Autonomous flying robots that make our world safer and more efficient.

Note from our CEO, Adam Bry:

We are building the world’s best automated data capture platform, and most of the 20+ industries we sell to are hidden from everyday view. Most of us don’t see the arduous inspections and maintenance that go into keeping the energy grid running, or a construction site safe, or a bridge in good working order, so it’s hard to have intuition about how impactful it is to use autonomous drones to capture better data faster and keep inspectors on the ground rather than climbing or suspended from heavy machinery.

Almost exactly the same data capture platform that is used to inspect critical infrastructure is used by police officers and soldiers. These are big and important markets for us. Our work in these industries can be controversial, but I believe it is also where we have some of our most significant positive impact. Our drones are designed to put sensors in the most dangerous and important places to get the most important information to make better decisions to get better outcomes.

In serving all of our customers, public safety and defense included, our primary focus is shipping the best possible products to help these folks do their jobs better and safer. Is there risk of misuse and abuse? Absolutely - in fact at scale it’s a certainty that our products will occasionally be used in ways we vehemently disagree with. But we exert influence beyond the technology that we make. We stand alone among drone companies in publishing a set of principles we use to guide our efforts. I don’t want to live in or build a dystopian future where drones are proactively and randomly used to surveil all of us. In addition to our general principles we’ve worked within the law enforcement community to codify and spread best practices. We continually work with our customers, regulators, and policy-makers to deploy the technology responsibly and maximize positive impact.

Every day police officers use Skydio drones for search and rescue missions where the seconds count and a drone can cover territory 10x faster than an officer on the ground on foot. They use our drones for crime and accident scene mapping to create a perfect digital evidentiary copy of the scene. The reality of law enforcement in America is that almost any citizen a police officer interacts with could be carrying a gun. Our drones are used on a daily basis to de-escalate life and death situations. What would be an 8 hour manhunt through a neighborhood for an armed suspect can be resolved in minutes with less risk to everyone involved - the officers, the community, and the suspect. Drones are like flying body-cameras - they increase transparency and accountability, but unlike body cameras they can also change outcomes by getting a real time perspective that would be impossible any other way.

Our most successful public safety agency customers go to great lengths to not invade anyone’s privacy, and provide full transparency to their communities on their drone programs. We roll up our sleeves alongside them as part of our Skydio for All program, participating in community events, often with local schools, to spread awareness on the technology and how it’s used.

In the defense world, our category of product is what’s known as “organic ISR'' which translates to soldier-carried and soldier-deployed flying sensors that provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. In contrast to most military aerial systems, our products are used by the most junior folks in the military, whose lives are most often at risk on the battlefield, carrying out orders derived from leaders we elect. Our products enable them to see what’s over the hill or what’s around the building. Are they used to target munitions and tell friend from foe from civilians? Yes. Are they used for a myriad of other purposes like base security, search and rescue, ship and aircraft inspection? Yes. War is hell, but we believe our country and our world is better off if leading technology companies like Skydio partner with the US and its allies to help our soldiers do their jobs better and safer when necessary and deter conflict as much as possible.

Like all organizations, agencies in these domains face serious challenges and sometimes make mistakes. In public safety and defense, the stakes are high and the consequences for mistakes can be tragic. They deserve public scrutiny and we have the humility to know that we don’t have the final say on how our products are used. We shouldn’t. The public safety and defense customers we sell to are ultimately accountable to democratically elected governments, and they make the final decisions.

You don’t have to be all in on public safety or the military to work at Skydio, and you also shouldn’t choose Skydio if you want to work at a defense contractor or a company exclusively focused on law enforcement. We serve a wide range of customers including transportation, logistics, energy, construction, and more. And we have a diversity of perspectives on defense and public safety among our employees at Skydio which I believe makes us a stronger organization, increases our thoughtfulness in how we approach these markets, and increases our positive impact in the world.

For my part, some of the highest integrity, most mission-oriented people I’ve met in building Skydio are customers in these worlds, and I fundamentally believe in our ability to help them do their jobs better and safer, to our benefit as a society, with our technology. I am immensely proud to call them customers.