A Magnificent Woman And Her Flying Machines - Ep156: Bonny Simi

Bryony Worthington
Hello, I'm Bryony Worthington and this is Cleaning Up. My guest this week is one of those people where the more you get to know them, the more awe-inspiring they become. Bonny Simi is the Operations Executive at Joby Aviation, but her life story is equally as fascinating as the electric aircraft she's now working to get to market in 2025. Air travel may be considered a sticky customer of fossil fuels, but Joby are focused on scaling quiet, clean, pilot-driven aircraft that can initially replace helicopters, creating a new regulatory environment as they go. We should also mention that Cleaning Up's sponsors, Capricorn Investment, are early investors. But now, please join me in welcoming Bonny Simi to Cleaning Up.

Michael Liebreich  
Before we start, if you're enjoying Cleaning Up, please make sure that you like, subscribe and leave a review and tell all your friends about us. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe to us on YouTube or your favourite podcast platform, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram. Over the holidays, we moved the Cleaning Up newsletter to Substack, where you can find it on mlcleaningup.substack.com, that's mlcleaning up.substack.com. And don't forget there are over 170 hours of conversations with extraordinary climate leaders on cleaningup.live, that's cleaningup.live. 

ML  
Cleaning Up is brought to you by our lead supporter, Capricorn Investment Group, as well as by the Liebreich Foundation, the Gilardini Foundation, and our newest supporter, EcoPragma Capital.

BW  
Bonny, it's so good to see you and I'm so delighted that you were able to join us today. I wanted to ask you the first question, which is the obvious one: could you just introduce yourself in your own words and tell us what you do and why? 

Bonny Simi  
Sure. So I'm Bonny Simi and I'm President of Operations for Joby Aviation. And think of that in two types of operations.: 1) the air operations, so pilots, mechanics, training, that sort of thing, as well as [2)] company operations, so thinking HR, facilities, safety, security, sustainability. So that's kind of the portfolio that I'm leaning on, and very much looking towards going to market. 

BW  
Amazing. And we're going to dig into what Joby is. But first I wanted to ask you as a leader, to tell us a bit about your backstory, because it's such a fascinating backstory right: Olympian athlete, and then an airline pilot. And so could you just tell us a little bit about those early years? And what got you interested in aviation? 

BS  
Sure. Well, I was, as a young kid- my mother was an elementary school teacher and she couldn't afford babysitters. So she would bring us to the local airport while she graded papers, and us little kids would watch aeroplanes take off and land. And I thought, "wow, that looks so exciting." And it was at a local- a general aviation airport, small aeroplanes. And I said, "someday I want to fly one of those." And I was like, five years old or something. And I did not think of it as a career, because while there weren't women doing it - and I didn't think, "well, women can't do it," it just didn't occur to me. And so later, as I got into high school, we had to make a list of life goals. And I always say, "you have to have a dream for a dream to come true." So I wrote down a couple of goals, and it happened to be during the Olympic year. So I- one of the things I wrote down is, "I want to be a pilot" because I remembered my five year old self, and I wanted to be an Olympian. And so those are, you know- and I wanted to go to a good college and I wanted to do broadcast journalism. So these are a few things. So off I go to college, and I ended up majoring in broadcast journalism - because it was kind of in my mind - as well as some engineering. It was kind of this interesting mix. I graduated, started working at a local TV station, and I also discovered the sport of luge during that. So I progressed up through the Olympics, competed in three Olympics-

BW  
So hang on, you discovered luge. How do you discover luge? 

BS  
Good question, yes. So, like I said, I had- you know, I'm a person that sets goals, you know, and they could be distant goals, but I'm always kind of heading towards a north star. And I was thinking, you know, I would go to the Olympics in field hockey because that was- I was on a college scholarship for that. But I happened to see an ad in Runner's World Magazine about becoming a torchbearer for the Olympics in Lake Placid, New York in 1980. And I thought, "well, that sounds really fun." And so it was an essay contest, so I wrote an essay and there were 50, one from every state plus Lake Placid and DC, so a total of 52 And we relayed the flame up to Lake Placid. And there I saw all of the events, we were decoration, we had all the torches, opening ceremony and closing ceremony and a free pass to everything. So I watched hockey, I watched speed skating and I watched bobsled. And I said to somebody, "I want to do bobsled." And they said, "no, women aren't allowed to bobsled. They're banned from the International-." "Why is that?" "Oh, no, no, it's too tough of a sport for women," they said. Yeah, remember that one? 

BW  
Yeah. 

BS  
And so they said, "but you can do luge." So I went over and checked it out. 

BW  
What is the difference?

BS  
Bobsled is where you sit in a sled and you drive it- there's actually a pilot - and then you have people who push and jump in. So that's bobsledding; it's kind of car on skis. And a luge is where you're on your back, feet-first, going down the hill. Both go around 85 to 90 miles an hour. The luge: it's just you and you're lying on your back. And the sled actually is more steerable than the bobsled. But it's the same track, same ice track, same speeds. A lot of fun. So I got into it, and about four years later made the Olympic team.

BW  
That makes it sound very easy. I'm sure it wasn't easy. But obviously you had this kind of- you were drawn to - what many people would say would be quite high-adrenaline, kind of quite scary.

