it'll come.

[Casey Noon]

Place an order.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay, so Casey, I went through the product list. So you all have like, something. How many different types of items can be delivered by drone today?

[David Carbon]

Around 60,000.

[Kevin Ruse]

60,000. Okay, so I didn't go through all 60,000, but I did pick a few out of the list that I wanted to get your take on.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, some gems.

[Kevin Ruse]

Some gems. So some of the items that we can order in an hour less are a cheese grater, a copy of the children's book Goodnight, Goodnight construction site that was potentially for my kid. I know he would Love that. There's something called Brazilian Bum Bum cream that we can order.

[Casey Noon]

That's for two bums at the same time.

[Kevin Ruse]

Exactly. A copy of the US Constitution.

[Casey Noon]

Every house needs one.

[Kevin Ruse]

Or dental floss. I do actually have something stuck in my teeth right now.

[Casey Noon]

I didn't want to bring it up, actually. Yeah.

[Kevin Ruse]

So which of those sounds best to you?

[Casey Noon]

I mean, I think I'm. It's. To me, it's somewhere between the bum bum cream and the US Constitution. Where are you leaning?

[Kevin Ruse]

I think we should get the bum bum cream. Just because. I don't even know what that is.

[Casey Noon]

I don't know what it is either.

[David Carbon]

You ditched your child very quickly.

[Casey Noon]

He's got enough books.

[Kevin Ruse]

The holidays are coming up. He's going to be getting enough stuff. Okay, so we can get. Yeah. Brazilian bomb Bomb cream by Sol de Janeiro. It's visibly firming cream. I don't know.

[Casey Noon]

It's. It will firm us.

[Kevin Ruse]

It will firm us.

[David Carbon]

Took a very dark turn very quickly.

[Kevin Ruse]

While you sell it.

[David Carbon]

So you're buying it.

[Casey Noon]

We're just. We're just perusing the.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay, so now I go to the cart and I go to check out.

[Casey Noon]

And just so people know, how much is the bum bum cream?

[Kevin Ruse]

It's $24.

[Casey Noon]

Okay.

[Gino]

All right.

[Casey Noon]

They put in that cream.

[Kevin Ruse]

So the drone delivery, it says for one item is 9.99. That's like a. That's just a charge that you tack on. Okay. So I'm going to say within. Oh, and then it wants me to confirm. It shows me, like, a little satellite picture here of the house.

[Casey Noon]

So it's basically. It's making sure that you know where in your house it's going to drop off. Yeah.

[Kevin Ruse]

So this is going to drop off in the backyard by the pool. And it says, selected area must be kept clear of people, pets, and objects. So I will continue. I will use this delivery area.

[Casey Noon]

Oh, so that's it. So if you had a dog, you'd want to bring the dog inside while you were getting the delivery.

[David Carbon]

Yeah. You want to get it out of the way of the delivery area. But what you're doing now happens the first time.

[Casey Noon]

I see.

[David Carbon]

Like you would any other order. So it's the first time you're doing it when you do it. If we order the next package, which presumably will be the Constitution.

[Casey Noon]

That's right.

[David Carbon]

Which is very patriotic of us. The right thing to do. And you wouldn't have to go through this again unless you wanted to change that delivery location, of which in some properties you'll get up to three choices in this. It's pretty tight outside. It's a tight environment with the pool and the shrubs and the golf course behind us and that sort of stuff.

[Casey Noon]

Do you always try to deliver in the backyard or do you do the front yard as well?

[David Carbon]

We don't care.

[Casey Noon]

Okay.

[David Carbon]

As long as it's got the available space, we'll deliver it.

[Casey Noon]

Got it.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay. So it's. It looks like a pretty standard Amazon checkout process, except for this sort of delivery area thing. And then I'm going to go ahead and place that order. And then it says, By 2:16pm today, which is in exactly one hour, we are predicted to get a delivery by drone. So while we wait for our drone delivery to show up, David, we do have some more questions for you. I want to start by asking about different drones, the ones that are currently flying over New Jersey. People are very upset about this. There's a lot of people who are going outside and taking photos of them and posting them on social media. This has become like a big national news story. Are those your drones? Are those Amazon drones?

[David Carbon]

They are absolutely not Amazon drones.

[Casey Noon]

All right.

[David Carbon]

Period.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay.

[Casey Noon]

We can rule that one out. We've moved that story forward, Kevin.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yes.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah.

[David Carbon]

So cutting edge journalism.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah.

[David Carbon]

Not us.

[Kevin Ruse]

But I do want to ask you about this not because I think you have any, you know, special knowledge or insight about these particular drones, but because I think it's the reaction that people are having. I'm wondering if you watch that as someone who wants to take commercial delivery drones mainstream and says, oh, this might actually be challenging people's reaction when they see drones flying above them in the sky. At least if people in New Jersey are typical. Is not, oh, this is great. Let's invite them to come to our neighborhood. It's, get this thing out of my face. Get this thing out of the sky.

[David Carbon]

People don't like nuisance.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah.

[David Carbon]

Right. So we would have the same reaction, was like 500 motorcycles at the front of your house, you'd have the same reaction. And so, you know, we've been purposeful about integrating into airspace, integrating into aerospace fundamentals in order that we're like everybody else that legitimately flies or legitimately does commercial delivery or legitimately moves a passenger or package. And that's the key. It's, you know, none of us want to be messed around with at our house.

