I Tried Flying an Air Taxi With Archer’s CEO (Midnight Simulator)

Archer was actually the first sponsor of Sorcery ever.

At Archer, we are building the next generation of aviation. There was a change in technology where all of a sudden you could use multiple electric engines to fly airplanes. A helicopter will have one big rotor. Instead of having one rotor that takes off and lands vertically, we have multiple sets of engines, multiple sets of propellers that allows you to take off and land vertically like a helicopter, but then transition and fly forward like an airplane. Well, building airplanes is hard. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of money, but it also takes a lot of political support. We've had to have new laws written. This is the first new category in aviation in 60 years. We were selected as the exclusive air taxi provider for the LA28 Summer Olympics. And that was a huge, huge deal. And Reddit played actually a big part in our ability to not only just go public, but also to build a huge retail following. And so, what the Reddit community has done has found like their own way to come together and support these companies in a really unique way. I know it's surprising, but uh there's a giraffe.

20 aircrafts times 1,000 markets is 20,000 aircrafts times $5 million selling price is a lot of money.

Mhm.

Well, building airplanes is hard and it takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of money, but it also takes a lot of political support. And so we have had the good fortune of an administration that has been extremely supportive to us. And I know a lot of people say that, but it's actually super true in our case.

We've had to have new laws written. This is the first new category in aviation in 60 years. And so having not only just the FAA on board, the Department of Transportation on board, even as high as the president who mentioned it in his campaign speech, it's really had to take a lot of people to help us get this done. And so I'll give you a specific example. We were selected as the exclusive air taxi provider for the LA28 Summer Olympics. And that was a huge, huge deal. But in order to get from where we are today in 2025 to the Olympics in 2028, there's a lot of work that has to get done. And so we went to the White House and we spoke with the Secretary of Transportation. And we spoke with a lot of the different members and we said we need some kind of plan to help really the industry, not just Archer but the industry, go from concept to flying around into our cities to ultimately scaling into the Olympics. And so we came up with this concept around what they called the EIP or eVTOL integration pilot program. And that was to allow these aircrafts to start flying in the cities in the US as soon as next year. And so what they're going to do is they're actually going to pick five cities and they're going to be hopefully big cities. I think actually Los Angeles, within Los Angeles, will be selected as one of them.

LA, of course. And um they're going to let us start flying in the cities. But what it's going to do is really help the confidence side of the industry where it's like the first time you saw Waymos. It was a really big deal.

Probably the first time you ever took a Waymo. Have you ever taken a Waymo?

It's quite an awesome experience. But kind of the 10th time we've taken a Waymo, it's sort of like whatever. It's just a part of everyday society. So, we needed a way for the general public to see these aircrafts and to just become okay with it. So, it's sort of our Waymo-like moment. And so, five cities will get announced. It'll start very conservatively, point-to-point flights, daytime flights, high reserves, and allow us to showcase the technology, show the safety, and really just kind of tamp the pressure down to the public so that they understand that this is something that is going to be normal in their cities. It's something that um I think people should expect to see and by the time we get to the Olympics, it'll almost be boring and so it won't be this big high-pressure moment for them to get it done.

So the last administration, they created the framework for the industry. So I do think it's bipartisan in the sense that everybody agrees that America should lead in aviation. So I think that is kind of clear, but actionizing that and putting a plan together for that, the last administration was absent. I literally could not get a meeting with Secretary Pete Buttigieg. I couldn't do it. He just wouldn't take the meeting. And so I don't know if it just wasn't important to him or whatever his reasons were, but as soon as the new administration, the administration got into place, as soon as Secretary Duffy was put into place, literally within five weeks, I had a meeting with him and I've met him probably on a monthly basis ever since then that he's been there. And there's been executive orders put in place, specific business plans on how to get these aircrafts to market. And so when I say that the administration has been like extremely helpful to the industry, it's you can see the evidence. It's very clear. And so I mean it's been I've been to the White House many times. We've been um at events in Mar-a-Lago. We've been uh really all the major agencies have gotten together to come support the industry. And it's not even just an Archer thing. It's an industry thing because they believe in two things. One, re-industrialization of America is critical. Meaning manufacturing jobs and building stuff here in the country is important. And two, America leading in these new cutting-edge technologies. And when you have both of those things at such a high-pressure, high-stake moment in time where everything is changing, defense industry is changing, civil aviation is changing. It is critical that the government supports that and we've seen that with clear evidence.