BS  
I like challenge. I like doing challenging things that I believe can come true. So things that I believe in, but if they're too easy, they're not worth doing. So to me, this was a child- the Olympics are something challenging- and luge was- it looks very scary, and yes, you do need a good set of nerves because the sled itself has no shock absorbers, the only shock absorbers is your body. And so if you're relaxed, the sled goes fast and it also steers true. If you're stiff and scared, the sled doesn't steer as well and you can crash. So it's one of those things is: all you have to fear is fear itself. So that really helped me as I- you know, I spent 12 years doing that, spread it over three Olympics. And it really helped ingrain some of how I think as a person, is leaning into those challenges. And in the middle of that, I also helped women's bobsled get into the Olympics in 2002, because we campaigned heavily, women should have equal opportunities, and we ended up winning gold medals - the US - winning gold medals. I ended up just missing the team, I was an alternate, but it was fun to be part of that whole journey. And now it's very established within the Olympic community, men's and women's bobsled. 

BW  
And what that tells me about your character is that you don't just see the world and think, "oh, right, that's the way the world is," you think, "that's wrong. I'm going to try and fix that and make the world different," right? You have that sense of agency? 

BS  
Yes. I think that: to me, the world is a wonderful place. There's always things to improve, there's always new hills to climb, there's always new people to touch. And so I think about the future a lot. And I think about- and it goes back to my mom, when I when I came home from school one day and I said, "Mom, I'm going to be an Olympian!" She didn't say, "now, honey, we don't have money and ,you know, you're a high school athlete, but the Olympics are a long way away." She didn't say any of that. She said, "okay, then how are you going to do it?" And I'm like, "okay, how am I gonna do it?" And I started, you know, making these steps and making these journeys, and every step, if it's a step in the right direction, it's a step closer to your goal. And so, even if the goal seems so far out there and impossible, if you keep driving in the right direction, it gets closer and closer. And soon, not only do you believe it can happen but others can too. And when you get that ecosystem of others believing in what you're doing or this journey, it helps magnify and it just kind of gets its own engine. And quite frankly, you can imagine a lot of these parallels and currently what I'm doing now too, the company that I work for, and the world that we wish to change and all of that.

BW  
Yeah, exactly which we're going to go into. But first, we have to talk about then you becoming a pilot, like a commercial pilot. So tick the box of Olympiad, and then the next goal is airline pilot.

BS  
Yes. Well, it was pilot, not airline pilot, so yes, one of my goals was to be an Olympian and to be a broadcast journalist. So I became a journalist for Olympics and also local television. And I'm like, "okay, now I'm earning a little bit of money," and it turned out the weatherman of the TV station was a pilot. And I said, "well, how do I become a pilot?" And he said, "well, you just need to go to the local airport and take three lessons." And I said, "three lessons and you become a pilot?" He's like, "no, three lessons and then you will know if you want to become a pilot, right? Right now, it's just an idea and you need to see is this something that really- and if it captures you, you'll really lean into it." So I said, "okay." So I went to the local airport. I didn't know anything about aeroplanes. They have wings, they have propellers, and that's pretty much all I knew. So I showed up and flew in a little Cessna 152, which is a very small two-seater aeroplane. I was fascinated. And it didn't take three lessons. It- literally after my first lesson, "I've got to do this, I've got to do this." So I progressed very quickly. I pretty much- I couldn't think of anything else, that was what I was doing, you know: at work, and then I was doing sports, and then right away, I just- every spare moment. I got my private pilot's licence in six weeks, and then I thought, "well, you're not truly safe unless you have an instrument rating," which is so you can fly in the clouds. And I said- so I progressed and I got my instrument rating. And then I ran out of money. It's like, "well, that was fun!" But the flight school- and again, this is where that ecosystem I tell you, it's really important. So they saw how, how passionate I was. And they're- all of the instructors were men, and they wanted a female flight instructor. And they said, "we will allow you to run up a tab-" so basically just credit, if you will " -if you will become a flight instructor." So I then moved through the ratings and I became a commercial pilot and flight instructor. And I figured, "okay, that's what- I'm gonna do that as my hobby and then I'm the TV reporter, and life is good." I don't sit still very easily. And I remember this day, and the news director called me from the TV station and I wasn't planning to come in today, I think it was a Saturday. And he says, "Bonnie, it's a slow news day, we need you to come in." You know, I did sports and recreation, which is filler, right? He said, "we need you to come in and do some stories." And I was gonna flight-instruct all that day, and I would make five times as much as a TV reporter today versus a flight instructor. And I realised that did not want to go into the TV station. So I said, "I need to follow my heart." That was my boss so I did go in, did cancel the students, but I vowed never to do that again. And I gradually pivoted towards building experience for the airlines. So and then when I got- I did, you know, you have to- to become a pilot, there's a lot of experience required and it took a couple years and I became a corporate pilot flying bigger and bigger planes, and then I went to United Airlines. And when I got hired there, I went to the news director and said, "I'm leaving." He says, "what are they paying you? what do you-" Actually, it's a pay cut, because I'm following my heart. You have to follow your heart, because if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. So I really wanted to become a pilot. 

BW  
Now, so how many women pilots were working for United in these days? Like, you must be one of a very small number? 