[Casey Noon]

Right.

[David Carbon]

And particularly when you have no control over it. So, you know, whoever's doing it, stop it. And, you know, like, aerospace regulation is.

[Kevin Ruse]

It's the law Yeah, I guess the question I have is, like, people, from a distance of a couple hundred feet up in the sky, you can't tell if some. A drone is up there delivering packages or if it's part of some, you know, surveillance operation. It seems like it's scary to people. So how do you change the culture where when people see something flying in the air above them, their first thought is not, oh, no, I'm under attack, it's, oh, here's my Amazon package.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, I don't know that I would categorize people's first thought when they see something in the air. I'm under attack. Not in this country, at least.

[Kevin Ruse]

I mean, I heard people on the news talking about wanting to shoot these things out of the air.

[David Carbon]

They're New Yorkers. Look, I grew up under a flood. I'm probably the wrong guy to ask. You know, my dad worked for Qantas. I worked you. You know, I've been involved with aviation or been exposed to it all my life. I grew up under a flight path about five miles from an airport. So to me, seeing things in the sky is still, holy cow. How does something like that fly? People don't want to be bothered. And if they're bothered, they're upset, and if they're upset, they're vocal. And our job in the commercial drone delivery industry is not to be a nuisance.

[Kevin Ruse]

So let's go back in time to 2013, when Jeff Bezos originally unveiled the vision. My favorite question of Prime Air, he did a big segment on 60 Minutes, and he framed this as a huge disruption that was coming to the world of package delivery. And I took him to be saying essentially that we have to build this because someone's going to build this, and customers want fast delivery, and we're going to be the ones to give it to them. Is that still the vision for Prime Air today?

[David Carbon]

Yeah. I mean, our mission is to deliver a delivery capability that's capable of delivering 500 million packages a year within 30 minutes of order. That's our job. And one thing we know is people are never going to compromise safety for speed. Right. If I said to you, you know, something bad is going to happen, but I'll get you your package in 10 minutes, you're never going to order. Right. So we've got this bar for safety. That is an aerospace bar for safety that's assessed by the faa. And then as delivery experience gets faster, people will shop more. Right. So to me, it's an imperative if you're going to be in e Commerce, you have to be able to get people things fast. And that's what we're here to solve in these particular types of environments.

[Casey Noon]

So Kevin just brought up 2013. The vision is announced. I know you guys have been doing a lot since then, but I still cannot use one of these things to get a delivery at my house in San Francisco. So what's been taking so long?

[David Carbon]

It's really hard. It's like this is not about can a drone fly? Right? Wright brothers prove things can fly. It's not about can a drone carry something. It really is about developing a technology suite to deliver packages at scale where people live around the world. And to do that, you have to fundamentally start with what's the safety target you have to have. And for us, that is magnitude safer than general aviation and a magnitude safer than driving to the store. And that's what we're designing up into. On top of that, Amazon's been going for 30 years, right? So you have to integrate into an existing Amazon stack that has been able to take orders. Firstly it was a couple of days, then it was one day, then it was sub same day in a big fulfillment network. And really, if you think about what we have to do, the fastest we normally can do anything is two hours. We have to get that package from the point of click to us at the drone fulfillment center or the paddock within 15 minutes. Right. That some of these facilities, you can't walk from one end to the other in 15 minutes.

[Kevin Ruse]

So let's talk about regulatory hurdles, because my understanding is that's a big piece of why this has taken so long to get these things up and running. What has been the hardest thing to get the FAA to sign off on.

[David Carbon]

Within the US Regulation isn't the holdup. The reality is nobody was really ready to go and execute deliveries at any form of scale in open airspace that wasn't over paddocks and fields where no one lived anyway, regardless of the faa. And I think the industry needs to own up to that. I mean, they spend a lot of time lobbying for, for ignoring standards or aerospace conventions. And certainly from the minute I walked in, at least, and I know this was Amazon's position anyway, we were advocating that there needed to be a policy framework, there needed to be a regulatory framework, and it needed to be steeped in aerospace practice.

[Kevin Ruse]

But you do need specific licenses and approvals, like to operate a drone outside of what's called line of sight. That takes a special kind of certification. So there were hoops that you had to jump through but you're saying this was not what kept the industry.

[David Carbon]

You still need a drone, you still need a safe drone system of systems, right? So it's, it's a bit like saying there's no roads, but you don't have a car, or there's no roads, but you have this car that you built in your garage, but every third time you start it up, it blows up.

[Casey Noon]

Right?

[Kevin Ruse]

So the bottleneck was the hardware. In other words, not the regulation software.

[David Carbon]

Hardware, the integration of all of it, working out, how you integrate into airspace. And then if you had all of that, then you need a framework. And in around 2022, the FA got really serious about how it handled this space. And through whether it be policy or whether it be the establishment of a section that focused on this area, we were able to work through what that policy suite looked like for this type of drone. I'm not suggesting for one minute the framework was there, don't get me wrong. But I would argue vehemently that no one was ready. Even if it was there, no one could build into it anyway.

[Kevin Ruse]

There was some reporting by Bloomberg about some of the incidents and crashes that had happened with the drones at the Pendleton, Oregon facility, including one in 2021 where there was a drone fell out of the sky, caught on fire and ended up sparking something like a 20 acre brush fire. What was the story there and how confident are you that something like that isn't going to happen with these latest drones?

