Chris Anderson is founder of DIY Drones, the largest amateur Unmanned Aerial Vehicle community on the web with 15,000 members, and of 3D Robotics, the commercial arm that serves the DIY Drones online store – “The Amateur UAV Superstore”. Chris is also editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, and wrote The Long Tail, in 2006. Business Insider published this 4-minute interview with Chris about his DIY Drones activities:
Chris Anderson started out as a journalist, working for Nature and Science before moving on to The Economist. Then, in 2000, he was recruited by Conde Nast to run its technology magazine Wired. Anderson’s reign at Wired started off shaky, but he notes that in retrospect, the end of the dot com bubble was the best time for him to take over the magazine. Anderson made a bet that the Internet would continue to grow despite the stock market crashing, and time and time again he had his magazine declare the Internet had become ubiquitous. No one believed this positive spin however; so, the magazine had to do something different.
“Eventually, it was science that saved us,” Anderson declared. With 18 months of experience under his belt as Wired’s Editor-in-Chief, Anderson released an issue of the magazine that strayed away from technology and focused on the cultural differences between science and religion. This issue served as the launching pad for Wired’s longstanding dominance in the technology magazine industry.
“Autonomy is the future of aviation in the same way that autonomy is the future of cars,” Anderson insisted. “We know that computers drive cars better than people do — we use cruise control, and there are systems to keep you in your lane.” Anderson argues that drones are now in the “mainframe era,” when cost and regulations limit use to well-funded labs and the military. “Our approach,” he said, “is the personal computer.”
When he began researching drones, Anderson was stunned when he saw an online video of Jordi Muñoz using his customized Wii controller to fly a small helicopter. The two men struck up an email correspondence. When Anderson started a drone business, he offered the presidency to Muñoz. “Ten years ago,” Anderson said, “I would have ended up with a recent graduate from Stanford. That would have been fine, but we wouldn’t be where we are today. He has this almost animal instinct for hot, rising technologies. He was on to this way before me.” In May 2009, Anderson and Muñoz co-founded 3D Robotics, company that wants to be a one-stop shop for all your drone needs.
Jordi Muñoz, is a slim, 6-foot-1 bespectacled 24 year-old, surrounded by wires and circuits, gyros and motherboards. As a boy he was fascinated by planes and computers, and he seemed to have a near-instinctive grasp of electronics. He was denied admission to Instituto Politécnico Nacional, an MIT-like university in Mexico City. He studied a year at Ensenada’s CETYS, the Centro de Enseñanza Técnica y Superior, but remained impatient.
In 2007, he married his American girlfriend. Waiting for his green card, the newlywed was unable to work, enrol in college, get a driver’s license. To help the idle husband pass the time, his mother gave Muñoz a radio-controlled helicopter. The cheap machine flew like a wounded sparrow and landed like a brick. Muñoz tore it apart. He designed a new autopilot and re-launched a sleek, swift, stable machine. With little else to do, he devoured online tutorials, swapped ideas with other hobbyists, delving deeper into the mechanics of autopilots, servos, GPS systems. He built and launched his own drone. Muñoz’s quadrocopters can fly eight miles each way, a camera amid four whirling propellers, relaying video images back to the operator.
By June 2010, revenues hit $56,000 and by March 2011, $164,000. The company is now profitable enough for Muñoz to hire 11 staffers and pay himself $5,000 a month.
Sources: Business Insider, Sign On San Deigo