BS 
Yeah, the industry was- there was 2% of pilots were female at that time. So I was not the first, there were women decades before me, but still very, very few. And so you know, passengers would be shocked, and then eventually as I became a captain, then occasionally I'd have a female co pilot, right. And so then it wasn't all that unusual to me to have that- for customers still getting used to women. But as I tell people, you know, the aeroplane doesn't know if you're male or female. Anyway, I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed doing that. The industry still is a challenge for women. There are- it's been three decades since I started, so it's been three decades, and we've tripled! Woohoo! [(To 6%.)]

BW  
But you know, well, perhaps we'll come back to this at the end, but there are so many assets of that job that make it hard, right. 

BS  
Yeah, but that's where- and you know, it's just so many reasons why it's- leading into why I'm here at Joby: there's some ways that we can solve that, and I'm very excited about how we're diversifying aviation too.

BW  
Brilliant, okay. So fast-forward to today- well, actually, there's another step isn't there? So, while you're at United, you then move to JetBlue and at JetBlue, you start to become involved in finance, right or investment. Is that right?

BS  
Yeah. So I went- so I went from United Airlines to JetBlue, which was a company who had- it was an airline. It had just gone public. Still fairly small startup that just went public and is and I thought, "I want to be part of something new." And JetBlue wanted to they call it "bring humanity back to travel", just make it very friendly. It was a different style and a different brand. And I wanted to fly, but I wanted to do more too. And so that- at JetBlue, I could have that opportunity.

BW  
Because why would you just fly?

BS  
So once again, I went from- I took a big payout, I went from senior captain to junior first officer, people thought I was crazy. And I said, "well, I won't know if I'm crazy until the day I retire,  and we'll see how this journey goes." So the journey has gone quite well. So I spent about 15 years in a variety of roles in the operations, you know, airport operations, system operations, call centre operations, and then I did a stint in HR, which I also love. It's developing people, it's talent. So I was VP of talent, loved that. And then was asked to set up the corporate venture capital firm for JetBlue for us to invest in the- in travel, basically. I was sort of known as an innovation person at the company, and they said, "Bonny, how do we stay innovative? And I said, "the best way to stay innovative and really see where the future is going to be, is to have a seat at the table at startups, because the startups are predicting the future. And that way, you can see where it's going." And so they said, "well, how do we do that?" And I said, "well, we need to invest in corporate venture." And they said, "well, how do we do that?" And I said, "here's how you do it." And they said, "go do it." So I launched JetBlue Technology Ventures in Silicon Valley, and we list- we invested in startups in the entire travel ecosystem: everything from how to make the company run better, so enterprise software things, to hospitality. And this whole area of what we call sustainable travel. And in the sustainable travel bucket- now mind you, this is 2016, we had a thesis, that electric and then hydrogen propulsion would fundamentally change aviation, just like jet propulsion did back in the 50s. And so we very actively were seeking to invest in a mature startup, so one that's not just an idea, that actually had been working on it and had some really good viable-  but was still in the startup phase. And so that was kind of the initial exposure to this sector. 

BW  
Amazing. And so at that point, then, Joby comes in to view, and did you meet JoeBen, or did you- how did you come- how did you find Joby? And tell us about the early days.

BS  
Yeah, so in the venture capital world, you'll come up with a thesis and the thesis - this being the thesis, that electric hydrogen wasn't there yet, so just really electric. So electric aviation. So then I had my team and we go out and this is still the early days, so they go out and do a full scan of the electric aviation space. And there were some companies that were doing fixed-wing aeroplanes, so like small regional aeroplanes, they were- they were still not paper, you know, pretty PowerPoints and ideas. And then there was this interesting little sector called eVTOL: electric vertical takeoff and landing. And there were a handful of companies that were making some really good progress in the space. And so we- there were about 10 that were something other than a pretty PowerPoint at the time. Now there's a couple 100, but there were 10. And we sort of one-by-one, decided not, went went through each of them. Some of them were planning fully autonomous, so no pilot. That might be the future someday, but the going to market and getting regulatory approval is a very long journey. So we didn't want to do that. And you know, typical investments are the 7 to 10 year range. And so you want things that are going to get to market within the timeframe and autonomy will take longer. 

BW  
You'll have known as a pilot how often the automatic systems don't quite go according to plan, right? You have to step in as a human.

BS  
You know, it'll get there. But so, some did that, some were in less regulated countries that you know wouldn't- like in China or wherever and we didn't invest there. And others just we didn't like the technology, but we had narrowed it down. We literally had narrowed it down to one company out of all of these 10 and we'd eliminated all of them. But there was so little available to- they were very stealth. But it was a company very close to where I was in Santa Cruz. And so this is the funniest part of the story. It's truly destiny. So I said, "okay," I told my team, "we can't get a hold of this Joby, the company, we're just gonna drive there" and I said, "you know, I have my family vacation that I do every year up in the mountains where we all go hiking and everything, and we do it with a whole bunch of other families." And I said, "when I come back from my hiking trip, then we're going to go do this." So I'm on vacation, and I'm hiking in the Sierras. And I run across a guy wearing a Joby t-shirt on a trail. And I said, "well, that's interesting." I said, "you know, I'm doing some research on this company Joby. Do you do you know about Joby?" And he laughs and he says, "yeah, I'm the founder, JoeBen Bevirt. So I literally ran into JoeBen on a trail in the Sierras completely randomly. 