[David Carbon]

It's test, right? So if you test for failure, you get failure and you test in controlled environments, right, where you can have a fire like that and you have emergency response ready to emergency respond emergently and makes for good news, but doesn't make for great engineering. Right. I would be skeptical if somebody wasn't testing something. The failure in this mode. Now, if you got a big commercial airplane, well, you're not flying it into the ground, right?

[Kevin Ruse]

So that was an intentional crash. That wasn't like a malfunction in the system.

[David Carbon]

That particular case was a malfunction system. But it was a malfunction we were testing for, so we'd induce that malfunction. You know, we have the luxury of not having humans in danger, and so therefore the hardware is not so expensive that you wouldn't test it to failure. So as I said, it makes great news. But if you ever interview a technologist or an engineer that is not testing stuff to failure, I would be highly skeptical about what they're putting up around the public. Right.

[Casey Noon]

Tell us about. We have some Sort of questions about various scenarios that we think are in people's minds. When they think about a retailer like Amazon putting a bunch of drones up in the sky and delivering products, one of them is just, what do they do about the sort of tall trees and other, like, you know, dense areas? How are they able to avoid those?

[David Carbon]

That's a really great question. So stuff that's there is not dynamic now. Things like trees grow. Right. And so our algorithms, our sense and avoid algorithm, and our perception algorithm is trained over hundreds of thousands of data sets. Right. We have another group called DA2, which basically stands for data collection. It's a second fleet where we put our cameras on a. For want of a better word, a mule fleet. And we go and take aerial images of different environments from the ground, you know, phone sticks and attached to helicopters and all this sort of stuff. And we use that to train our algorithm. And so that's one part of our safety layer. The other part of our safety layer is to then go and say, does that look like it's meant to look? And if it doesn't, is it safe? Third part of our safety layer, it doesn't look the way it's meant to look, and it's not within the profile that I can deliver, so therefore, I'm out of here.

[Kevin Ruse]

I imagine that another thing that people are going to be thinking when they hear about Amazon drones potentially coming to their neighborhoods is what if they hit stuff up there? I mean, what if they collide with a plane or a bird or, you know, maybe a stationary object that's, that's, you know, tall in the sky. Talk to us about that.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, we, we shouldn't hit anything. Like, we hit something. Something's wrong. You know, someone's trying to hit us if we hit something, because we, we've designed the drone to sense and avoid.

[Casey Noon]

So it can avoid a bird.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, you can avoid some birds. Like, I mean, the bird's gonna want to go straight at the drone. Birds coming off second best. I mean, that. That's how it sort of works.

[Casey Noon]

This is a message to birds. Do not mess with the drone.

[Kevin Ruse]

Birds are unnoticed.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, look, we, we have done everything that's humanly possible to sense and avoid what's around us and, and sense and avoid. We're not going to be flying into airplanes. We're not going to be flying into static objects. We're not going to be landing on things we shouldn't be landing on the bottom line. That's part of what you designed for, right? Anyone? Like, if your Listeners sort of know anything about aerospace design or even automotive design. Right? You lay out your failure cases, you lay out what those allowances need to be. And in aerospace, we design through redundant systems. So, you know, the drone can lose a motor, can lose a prop, can lose compute, it can lose battery, and it's going to get back home.

[Casey Noon]

I'm curious on the sort of sensing and avoiding of it all. I know that most of the systems are automated. Do you also have a way for like a remote operator to sort of take control of a camera and say, like, oh, yeah, that actually is a crane. We didn't expect and do something, or how does that work?

[David Carbon]

No, an operator can't take control of the vision. In fact, that's not how it works. An operator can abort a mission. They have two options, launch and abortion.

[Casey Noon]

And we have the same two options in a podcast, by the way, but go on.

[David Carbon]

It's not live. That's the difference. But, you know, if they see something dynamically happening that the drone isn't seeing, which, you know, frankly is 0.0% or nothing, that's not going to happen. But they can. If they're concerned about something that's dynamically happening, they can abort the mission. And abort means the thing will turn around, come home.

[Kevin Ruse]

Right. One more thing that I think we should talk about is the risk that people will try to take these things out of the air. There was a man who was arrested in Florida earlier this year for trying to shoot down a Walmart delivery drone with a pistol.

[David Carbon]

It's Walmart, right?

[Kevin Ruse]

Yes. A judge recently ordered that man to pay $5,000 in compensation. But I think this is a fair question to ask of Amazon as it goes through this delivery drone process, because people, some number of them, are just gonna hate these things flying around. Some of them may try to take a at it. So have you had that happen? Do you plan on that happening? What are the contingency plans if that tries to happen? Are you going to be prosecuting people? Talk to us about this.

[David Carbon]

We have not had that happen. Will it happen? Probably. If it does, we'll use a full force of the law. I mean, it's federally dictated airspace, so it's like shooting in an airplane. And if you're silly enough to do that, well, then you're going to jail. It says that simple.

[Casey Noon]

Last one of these concerns. And I have to say, this was actually Kevin's idea. And so I'm just gonna steal. Do you wanna do it?

[Kevin Ruse]

No. Do it.

