The content here is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal business,

tax, or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security and is not

directed at any investors or potential investors in any A16Z fund. For more details,

please see A16Z.com slash disclosures.

Hi, and welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Hannah and we're talking today with Adam Brie,

co-founder and CEO of Skydeo and A16Z general partner Chris Dixon about what happens now that

we're reaching truly autonomous drones, in this case cell flying cameras, what it means when

you take the pilot out of the loop and what becomes possible that wasn't possible before.

We take a deep dive under the hood into the tech that makes this work from propellers to

perception, then talk about what autonomy will enable and what we can build on top of it,

to finally how our relationship and interactions with computers of all kinds will change

as they become increasingly powered by AI.

Let's start by maybe talking a little bit about the evolution of drone technology.

Where are we now? What did it take for us to get here?

In a lot of ways, the products that we have today essentially grew out of RC airplanes and RC helicopters.

This is stuff that's been around for a long time, 30 or 40 years.

Electric power was a huge transition point.

And then the combination of cell phone sensors with an imaging device just turned out to be very powerful.

And that's what's caused kind of the recent spike in attention in the space.

So the paradigm with existing drones that are available today is essentially they're manually flown devices.

But still, it required a pilot above all.

There needed to be a human learning how to use it and directing it.

...