Adam's RC airplane roots

Adam Bry is the co-founder and CEO of Skydio, the largest US drone manufacturer and, as of today, the company behind a $3.5 billion commitment to expand American manufacturing over the next five years. We spent the day at Skydio's San Mateo headquarters for a full tour of their facilities.

On the tour:

• The rooftop dock array (drones as cloud infrastructure)

• DFR Command, flown live

• The "wind wall" stress-testing hardware 24/7

• R10, the new indoor tactical drone

• F10, a fixed-wing thrown and caught by a robotic arm

• X10 water rescue demo with the auto-inflating rest tube

The $3.5B announcement involves a new US facility five times the size of the current one (Skydio's fifth expansion in eight years), over 2,000 new Skydio jobs, 3,000+ additional roles across the US supply chain, and more than $1 billion directed to domestic suppliers under a new program called SkyForge. Skydio already manufactures more dual-use drones than any company outside of China. This is the bet to keep it that way.

The backdrop: 60,000 drones shipped, 3,800+ customers, 1,200+ public safety agencies, every branch of the US military, and 29 allied nations. Skydio DFR now arrives on scene first 71% of the time and resolves nearly a quarter of calls without dispatching a patrol unit.

Adam Bry: https://x.com/adampbry

Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea 

Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 

𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒

• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery

• Turing—Turing delivers top-tier talent, data, and tools to help AI labs improve model performance—and enables enterprises to turn those models into powerful, production-ready systems. https://turing.com/sourcery• VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com

• Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery

• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery

• Merge—The leading provider of customer-facing integrations and agentic tools for frontier LLMs, Fortune 500 organizations, and B2B SaaS companies. Visit https://merge.dev 

Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!

https://www.sourcery.vc/

Disclosure

Paid Endorsement. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC-registered adviser. Crypto trading provided by Zero Hash LLC, licensed by the NYSDFS. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at public.com/disclosures/ga. Matched funds must remain in your account for at least 5 years. Match rate and other terms are subject to change at any time.

𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒

(00:00) A flight every 30 seconds 

(00:57) Rooftop docks 

(03:26) Tour roadmap 

(04:42) Adam's RC airplane origin story 

(06:10) Flying a dock drone, live 

(10:04) The "force multiplier" moment 

(12:16) Multi-drone operations 

(14:17) Unarmed sensor platforms and the China context 

(15:29) Why community acceptance surprised Adam 

(19:31) The wind wall 

(20:40) R10, built for indoor tactical 

(23:30) Flying R10 through a barricaded-suspect scenario 

(27:30) Reading oil and gas gauges with a drone 

(29:26) F10, the fixed-wing caught by a robotic arm 

(30:40) X10 water rescue demo