[Casey Noon]

Oh, you shot me. A look. It's a really good look. I hadn't thought of it. So here's the idea. The idea is you see an Amazon drone coming in and you think, aha, I can take that off the lawn and resell it. So is there any concern that the drones are going to inspire a new generation of porch pirates who can just watch where the drone lands and then go grab the package?

[David Carbon]

You've stumped me. No, look, I'm not. Because unlike dropping something off at someone's front door, we're typically dropping stuff off in someone's backyard. Right. So we've got that advantage. And typically, if you need something in 30 minutes, and in this case, if you're in Phoenix and you've paid for it, you're gonna want it in 30 minutes, you're typically standing by to get it. I mean, I know how keen you are to get the butt cream. And he's very.

[Kevin Ruse]

Bum, bum cream.

[David Carbon]

Bum bum cream.

[Casey Noon]

And he's very keen, let's just say.

[David Carbon]

So, you know, we're listening out for the drone. We're waiting for it to come. Now, we're not going to hear the drone from inside, but you know, we know it's coming. It gave us a time. So if you want something that keenly. Yeah. You're going to get to it before anybody else.

[Casey Noon]

I'm, we, we have to ask about the cost. And I know you're not going to answer, but I think every once they, particularly if they, they see the video and, you know, the entire production, they're going to say, how much money is Amazon losing on these deliveries? So I know you can't answer it, but, like, tell me, like, could this possibly be profitable ever?

[David Carbon]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Kevin Ruse]

And by the way, if you do want to tell us how much money Amazon's losing on every delivery via drone, you feel free to do that.

[David Carbon]

I would like to think of it as an investment.

[Casey Noon]

Okay.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay. How much money is Amazon investing in every drone delivery?

[David Carbon]

Like, the one thing Amazon does better than any other company in the world that I have seen in my time is we take long term bets and we take those long term bets on behalf of our customers. So imagine the mocking you would have got. I'm going to sell books on the Internet and 30 years later, look what you've got. Right. So this is just the very start. And our models show that at the end of the day, when we say by 2029, we want to deliver 500 million deliveries, we're cost positive because you can't deliver packages indefinitely at A loss. Right. But at the end of the day, right now, this is learning to scale up to where we need to be. And if you think about the flywheel, it's pretty simple, right? The more customers you can serve, the more packages you can deliver, the more locations you can operate, the cost comes down.

[Kevin Ruse]

My questions are sort of around, like, the density of packages. I mean, it seems to me like Amazon and every other e commerce retailer depends on being very optimized in the fulfillment centers, in the, you know, packing the packages tightly into vans and trucks and sending them out on optimized routes. Like sending things one at a time on a drone seems incredibly inefficient. And I just don't understand how you get to the kind of unit costs and economics that you have with something like traditional delivery if you're only able to send out one package or even a handful of packages at a time.

[David Carbon]

Most people order about 1.4, 1.6 packages at a time.

[Kevin Ruse]

I'm not talking about the people ordering multiple things at a time. I'm talking about, like, a bunch of, you know, hundreds of packages go into an Amazon van that goes door to door delivering stuff that goes along a very optimized route. It's not doing, like, one trip to the warehouse, one trip to a person's house, one trip back to the warehouse like these drones are. That seems incredibly inefficient.

[David Carbon]

10 minutes. Okay, but so. And look how many people are working at the fulfillment center today. When you can cycle 21 with that many people, it literally all is cycling. If you deliver one package to 12 people or you deliver 21 packages for 12 people, the cost of the package is less because you pay for the drone once. Right. So do I want somebody being able to order as many packages they can fit in that box up to £5? Absolutely. And that'll come by the end of 1Q next year. We'll have that. Do I want you being able to order, build a basket and say, look, I'm going. I want all these things delivered to me by drone in the next hour? Yep. We're not there yet. But the reality is, when you think about 10 minutes back and forth doing 21 cycles off those two pads, utilizing 12 drones, there's the magic right there.

[Casey Noon]

It's cycling over a longer period of time. Do you hope that that drone can carry 10, 15, 20 pounds? Do you see the drone sort of making multiple stops?

[David Carbon]

Not. Not that morphology. We'll create a different morphology.

[Casey Noon]

I mean, like a different shape of.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, like you'd Have a head.

[Kevin Ruse]

Use small words around.

[Casey Noon]

Casey, I know what a morphology is.

[David Carbon]

He's very good, actually.

[Casey Noon]

I studied morphology in college.

[David Carbon]

He's morphing right now.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, my grandfather was a morphologist. I'm sorry, go ahead.

[David Carbon]

We will need to look it up. We will create different shape for, you know, where we need to go. But this drone size, it is the backbone. Because if you think about the way this thing is set up, it's to get into backyards or yards or spaces like the one we've got now. And there'll be some stuff we release next year which will show the utility of this drone utilizing other delivery modes for sure.

[Kevin Ruse]

So people can now get deliveries via drone if they live in the designated area. I assume you chose Phoenix because the weather is very mild here. It's, you know, there's not a lot of rain, not a lot of snow. For people who live in parts of the world where there is worse weather, should those people expect to wait longer before something like Amazon Prime Air is available in their area?

