Martine Rothblatt

“Yeah, she, and interestingly enough, it wasn't actually in seed capital. She Proposed to be a customer. So she did not take an equity position in the company. She just said I believe in what you're doing. Let me fund this as a customer.”

“Yeah, forty eight million dollars she had out in contracts elsewhere. And she brought those back in because they were behind schedule, not keeping promises. And she redirected that at us and said, go build a commercial version that I can move organs with.”

“What we agreed to was that even though she was funding to, like you said before, this forty six million dollar contract to develop the aircraft. She knew that that wasn't enough to develop an aircraft. So she took a license to be able to use this in organ and …”

“All of those things together said the theoretical maximum of an electric airplane was to fly about 250 nautical miles within the context of flying at a hundred knots and carrying 600 pounds and having less than a 50 foot wingspan.”

“She had written this 10 point spec of what she thought was realistic. And aspirational at the same time to move organs. And actually, she didn't care what it looked like, whether it was a helicopter, a drone, a fixed wing plane, a balloon, as long as it met th…”

“And I told her that in 10 months we would create this electric aircraft and fly it across the country.”