BW  
And what's so crazy about this is now that I've been in California for a few months, I know how empty the Sierras are, like these trails, you can be on a trail and not see a single other person!

BS  
Well he was near a family- he was bringing his family to the same family camp. And it's part of our school; he's a Stanford grad, I was a Stanford grad. So it was a- it was a camp there. And so yeah, I'm sure we would have- well we were, we were going to drive up there the next week, and I probably would have found him then, but to actuall-, and by the end of- it was a week camp. And by the end of the week, he's, you know, he's convinced me that we should be investing in his company, and he's also convinced me that I should come be his COO. And I said, "JoeBen, I have a good job. If we invest, I can come be an advisor on the board and then we'll see where things go." So you know, fast forward, we did invest, co-investor, we brought in Toyota as a co-investor, because I have- in the venture community, you have an ecosystem. Again, I keep coming back to this ecosystem, because it's so important, whether you're an individual or a company, you cannot be successful just as a solo. So in the venture world, you like to bring in Co-investors. And I had a really good friend, who was the lead of Toyota Ventures. And so I call him up, and I said, "you need to go check out this company." And I said, "you have to do it now because you only have two weeks to close on the deal." And this is Toyota, like 2 weeks from not even knowing about a company to investing, which I thought would be impossible. But he said, "kay, I'll go check it out." The next day, he says, "I'm gonna beat you to close. And they did. They they closed their investment in 15 days and took me 16 days." And we invested jointly in the company. And that was the beginning of Toyota's relationship as well.

BW  
And they're really important because- we'll get onto this, but that's going to help in terms of manufacturing.

BS  
Yes, Toyota is- again this ecosystem, we are so fortunate to have them as a partner. But it starts early, I mean, the investment that they first put in, versus the time, effort and money and investment that they put in now: a tiny fraction, but it's the first step. It comes back to the first step is really important.

BW  
Okay, so now Joby, we're just going to talk a little bit about the company and the planes. So describe to us- we are going to be able to show some video footage so the viewers on the YouTube channel can see what we're talking about. What is the Joby aircraft? What makes it different? 

BS  
Yeah, so a couple of things. Most people when they think of vehicles that fly in the sky, they think of two types: their aeroplanes or their helicopters. So the benefit of an aeroplane is it has wings that provide lift, so you don't need to use as much power - however you get that power - because the lift just flying through the air holds the aeroplane in the air. And then there's helicopters, and the helicopters don't have those wings, so they have to use just their own power to stay in the air. But the benefit that they have is that they can just take off in a small area, where an aeroplane needs an airport big long runway and there's a lot of infrastructure in that. So if you can imagine: how could you combine those two to a vehicle that can take off and land vertically - VTOL -  and can fly like an aeroplane? So a Joby aircraft takes off like a helicopter and then transitions - so its propeller units transition - from vertical going to into horizontal and it becomes then an aircraft so it flies like a plane. The extra exciting piece about this is that it is electric, all electric, zero emission. So there are VTOL aircraft, so you know there's the Osprey in the military that takes off, there's the Harrier, there's other- military aircraft, there haven't been civilian ones. So- but they're all, you know, turbo-powered, internal combustion engine, noisy, a lot of single points of failure. So, a helicopter has rotors and, you know, if a rotor fails the helicopter comes down. Very, very noisy and very hard to maintain, whereas the Joby aircraft on the other hand: we've got instead of having - like an aeroplane - just two engines or four we have six, and each of those have two motors, and each of those are tied to different batteries. So you have no single points of failure in all of those. If a motor goes out, no problem, the other motor in that unit works. If the battery goes out, no problem, you know. Everything is crossed so there's no single points of failure, which really increases the safety, and because of the way the propellers are set up, and they- there's a lot of torque and they can turn slowly, about a fifth as of speed of what other propellers might turn. It's very quiet. So what you have is a safe, sustainable and quiet vehicle that can take off vertically, transition to a plane and land vertically, which allows you to completely open up a whole new mode of transportation.

BW  
Right, well this is what's exciting now. And just to get a sense of the scale, obviously, there's a weight issue with batteries. So what's the largest scale you could get to? What's the current model that you're working on? 

BS  
Yeah, so batteries- you know, we can think of batteries and you can think of, you know, silicon chips and the Moore's Law and all of that, right. So, batteries continue to improve. Where we are right now- and why now- why is all this happening now versus not 10 years ago? So 10 years ago, the battery density was just not there yet. Now- so we've got 280 watts per kilogram, in our power, in our batteries, which is sufficient to lift an aircraft that will take a pilot and 4 passengers. And at that size, it will- it's economically viable to move forward. And so, will batteries improve? Yes. Will we be able to carry more weight? Yes. Will the vehicle get bigger? Yes. Are there other types of fuels - can we do hydrogen powered-electric? Yes. So all of that is the future, but the here-and-now, we are now at that point where we can effectively replace helicopters of that same size.

BW  
So what's the distance that you can cover then? So 4 passengers and a pilots. How long a duration in terms of kilometres or in terms of hours could you fly?