[David Carbon]

Our plan is to start rolling out at scale effective next year. And you know, this drone has been set out for where our customers are anywhere in the world. That's how we designed it. Now, we're not going to be doing icing conditions, but arguably no one's flying in icing conditions. Look what happens when it's icing at the airport. Airplanes are getting sprayed, it's chaos, you know, that sort of stuff. But that's what it's been designed for. And by the end of 2026, we'll be doing low light deliveries, nighttime deliveries, you know, that sort of stuff. So this is just the start. And you're right. Like putting a gift card in a box and shipping it somewhere. That's not the end, that's the beginning.

[Kevin Ruse]

What about dense places? Places where people maybe don't have a backyard with a, you know, area big enough to drop a package in. What about people who live in apartment buildings?

[David Carbon]

That's a wonderful question you should ask me midway through next year. Okay.

[Casey Noon]

Okay.

[David Carbon]

We do deliver to apartments today.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, if there's the. If you have like a good enough landing pad for them.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, well, it's not even a landing pad. It's a delivery location. A delivery location. Not to be pedantic, but hang on to that question next year because it will answer itself.

[Casey Noon]

Let's just say the delivery location has to have a certain morphology in order to be.

[David Carbon]

Configuration. Yeah, certain configuration.

[Casey Noon]

All right. I have another efficiency question. Really? Basically, anytime on the show we talk about any kind of physical technology. Our listeners want us to ask about the environmental impact. So what can you talk about the environmental impact of making a delivery that requires a custom drone to fly maybe eight miles and back. And is there anything that you can do to kind of mitigate that impact?

[David Carbon]

I love it. It's a great question because we design, you know, we got the climate pledge, right Amazon climate page. And so we designed the drone to be recyclable. The materials will be used in a recyclable fashion. It's a got a battery powered which not emitting anything along the way. And so really right now, you know, unless we're running an electric van, it's the most environmentally conscious way of delivering. Now when you get into a van, a Rivian van for instance, carrying more packages. So it's hard for a drone that we've created to do this sort of mission to compete with that. But at the end of the day, it works backwards from the clump pledge. We're gonna pause because we're gonna go outside.

[Casey Noon]

Oh, the drone is here, the drone's here.

[Kevin Ruse]

Our drone is here. And that means we gotta go outside and pick it up. When we come back, we'll tell you what's in the box.

[Casey Noon]

What's in the box, Kevin?

[Kevin Ruse]

This podcast is supported by Google Gemini.

[John Chase]

For anyone new to Gemini. It's an AI assistant you can have real conversations with. Whether you want to brainstorm something, prep for a presentation or interview, or just learn something new, Gemini can help you do it smarter and faster. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. You can download the Gemini app for free on iOS or Android. Must be 18 to use Gemini live.

[Kevin Ruse]

I gave my brother a New York Times subscription.

[Casey Noon]

We exchange articles and so having read the same article, we can discuss it.

[David Carbon]

She sent me a year long subscription.

[Kevin Ruse]

So I have access to all the games.

[Casey Noon]

The New York Times contributes to our quality time together.

[David Carbon]

It enriches our relationship.

[Casey Noon]

It was such a cool and thoughtful gift. We're reading the same stuff, we're making the same food, we're on the same page.

[John Chase]

Learn more about giving a New York.

[Kevin Ruse]

Times subscription as a [e-mail] gift we've.

[Casey Noon]

Now moved to the rear morphology of the home where we're awaiting the arrival of an Amazon drone with Kevin's bum bum cream.

[Kevin Ruse]

It's technically our bum bum cream. We purchased that as a joint operation.

[Casey Noon]

We did.

[Kevin Ruse]

So we are in now we are in the backyard of this house. We are waiting for the Amazon drone to Arrive with our package, and it's going to come flying out of the sky from some direction and it's going to drop the package, ideally onto the lawn behind us. We're next to a golf course also, and it looks like someone's in the sand trap, so sorry about that.

[Casey Noon]

I mean, there's a chance he could hit the drone with the ball if he shanks it to the right.

[Kevin Ruse]

Honestly, that'd be pretty impressive.

[David Carbon]

Yeah.

[Kevin Ruse]

Oh, here comes our drone.

[Casey Noon]

Look, it's just like we predicted. It came out of nowhere.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay. Wow. Okay, here we go. All right. Hello.

[Casey Noon]

Okay, it's identified. Making sure it's safe to land, I guess. Slowly descending.

[Kevin Ruse]

All right, coming down. Casey, go grab it.

[Casey Noon]

No. Wow. It did not touch down.

[Kevin Ruse]

It did not touch down and just drop.

[Casey Noon]

I don't know why I assumed it would touch down.

[Kevin Ruse]

Thank you. Okay, so the drone just came over. It descended to a height of around 14ft. A little compartment opened in the bottom, and then the package that we ordered dropped onto the lawn in a little cushioned box.

[Casey Noon]

And then the drone just elevated and flew away. And it's already out of sight again.

[Kevin Ruse]

Should we go see what's in our box?

[Casey Noon]

Let's go see what's in our box.

[Kevin Ruse]

Casey, this is your Christmas present from me.

[Casey Noon]

Oh, great.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah.

[Casey Noon]

All right. And what do you know, our Brazilian bum bum cream.

[Kevin Ruse]

For the man who has everything.

[Casey Noon]

For the man who has everything. Look at that.

[Kevin Ruse]

Amazing.