Sure. At Archer, we are building the next generation of aviation. So there was a change in technology where all of a sudden you could use multiple electric engines to fly airplanes. And so a helicopter will have one big rotor. Instead of having one rotor that takes off and lands vertically, we have multiple sets of engines, multiple sets of propellers that allows you to take off and land vertically like a helicopter, but then transition and fly forward like an airplane. So it's a combo. It's this new kind of half helicopter, half airplane vehicle. And it can be used in and around urban environments. So, think about flying from Manhattan to JFK. A trip that might take you 60 or 90 minutes on the ground in a car that you could fly in literally five or 10 minutes. And so, there's an ability now to create an aircraft that is super safe, similar safety levels as big commercial airliners. It's super affordable because the aircrafts are simple. They don't take the same amount of maintenance a helicopter does. They have such a high safety standard, and they can do so many trips in a given day. Um, and they're quiet. So, it gives you the ability to really scale this. So, you can ultimately drive that cost down. And it's done in a way that is not disruptive to the environments because the aircrafts are really, really quiet. So you have a new platform that's really it's like day one of that first new category at the FAA in 60 years and it's an opportunity to build a whole next generation of aviation.

But it doesn't stop there. And so this gets back to really like you know why is the administration so involved in the industry. Well, if you look at what's happening from a defense perspective, you have the whole world shifting from very expensive centralized systems building these exquisite products to what they call autonomous and attritable or I think autonomy at scale. It's a totally different type of dynamic. And so we are building a whole new generation of aircraft where it's designed to be built at scale. There's a lot of the analysts will tell you they think it's a multi-hundred billion dollar market or a several trillion dollar market. So the defense industry looked at this and said well if you are willing to or interested in building for defense applications and we could think about scaling manufacturing from the very beginning it's an incredible opportunity to actually help re-industrialize not just the civil aviation uh you know part of the manufacturing base but also the defense uh manufacturing base. So if you think you know that during certain surge times there's an ability to shift capacity from the civil side to the defense side and in quieter times from defense side back to the civil side. So if you think about it from that perspective, a startup is a really incredible opportunity to design aircraft that are built to do that.

Yeah. So in China they have made it mandatory that ships of a certain size have to be um strong enough and fortified enough to be able to carry military assets as well as civilian assets. So it gives them the ability to flex back and forth. That on top of the fact that they build so much really gives them this interesting you know advantage of where we are today. So when you look at the aviation industry by designing it from the beginning this new category they call it advanced air mobility or electric aircrafts or hybrid electric aircrafts we have an ability to actually build for scale from the very beginning with the sort of framework of both civil and defense that can be interchanged, changing parts, similar supply chains, all US domestic based that can allow us to scale when we need it.

Sure. I love these companies. So our big partner in the defense industry is Anduril. And so Anduril came to us and you know really understood that the entire defense industry is changing. It's changing from these expensive centralized exquisite systems to um much more scalable or you know think autonomous systems that are designed to you know address the future conflicts that are pretty obvious. Meaning if you can fight an enemy with unmanned systems it's much better from the perspective of cost. You can lower the cost. You don't need the redundancy in these aircrafts, the redundancy in these vehicles the way you would with manned systems. You can risk the aircrafts um at a much greater degree because there's not a human behind that and you can have an advantage. But conversely, if the adversary is doing that, you certainly don't want to put a manned asset up against an unmanned asset. And so you saw this new change happen and first we started to see products happen on the um fixed wing side. So um Anduril's project there um it's called Fury. It is a CCA or a collaborative combat aircraft where aircrafts are designed to fly alongside manned aircraft. And now they're starting to explore similar concepts with rotorcraft. So think, you know, the big rotorcraft systems are Blackhawks and Apaches and V-22s and Chinooks. And so how can they complement or even uh build um new products that can fly with or fight with those same type of rotorcraft that can be designed to do the same things which are um similar capabilities or better capabilities at substantial cost to address the sort of future conflicts meaning unmanned and um scalable or what they call attritable um aircraft.

So, when we announced we were going public, we were actually 50 people. And it was pretty shocking. It was actually an interesting period of time where all of a sudden hardware companies could be backed. This is back in 2021. Before that, really, really before Tesla, before SpaceX, it was impossible to raise money as a hardware founder. It was you just couldn't do it. Everything was software. It was a SaaS marketplace, whatever, you know, type of product. And so, like, the world changed and that was like unbelievably exciting to build airplanes. It's extremely expensive. You're not even in the game without a billion dollars because it takes a huge team for many, many years to really develop core technologies that could be safe, reliable, and ultimately like put into production. So when we announced that we were going public within six weeks, I had the most unbelievable experience where I had three-letter agencies coming after me. I had lawsuits. I had pretty much everybody came out of the woodwork to try to take us down.