BS  
Yeah, so we have actually flown our prototype aircraft - we started flying it in 2017, we've flown over 30,000 miles with our with our prototypes. We even did a range test - about 150 miles on one charge. Now that's in a test environment. Our production aircraft: we're planning about 100 miles, so call it 160 kilometres. And when you think about that range and you think about the ecosystemwe want to operate in the urban area, so, you know, cities and just outside of cities, 100 miles covers you. So it's like 99% of the car traffic in an urban area is less than 50 miles. So this fits quite well. 

BW  
Okay, because I'm imagining, like, if 100 is the maximum range, you're gonna have to hold some in reserve?

BS  
Well that counts in reserve, 

BW  
That counts some reserve, so maybe it's usable, what, 60 miles? 

BS  
No, I was saying the range with the reserves that we're currently planning is 100 miles. I think a large majority, very large majority, of our trips are going to be in the 10 to 20 minute range, and are going to be 25 to 50 miles. There will be the capability to do the long ones, but the market really is more of those, getting from one side of a very congested city to the other side, and maybe, you know, into the next town type of thing. So that- and thinking about whether it's London or it's New York or LA to go from the south end of the city to the north end of the city how long that takes you in a car? Especially during traffic.

BW  
Yeah, now cities, though: we've got a lot of people wandering around, haven't they, and you've got buildings of different sizes. And then I guess, you know- how is the safety regulation case for seeing lots of these in cities? How is that going to- how are you going to get over that challenge? 

BS  
Yeah, so the first step, of course, is we fit into the existing ecosystem. We're a pilot, the pilot is a trained, licenced pilot. We operate with the same radio, same radio frequency, through the same helicopter routes that helicopters do. And currently in some cities there are some restrictions with helicopters because of the noise - you don't want lots and lots and lots of them - but ours, you can't hear it. So it would just blend into the city. So that regulation, we believe, in some cities - and again, it depends on the city - I think it will allow us to have higher utilisation of existing infrastructure right so helipads, airports, converting emergency use helipads on top of buildings. Yes, we can, you know, build a dedicated one on the top of a parking garage because not as many people driving cars. And so fitting in with the existing ecosystem, we have the safety aspects because of the redundancy we have, far exceeding helicopters, because we don't have petroleum products. So fire isn't as much of an issue. So the safety aspect is better and the noise profile. So even going in to replace helicopters in the airspace in any city can take several times the current amount, so there's plenty of room.

BW  
Yeah. And is there an advantage with the fixed wing? Or- well, I suppose it has- somebody said to me that the problem perhaps with urban air travel is that bad weather, tall buildings, it doesn't really matter if you're fixed wing or not. If you if you hit a building and fall out the sky there might be people underneath you!

BS  
So initially, we'll be operating what we call VFR, which is visual flight rules. So you know, the cloud layer of- flying below the cloud layer. Eventually- so our aircraft will be capable of instruments- so there are helipads currently, and all - not all airports, almost all - airports as well have instrument guidance systems that guide you to the airport, regardless of whether there's clouds or not. So we would not be flying into buildings when we can't see the buildings, unless there was an instrument [failure], just like there is for flying aeroplanes and clouds. 

BW  
Okay. So thinking then about Joby's kind of plans for the future over the next 10 years, say. You're a US-based company, but you've got - you know, your aspirations are to be global, right? So which countries are you currently focused on? Ad if you could tell us a bit more about your goals for the next 10 years? I know you will have goals!

BS  
Yes, so we are a US company and we're working with the Federal Aviation Administration - the FAA - to certify our aircraft. And clearly New York and LA - we have we have a partnership with Delta and those are key markets for them. So those are key markets here in the US for us. So we're building our presence and ecosystem there. We have also announced other partnerships: so we have a partnership, not only with Toyota in Japan - and you probably didn't know, but they have an Aviation Division called Aero Asahi. So partnering with Toyota and their Aviation Division, as well as AMA, so they're an airline. So clearly, Japan is a place that we're looking at. And then also, Korea, South Korea, because we have a partnership and investor in SK Telecom. So those are countries that we're leaning in now. We have other countries on our roadmap as well - no announcements or anything today, but we are leaning and we are definitely planning as a global company. And in parallel, so these countries often- they'll then take the certification coming from the FAA. So it's some additional work in each of the countries for the certification, but we do it in parallel with what we're already doing.

BW  
Yeah. And then sort of just thinking about the FAA, then, it seems so crucial to the business plan and to get those certifications through. How's that all going? 

BS  
Yeah, so we're progressing very, very well. You know, we started the certification process about four years ago, and even before then, building the relationships, and that for them understanding it's a whole new vehicle, it's a whole new category. You know, when we started, there were no regulations to certify an electric aircraft. And there were no regulations to certify an aircraft that takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. So, you actually, before you can begin that whole certification journey, you have to help provide input as an industry player to the regulations so that you have regulations to certify against. So we've been at this for a very long time. And we started the actual certification process a couple of years ago, it's a five stage process, we're well through the third phase and beginning of the fourth phase. So things are moving along quite nicely and we are on tracking in those areas. It is a monumental effort, but is the key focus of our company right now. So we have certifying and manufacturing, and then we have operations. So the end journey, of course, is operations, but before you can get to operations, you've got to get the aeroplanes certified, and you have to manufacture aeroplanes for that. So that's the phase that we're in now is certification and manufacturing.

BW  
And do they require a kind of certain minimum number of miles or hours travelled in a particular- what's the kind of stage post towards getting that?