[Casey Noon]

It's a caffeine rich guarana extract. And in the words of Sol de Janeiro, love it. Flaunt it. You've got it. That's what it says on that package. Love it. Flaunt it. You got it.

[Kevin Ruse]

Hello.

[Mari Uehara]

You guys from Amazon?

[Casey Noon]

Yeah.

[Kevin Ruse]

Well, you scared the death wife out.

[Mari Uehara]

A lot of people. What the hell's that? What's going on? Associate you guys with New Jersey?

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, yeah, a little difference.

[Mari Uehara]

They're probably 16, 17 year olds having fun. You guys are a lot older.

[David Carbon]

These guys are from the New York Times. I'm from Amazon.

[Mari Uehara]

Yeah, yeah, the Amazon. Yeah. So what the heck?

[Kevin Ruse]

I'm Kevin.

[Mari Uehara]

Kevin, I'm Gino.

[Kevin Ruse]

Gino, nice to meet you. So, neighbor Gino. So you've seen a number of these? You've seen a number of these? Drone?

[Mari Uehara]

Well, I come out one day, I've seen the truck and I seen all that equipment. First thing that hit me. Well, it's a rental. Doing a, you know, porno here.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah, yeah. Has that happened before?

[Mari Uehara]

Not here, but I have no other places.

[David Carbon]

Drone delivery point.

[Mari Uehara]

This is quite a series I talked to a girl out friend. She says, yeah, they're. It's Amazon to film. So I came here. So I said, well, maybe I can get in the. In the movie saying, hey, look at the old man here waiting for his drone.

[David Carbon]

You want to use this screen?

[Mari Uehara]

His BIA to come in the mail.

[David Carbon]

You want to use this screen? Use this screen, G. Thank you very much.

[Kevin Ruse]

Don't shoot the drones, please.

[Casey Noon]

They're a legend. Amazing. Kevin Casey, can you just recap what happened? Yeah, please do.

[David Carbon]

I'll put my clothes back on.

[Casey Noon]

We had just sort of picked up our drone delivery when a neighbor popped over to sort of see what the commotion was about. He apparently helps to take care of the pool.

[Kevin Ruse]

That was an Amazon drone? Yes.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah. Any feedback?

[David Carbon]

You just dropped it.

[Casey Noon]

Yep. From about 14ft high. And if you live in this area, you can get anything that they offer within one hour. Yeah.

[David Carbon]

See you guys. Thank you.

[Casey Noon]

So that was where the house abuts a golf course. And so a couple of golfers just stopped by. We assumed they were hard fork fans, but it turns out they wanted to know what the drone was, so. Yeah. So we met Gino, the neighbor who was taking care of the pool, and stopped by to kind of share stories from his life and his impressions of drones.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah, yeah.

[Casey Noon]

And then we talked to some golfers. So it's really rallying the community to say, hey, what is that thing?

[Kevin Ruse]

Yes. There do seem to be a lot of reactions ranging from like, those golfers thought it was pretty cool.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah.

[Kevin Ruse]

And Gino, the neighbor, thought maybe this was something that people were a little more concerned about because of all the drones flying over New Jersey and stuff. They just didn't know what they were. So probably, as with any new technology, a range of reactions.

[Casey Noon]

All right, let's go inside.

[Kevin Ruse]

Let's go inside. I'm hot. So one thing I noticed about the delivery is that these drones attract attention. Right. You know, I know you said it's quieter than the previous version, but it still makes a pretty noticeable sound if you're outside and nearby and they're visible and they fly through the air and they're somewhat novel. And I'm curious if you think that's a good introduction to the world of drone delivery for people, or if you're trying to make these things a little less noticeable as they're making their way through neighborhoods dropping off packages.

[David Carbon]

I'm trying to make them safe. Right. And that's what I'm trying to do. It's not in the morphology or the configuration word of the day, word of the day, the configuration of the drone needs to be the configuration of the drone that makes it safe and not a nuisance. And we all saw what we saw, right? Like two golfers smiling, asking, intrigued. Gino came in. Gino was buzzing, right? Like he was. He was happy. He was telling us stories, you know.

[Kevin Ruse]

But he said the neighbors had had concerns about them because of these drones flying around. So I just. I just want to say that. Not to say that everyone is concerned, but these things fly through the air. They're. They're noticeable and they do freak some people out.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, he said. He said they were wondering what was going on, considering what was happening on the East Coast. And so that's. Not that I wouldn't say Jenna was. I mean, he didn't look concerned. He looked happy as a clam. But. So our job is to make this normal, right? That's our job. And until it's normal, people are always rightfully skeptical of change. And it's just a changing delivery sequence. But when you need something in 30 minutes, you will very quickly become used to the fact that you can order from up to 60,000 items, 70,000 items, depending on the SSD, and get it within 30 minutes. Right now, the promise now is 60 minutes. But there's no substitute for that.

[Casey Noon]

I mean, it. It probably sounds somewhat dismissive to frame it this way, but I'm wondering if maybe the main benefit to Amazon of Prime Air is the marketing effect. Because if you're a customer and you do need something in a hurry and it comes whatever expense went into it for you guys, for all the turmoil of making that happen, that person is probably going to think, yeah, I'm just going to use Amazon for everything.