And so Boeing sued us instantly. We're now friends with them. They're good uh they're our friends. Um but they were ruthless when we started. And there's all these, you know, stories, legendary stories, you know, about Boeing and competition, all that stuff. And we it was like my welcome to the NFL moment. It was like it was just got actually like checked like right into the chin and it was like, you know, welcome to the you know, welcome to the NFL. And so that was like the big guys coming after us. And then along the way it's also been really brutal where you've seen the competitors also try to do things to edge you out. Um I actually have uh you know developed a friendship with Alexis from you know Reddit, you amazing guy just absolutely amazing founder and Reddit played actually a big part in our ability to not only just go public but also to build a huge retail following. And so retail has been a big part of our story. And so we've had an amazing retail base that's been super supportive, long-term thinkers, um, not judging us on quarter to quarter, really seeing like what can be possible, really trying to find the next Tesla, trying to find the next SpaceX. And so what the Reddit community has done has found like their own way to come together um, and support these companies um, in a really unique way. And so I really u, I get a lot of energy from that. I think it's amazing. And so we try to do things to help the public. I think Elon did an amazing job by um I think he was the first one to say hey retail can ask questions on the quarterly conference calls or retail can come to the you know the big launch events or you know retail can be a part of their journey so we are trying to incorporate a lot of the similar types of uh dynamics because it's been such a big part of our story. We are a relatively small company. You know, people-wise, we're, you know, 1500 people or so. Um, but even market cap wise, but if you look at the volume traded throughout our stock, we will often be a top 10 most heavily traded stock on the New York Stock Exchange. That will happen all the time. That is because of the retail. And the thing that does for us is that is a form of liquidity, meaning we are able to raise a lot of capital. And so when you have a lot of volume going through the stocks, a lot of the investors uh have the ability to play, meaning they can come in and out of your stock. If you don't have liquidity, there's no way for investors to really acquire your shares or even get out once they do. And so it gives an ability for a company like Archer to actually have a chance to go out there because we can raise the capital and this fan base can follow us and really um stay with us for uh for a long period of time. So, super grateful to that community, super grateful to Alexis for starting Reddit and uh helping a lot of startups like Archer get going.

Oh god. That was an idea from one of the Archers to help uh let's call it uh I think I'm going to say satisfy his ADHD, have him stop smoking and come over here and constantly go get food. It's dangerous. The uh I've I've successfully been able to eliminate at least half of the candy and put nuts and dried fruits um down there, almost half of it. Um as you can see, there also is a Coca-Cola machine here as well. Um but uh this is our wall of sin. And so I think it's more of actually when you're having a bad day, you come over and you sugar load and uh you know, you you eat away your uh your sorrows.

Um for me, I I find uh there was a Barcelona sports phrase, uh fridge cigarettes, like sodas. I think it's funny and and it's done such a good job for me of like like I have one diet soda per day. That's like my max. I won't let myself have more than one. And I call it a fridge cig because it's uh it's a way for me to not to remind myself to stop doing that, to stop drinking the stuff, but that is my vice.

I was just try I was waiting to see if it was going to be a real question because you hit every name drop like I got Vlad, I got Keith, I got everybody. I was like geez. Cuz I said like Secretary Duffy. I was like I don't know if she was... Okay, there we go. There we go. No, I think going public is uh is actually a great thing. Um I think it's a great thing for the right company at the right period of time. Um for us it was really great because um it gave us ability to to tell our story and to evangelize it and the sort of love-hate ones do really well. Like Cramer has always hated us and just bashes us at every chance he can get. Um and in a way it just brings more almost like attention to it. Yeah. Um and so as long as you're like you sort of can blow that stuff off and it doesn't bother you, I think it's actually great because we're just telling the stories. Um, what's been pretty amazing is, um, it's made its way because it's so popular on Reddit, it's made its way into the schools and so the kids know about it. And so for me, that's actually really exciting because, um, I think the sciences are really important for kids to study. And so I think that's great when they start talking about airplanes, aerodynamics, um, becoming a pilot. Um, speaking of, you're going to have to fly some of the simulators today. We'll see if uh...

We're going to test you out today and see if you're any good.

Okay.

All right. Well, we'll uh gladly have you as a pilot if we'll see how you do today.

We'll see if you can fly a plane. We'll see.

When you when you crash this. Okay. So, left hand on this little cork handle.

Right hand on a second.

You do. And then your hand right hand there. Okay. So, when you start to pull back on that left handle, you're going to get air. You're going to start to get airborne. What's going to happen is the aircraft is going to start to turn. You'll it'll start to bank. You bank the opposite direction to kind of stabilize it. And when the aircraft starts to spin, like if it starts to spin to the right, step on the left pedal. If it spins right, it's dancing. You're dancing. Keep pulling it with your left hand. There you go. Now you're flying.

Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

You kind of want to tilt the aircraft down and you'll gain some speed.