BS  
So it's a very structured process where you say, "okay, let's agree to the rules that which we are going to certify. Here's the rules. Now that we've agreed on which rules apply, now let's tell you the next phase, and let's tell you how we're gonna comply with those rules." And once they agree that, "yes, these are the rules and here's how you comply with them," then we develop test plans for how we're going to test against those rules. And some of those test plans are flying the aeroplane and doing certain number of cycles and- but a lot of it is testing the batteries and putting them through all the abuses in hot weather and the cold weather, the shaking and all of that, and it's with the motors and putting them through 1000s and 1000s of cycles. And we've built a test track for our propeller unit, where instead of just flying it in the air, we can put it on a track that just goes 24 hours and around and around and around and around. So these are some of the tests that we do. And we also- we're building our own software. So we test it in an integrated test lab. So we tested that the software actuates the hardware, so call it the you know, the ailerons or the pieces of the aeroplane that move, does it actually do it in the right order? And how does it work? And so all of those test plans, so we do a test plan, and then we actually do the tests. And so we're in that test plans and tests. And that's really the focus of where we are now, and making really, really good progress.

BW  
And if you had to give us a timeline of when that might be completed, is there an end in sight?

BS  
So we're- I mean, what we've been talking and leading for is that we're targeting commercial operations by the end of '25. So me on my operations team, right, so now I sort of shift from operations of the company and supporting through people and hiring of facilities and now beginning to plan our commercial operations. So we have a small but mighty team that are working on that planning process. 

BW  
Right, excellent. And then just thinking about the manufacturing aspects, is this going to be a US-made manufacturing- part of the manufacturing boom of relocating jobs to the US? And what about supply chain as well? 

BS  
Yeah, so we are what we call a vertically-integrated company. And we have, we believe, the fastest way to market is to build as much of the parts of the aircraft in-house, because if you do that, and you have the engineers right next to the manufacturing, especially during the phase that we are now in prototyping, they'll engineer and design something on the computer, and then it goes into the manufacturing, they build it, and they're like, "hmm let's make this little tweak." They're literally sitting next to each other. So the manufacturing person will go to the engineer and say, "make this-" So this process works really well as we're going through certification. Our first aircraft that will be certified, and will come off of our production line in California - this our pilot production line - that'll be, you know, a couple dozen aircraft a year perhaps. But we've already announced where our scale up facility will be, which will be in Ohio - Dayton, Ohio, which was the very first aviation manufacturing plant in the world, from the Wright brothers was in Dayton, Ohio. So we are you know-

BW  
Yeah, you're making America great again, literally!

BS  
Yes, we are. And so we- and again, we we have all of our parts. That said, there are a few things that you know, for example, our avionics, we have a partnership with Garmin. We don't reinvent certain things. And we do- are looking at various places where we can - at Joby - reduce some of the cost of manufacturing as well, but it's all within the the Joby family. So the nice thing is, when, you know, we have a production aeroplane that is completed, you can go through the entire history of the aeroplane, all the way to the block of titanium that we're going to use subtractive manufacturing to get out, or the speck of titanium dust if we're creating additive manufacturing and building something, to the batch of carbon fibres that was used, all the way back to the very beginning of these that makes the vehicle, end-to-end, very well known. And again, that leads to that safety and the speed to market. 

BW  
Yeah. But, I guess, the downside at the moment is that each one is kind of handmade, they're beautifully constructed-

BS  
Actually, we're transitioning to quite a bit of automation. We have several AFP machines - so automated fibre placement machines - and those machines help us lay up like a wing spar, which is a big long thing, and it's automated, and it just keeps laying it up and it's exact. That way, every single one of them are exactly the same. So there is there some automation that's involved. But there is quite a bit of hand work, which is not unlike some of the large airlines as well. There's a lot of hand work built into Boeing aircraft or an Airbus or Sikorsky helicopter, whatever it may be. We are moving towards as much automation as we can.

BW  
And so- but then thinking about the big picture, you spoke at the beginning about wanting to make an impact on the world. And this is like a way of us helping address the emissions. right? Not just the traditional pollutants that come from aviation - there's noise pollution and then there's greenhouse gas pollution - so being electric, you know, and if the electric's clean, then you're helping address a lot of that. But how much of the problem do you think Joby can solve? Like, is the scale of it there that can really eat into our fossil fuel addiction? You know, how big could you get?

BS  
Yeah, so I think there's a near-term and a long-term answer to that question. So, in the near term, clearly our vehicles - which are 4 passengers on a pilot - there may be supplementing the helicopter industry and maybe reducing the helicopters, but if you think about helicopters' impact on the environment, they use the same petroleum gas and everything else that a, you know, that an airline does, but the scale isn't that big yet. So it's a step in the right direction to change people's consciousness that there is an alternative besides just using sustainable aviation fuels, for example, that's kind of a move that's happening in the airline industry. That doesn't solve some of the other issues, like the contrails, which is water vapour and such. That is actually more of a greenhouse effect than just the emissions piece. So we think longer term. So one of the areas that we're leaning in quite a bit - and we have a subsidiary, it's well known - is in the hydrogen space, liquid hydrogen. So H2Fly is a company- subsidiary of Joby in Germany, and they just flew the first human piloted aircraft powered by liquid hydrogen - recently, it was last year. And so when you think about the- and that aircraft, they estimate, could stay up in the air for hours, just in the amount of hydrogen and how efficient it is. So it's hydrogen powering electric motors. So you can imagine- so we're perfecting the electric side of it, and imagine then, if you could replace a lot of the batteries getting it in but then more hydrogen fuel cells powered by liquid hydrogen, of how that can transform. And then the aeroplanes could fly longer, higher, be bigger, etc. So the journey is a long one, you know, a lot of the world is focusing on, you know, 2030, that's right around the corner, right. So will we have large transport aircraft transport by then? No, but as time goes on, maybe 2050- but just even getting the industry in the ecosystem to understand different types of aviation - so as I mentioned, when we started, there were no regulations to certify an electric aircraft. 