[Kevin Ruse]

And it also strikes me that people do acclimate fairly quickly to new things. I mean, I remember when Waymos and autonomous vehicles first started driving in the streets of San Francisco. You would stop in your tracks, people would point, people would stare. And then a couple months go by, you start seeing them more and more, and now I barely notice. The only people who stop and point are tourists because they've never seen them before. And for people who live in San Francisco, they're just sort of part of the landscape. So I can imagine something like that happening with drones, too, but it does seem like we are just at the start of that process.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, I mean, look, you know, for me, our job is not. Isn't. We're not about the drone. That's the thing. That's the hardest thing to get people's head around. We're about 30 minute click to delivery at scale 500 million packages by the end of 2029. If I do my job right, no one's gonna care about the drone. What they're gonna care about is did I get my package within 30 minutes. And if you think about it like that, my job is not the drone guy. Right. Even though I've been known a drone on but, but my dad joke.

[Casey Noon]

Honestly I'm surprised that it wasn't one of us that made the joke first. So congratulations.

[Kevin Ruse]

I was just crossing that off my list of dad jokes here.

[David Carbon]

It got cut off the script at some point in another event. I thought I should try it somewhere. But honestly like my job is not to. My job is to deliver packages within 30 minutes and that's what I say my job is. Right. The only way we know how to do that today is in the air.

[Casey Noon]

Can you give us any sense of what is coming in 2025? Is there a number of cities that you're hoping to open up in or what can you tell us?

[David Carbon]

Yeah, 2025, there's a bunch of announcements going to come out. We've got features coming on board, we've got multi product ordering, we've got basket building and then more locations coming next year that we'll talk a little bit about and we'll go international. We've talked about Italy and the UK but we want to expand beyond that. Once we get our Italian certification that opens. You know this isn't what I love about this stage of a development program. I've been on quite a few in my career is it's we're no longer gonna do. We're doing. And that's the joy of like when you can learn and see this sort of thing and you see people's reactions. You feel like you're delivering something that's gonna change the world. Right. Beats anything else on earth.

[Kevin Ruse]

So Amazon delivers billions of packages a year. Give us a sense of what 500 million packages would represent in terms of the overall volume of Amazon.

[David Carbon]

It's in the single digit percentages of what we deliver. Right. And if you think about our plan, 500 million packages a year to 100 million customers from over 100 million 40 sites. You know it'll be more or less that varying degrees. If you do the math that, it's 4.5 packages per year per customer. That's less than single digit percentages, one hand percentages of what people ordered today in a year.

[Kevin Ruse]

Does that represent a scaling back of the original vision here. I mean, I'm not sure that Jeff Bezos attached specific predictions about package delivery back in 2013. Maybe he did, but my sense from watching the press that he did Back then, the 60 Minutes interview and whatnot, is that he anticipated that this was sort of the next frontier in delivery and that this would. I don't know if it would eventually overtake ground delivery as the main way that people got Amazon packages, but certainly not a single digit percentage of Amazon deliveries was what he was sort of envisioning and projecting at. So do you think that Amazon's ambitions in drone deliveries have been pared back?

[David Carbon]

No, They've grown from when I got here, so I can say categorically no.

[Kevin Ruse]

And you got here in 2020.

[David Carbon]

2020. And you know, I wrote the product roadmap to lay this out. Right. So I don't think Jeff was wrong. I think Jeff was right. I mean, I think people like to look at when the announcement was made and how long it took, but no one looked at. We just saw. It just happened. Right. And you know, I feel like Ricky Bobby. It's real. Did that just happen? Yes, it did. Right. And. And if you think about it, you don't need everything in 30 minutes. Right? That's the point of what we're all talking about. Right? So it's this flip side debate where people are almost arguing against themselves. Right. Do you think there's a need for it? Is there a need for it? Is it big enough? Is it not big enough? It's gonna be what it's gonna be. And the bottom line is no one can ever tell me speed doesn't matter right now. When you talk about an aerospace artifact, the number one item is safety, and then the next thing is speed. But I can count the last two weeks how many things I've ordered online, and if I could have got all of them in 30 minutes, I would have taken it to me. Utility and convenience is what it's all about. And if you think about this mode of transportation beyond package delivery and think about pharmacy or think about, you know, medical supplies, it's gonna come because it has utility.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah. Well, David, thank you so much.

[Casey Noon]

David, I really feel like you delivered on this episode.

[Kevin Ruse]

You really left a carbon footprint.

[David Carbon]

Yeah, well, you know what? I'm glad you appreciate because everybody else is trying to cancel carbon, so, you know, I feel good about that. Hey, guys, thanks for taking the time. I know it's a long day out.

[Kevin Ruse]

This podcast is supported by Google Gemini.

[Google Gemini]

Imagine an AI assistant that doesn't just spit out answers, but that you can have a real conversation with. You can use Gemini to brainstorm ideas, prepare for something big like a test or presentation, or to just learn something new. And the best part is, it's easy to use to get started. All you need to do is start talking. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. You can download the Gemini app on iOS or Android free of charge. Must be 18 plus to use Gemini live.

[Kevin Ruse]

And one more thing before we go. We wanted to send you off into the holidays this year with a little holiday cheers. Well, Casey, it's time to don our gay apparel.

[Casey Noon]

And that's the apparel I wear every day. But for you, it's a special occasion.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yes. So if you're not watching us on YouTube, you won't see we have our holiday sweaters on. Yours is like Santa riding on a unicorn with a sword. Mine is a Darth Vader Mary Sithmus sweater.

[Casey Noon]

And on the whole, I have to say my apparel way gayer than yours.

[Kevin Ruse]

It's true. But now we also have Santa hats to add to the mix. I'm gonna put these on under my headphones. Okay. How do we look?

[Casey Noon]

Worse than usual.

[Kevin Ruse]

Now, Casey, we've started an annual tradition here on the Hard Fork Podcast of doing a tech themed Christmas carol at the end of the year.

[Casey Noon]

Yes. We were inspired by Ezra Klein doing the same thing over on his show.

[Kevin Ruse]

Now, I know you hate this part of our program, but I happen to love Christmas carols. And I also love writing parody lyrics to Christmas songs. So this year we have written a new version of Hard Forkin Christmas, our song from last year.

[Casey Noon]

Our hit song from last year.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yes. Dozens of people downloaded and listened to it and said that they loved it. So we decided to go again.

[Casey Noon]

Yes.

[Kevin Ruse]

You're looking at me like you absolutely hate this, like you'd rather be doing anything else.

[Casey Noon]

You know, one of my fondest wishes as a boy that I would be that I had a beautiful singing voice. But that was not on my journey. You actually do have a nice single, so that's really the difference. It's not so much that I, you know, don't like to sing, it's that I feel self conscious about my voice.

[Kevin Ruse]

I see. Well, maybe they can use auto tune or some other kind of magic in the production process.

[Casey Noon]

Prayers up to the engineers for what's about to happen.

[Kevin Ruse]

Okay, here we go. Let's sing the new version, 2024's edition of a Hard Fork in Christmas.

[Casey Noon]

Before we do that, shouldn't we sort of offer some holiday wishes to our listeners.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yes.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah. So I guess I would just wish that all of our listeners have a wonderful holiday. We are very thankful that you listen to us each week and manually install hard fork on not just your phone, but all your friends and relatives phones and generally just talk about hard fork constantly in every circumstance. It means a lot to us.

[Kevin Ruse]

We have so much fun making this show and it's so rewarding to know that people are out there listening and we just want to keep doing this again next year and hopefully we'll get the chance.

[Casey Noon]

Yeah. Fingers crossed.

[Kevin Ruse]

Yeah.

[Casey Noon]

Thanks, everybody. Happy holidays.

[Kevin Ruse]

Thank you.

[Casey Noon]

And on that note, let's hear some musical notes.

[Gino]

On a hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me Some slop made by ChatGPT on a hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me two Waymo rides and some slop made by ChatGPT on a hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me three Vision Pros two Waymo rides and some slop made by ChatGPT on a hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me 4 crypto coins 3 vision pros 2 waymo rides and some slop made by chatgpt we're doing great. On a hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me 5 Oura rings for sleep tracking 4 crypto coins 3 vision pros 2 waymo rides and some slop made by ChatGPT on a hard forkin crane Christmas my true love gave to me 6 stupid TikToks 5 for a rings 4 crypto coins 3 vision pros 2 Waymo rides and some slop made by ChatGPT on a hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me 7 neon brat memes 66 stupid TikToks 5 Oura rings 4 crypto coins 3 vision pros 2 Waymo rides and some slop made by ChatGPT.

[Casey Noon]

On.

[Gino]

A hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me 8 scary deep fake 7 neon brat memes 6 stupid TikToks 55 aura rings 4 crypto coins 3 vision pros 2 waymo rides and some slop made by chatgpt on a hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me 9 blue sky follows 8 scary deep fake 7 neon brat memes, 6 stupid TikToks 5 or 4 crypto coins 3 vision pros 2 waymo rides and some slop made by chatgpt.

[Kevin Ruse]

Get it together On a hard fork.

[Gino]

In Christmas my true love gave to me 10 rocks for eating 9 blue sky follows 8 scary deep big 7 neon brat meme 6 stupid TikTok spa 5 oura rings 4 crypto coins 3 vision pros 2 waymo rides and some slop made by chatgpt almost done on a hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me 11 poly lovers 10 rocks for eating 9 blue sky follows 8 scary deep big 7 neon brass that means 6 stupid TikToks 5 oura rings 4 crypto coins 3 vision pros 2 waymo rides and some slop made by chatgpt last one on a hard fork in Christmas my true love gave to me 12 AR glasses 11 poly lovers 10 rocks for eating 99 blue sky follows 8 scary deep fake 7 neon brat memes 6 stupid TikToks 5 aura rings 4 crypto coins 3 vision pros 2 Waymo rides and some slop made by ChatGPT Happy holidays everybody.

[Kevin Ruse]

Happy Holidays.

[Casey Noon]

Hard Fork is produced by Rachel Cohn and Whitney Jones. Were edited by Jen Puillon. Fact checked by Caitlin Love. Today's show was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Original music by Alicia but YouTube Marian Lozano, Diane Wong, Rowan Nimisto and Dan Powell. Our audience editor is Nell Gillogli. Video production by Ryan Manning and Chris Schott. You can watch this whole episode and you should on [e-mail] hardfork Special thanks to Paula Schumann, Pui Wing Tam, Dahlia Hadad and Jeffrey Miranda. You can email [e-mail] with your drone order.