BW  
So you're forging a new class basically.

BS  
And there currently are no regulations for, you know, hydrogen. So we have to make a step on the journey. Just like, when I was a little kid, and I came home, and I said, "Mom, I want to be Olympian," most moms would say, "that's impossible." My mom said, "so how are you going to do it?" And so- we're building that- it's the same path. We have that north star: transform aviation, sustainable aviation, and we're on the beginning of that journey.

BW  
And I mean, going back to electricity, fans of this podcast will know - and Michael Liebreich is a very well known commentator on hydrogen as being, you know, a necessary element of the transition, but quite limited in terms of its thermodynamics, right, that the electrons, before they're converted to hydrogen, displace more fossil, you know, that's just more efficient. So thinking about electricity, is one of the things that you're hoping on this plan is that just the sheer kind of deployment of this technology, we'll see a cost curve, and then maybe even an efficiency curve, that means electricity will be manufactured, it'll be quick to recycle through, and you'll get a kind of increase in efficiency and cost reduction? 

BS  
I think that- yes, you're right. Because if we think about- it's great if you have a zero emission vehicle, but if the electricity comes from dirty power, then what really have you done? I mean, this building that we're in right now is solar powered, for example. So Joby is very much around tapping into renewable energy. So while that isn't a sector that we're leaning ourselves into - I mean, there's a limit to vertical integration - we are forcing the issue of, you know, where we locate our vertiports, where we go into the communities, you know, different parts of the world don't have a robust electrical grid. And so these are, you know, building that ecosystem to realise that it's not just aviation that needs to be transforming. You first have to get the grid ready and then you can kind of transition, and that involves wind power, solar power, other elements too to help get the grid [clean].

BW  
Yeah. And you mentioned there about your v-ports. So just thinking about what the potential constraints on your growth, getting new sites that capable of taking these vehicles, that must be a key part of it, or are there existing helipads that you can just- 

BS  
Yeah, so there's really a mixture of several approaches. So our aircraft can land at regular helipads. So wherever there's  helipads, and there are a lot of helipads in cities - whether it's Tokyo or LA or New York, or wherever - that if a building is higher than say, 40, storeys or something - and every country has a different level as to where that is - you have to put an emergency helipad on the top of the building. And these- but these are simply: the builder said, "well, those are the rules, I'm going to put a helipad up." No helicopter ever lands there, but it is there and it is ready. And so, for us, we can think about, "well, why haven't they been used?" Well, because helicopters are noisy, because there's- you know, there's Jet A fuel, all of these things. "Hmm, maybe we can use a couple of buildings to show the use case of converting them to a vertiport. And a vertiport: it's quiet, so these are all aircraft that are electric powered, and it's electric instead of petroleum-based fuel. So that changes sort of the flyer profile and etc. So that's one piece. Another piece would be taking an existing structure, whether it's a parking lot, or a parking garage, and converting that. And, you know, at the end of the day, if you think about- there's places you can imagine a helipad out in the field, and it's just a piece of concrete. That's pretty much all we need, is a piece of concrete with electric connections to it. So we can do, you know, some pretty low cost opportunities there. And then the last piece would be putting in vertiports at airports. And depending on the airport, whether it's a Heathrow or it's a JFK or Los Angeles, there's a whole process in doing that. And so yes, the aircraft could land on the runway. But that isn't a fuel efficient use of the runway.

BW  
And it's very, very busy space, airspace, right? Yeah. But you could presumably land at night, right? Because-

BS  
Yes, our aircraft is certified- will be certified to land at night.

BW  
Okay. All right. Well, listen, I think we should return to you then as a leader and ask you what it is about the sort of- your past that, in all the experiences you've had, like, other transferable skills. You talked about them at the start, right, this desire to sort of break down big challenges. Tell us, you know, a little bit about how your day-to-day, you see that showing up in your role in Joby?

BS  
Yeah, so, you know, I think that, in order to have a big vision - like transforming aviation - to happen, you have to break that down into a lot of different pieces. And all those pieces need to work together to get to that end. And so, you know, that's one of the challenges in companies, is you end up, you know, with the maintenance team over here, and the, you know, pilots over here and the vertiport over here, but they all have to work together. And so, building that, helping to establish that long term vision - so company says, "targeting commercial operations in '25," okay, so we're in, you know, first part of '24, we got two years. "All right team, we're all going to work together here and work through how we're going to work that." So I'm good at sort of pulling all those pieces together, and I have a huge passion for talent, building a great team, because you cannot do things as an individual. Especially as you move up through the organisation, you need to build and inspire a team. And so I have an awesome team of- that is working all of these challenges, and, you know, I always say my job as a leader is to find the great team, and then empower them and remove roadblocks for them, help them get the budget they need, help them, you know, get prioritisation, help them find things that are- over this side of the organisation they didn't hear, and let them run and let them go. And so I do that a lot. And I think that's helping us move quickly towards the go-to-market, because a go-to-market in, say Japan is going to be different than the go to market in New York. But there's going to be some things that are the same. So why reinvent the wheel on those things? So maybe 60 to 80% of it is- I mean it's the same aeroplane, right? You fly it he same. Regulations are pretty much the same, not exactly. So as you start thinking about that, like, how are the manuals that you write? Everything's proceduralised in aviation. You should be able to take you and fly the aeroplane, and you'll fly it exactly the way as I fly the aeroplane, because you were taught the same rules that I was taught, and we follow the same procedure. So those procedures.  So how do we standardise those across markets? But then we have to tweak them,  because certain things in Japan are different than New York. So thinking through all of that and aligning as we go to market is something that I'm very passionate about and good at. The other thing - and I think this is something for people in the earlier part of their careers is something that I really benefited from, and it was a mentor of mine said this is, you know, I was ambitious, and I wanted to you know, grow and promote and all this kind of stuff, and he says, "you need to be a tea person."  And I said, "what's a tea person?" And he said, "you need to really build a depth of skill in a certain area that is transferable." So if you just become a great subject matter expert in being a pilot, there's not a lot of transferable skills in that, I mean, you can be a good pilot. You know, there's decision making and whatever, but good pilots are good pilots, and there's usually don't- And so I started taking on assignments and I found the things that I like to do and that I was good at, that was transferable, was strategy planning and projects. And so that type of thing. So setting a vision, planning for it and making the projects that get there like execution, that's what I do, that's what I'm good at. And so when I was at JetBlue, I moved across a whole bunch of different departments, and I guess I would promote here and there, but what was really important is building breadth, because if you take what your skills are in one department, and then you move to the next one, you adapt and you learn, and you go to the next one, and the next one, as you move up in an organisation, you have a breadth of knowledge that you wouldn't have, if you just started as you know, an analyst, and a senior analyst, and a manager, and a director, and a VP and- you get stock, right? So I always encourage people in your next career step: first, identify your superpowers, identify what you're really good at, and what is transferable, and start thinking about adjacencies and move your career laterally for a while. And that will help you grow. 

BW  
Okay, and then, so thinking about Bonny Simi and you're clearly a woman who loves a bit of adventure and is fearless, really, what's still on your list? Have you have you flown  a Joby aircraft yet?

BS  
So I've flown in the simulator man,y many times. But as I mentioned, our aircraft is currently in the testing phase, right, so it's the flight test pilots - we have amazing flight test pilots, you know, the initial- the lead pilot for the F-35 aircraft, for example, which is also a vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft. We've just got amazing test pilot. So I'll let them do their job. When the aircraft is certified, I'm going to be right in there flying it. But in the mean time, I fly the simulator a lot.

BW  
So is that like- where are you getting your know adrenaline from on a day-to-day-

BS  
So I do, I mean, I'm still a pilot. I own my own aeroplane, and Joby actually has- we operate a small- we are certified as an air carrier. So we have a small aircraft that we use, that we can use for charters or whatever. And so I'm the director of operations for that and I fly that aeroplane. And so that's where, I you know, scratch the itch. But I've been flying aeroplanes for 30, 35 years. So it's ingrained in me.

BW  
Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you so much, I mean, those were- you've covered all my questions. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you. And- well, I'm going to be watching with great interest for those milestones or steps along the way as you get to your goal, and I'm pretty certain you're going to get there from- past history would tell me that, you know, you'll get there. 

BS  
Well, thank you! 

BW  
Thank you so much. 

BW  
So that was Bonny Simi of Joby Aviation. Getting a completely new aircraft developed, manufactured and into our skies is exactly the kind of challenge Bonny thrives on. You can see why founder JoeBen has placed his faith in her, and as she says, that meeting was pure destiny. There are many incremental steps Joby needs to get through, and since we recorded this interview, they've announced that the FAA has now certified their propulsion system. Just a couple more steps remain before Bonny can, in her own words, "fly the beautiful bird." As usual, we'll put links in the shownotes. And if you want to see video footage of the aircraft, please look up Cleaning Up with Michael Liebreich on YouTube. Thanks to Oliver, Colin and Eric at Joby for helping set the interview up and for recording it so professionally, and to Eliza Tewson for her research help. And thanks to you for listening. That was Cleaning Up.

ML  
If you've enjoyed today's conversation, please remember to like, share, and subscribe to Cleaning Up, or leave us a review on your favourite podcast platform. And do please spread the word, tell your friends and colleagues. And if you want more from Cleaning Up, sign up for our free newsletter on the publishing platform Substack at mlcleaningup.substack.com, that's mlcleaningup.substack.com, or visit us on cleaningup.live, that's cleaningup.live. 

ML  
Cleaning up is brought to you by our lead supporter, Capricorn Investment Group, as well as by the Liebreich Foundation, the Gilardini Foundation and our newest supporter, EcoPragma Capital.