# @zipline on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CbZxbM7g5JK
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/70712906-zipline-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/49c79b16f0.jpg
- **Posted:** 2022-03-22T10:26:00.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Zipline (@zipline) — https://gondola.cc/zipline

## Caption

#HumansOfZipline ✨ Keenan Wyrobeck, our Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, was featured this week on the What’s Your Problem? podcast. He talked about why Zipline has been able to move so fast. Here, Keenan further explores our early approach to engineering and what has made the company so successful in using drones to serve humanity.
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“Getting a company like this off the ground is always an adventure. To me, one of the things that separated Zipline from the herd was tying us to the customer early. Zipline had real potential customers in places like Rwanda and Costa Rica that we had deep conversations with from day 1. We knew what we were building & why & for who & what it needed to do. We had pressure throughout that whole process to launch. We had someone asking our team if we can go any faster because they just had another emergency delivery that didn’t make it in time to the hospital. I’m not exaggerating when I say that - that actually happened. This really enabled us to move the technology development quickly.
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Being able to literally go talk to customers about what matters is really powerful for enabling that practical focus. Engineers in that kind of environment don’t have theoretical debates about what’s needed and what’s not. You can really ground those debates in like, ’Hey, I’m not sure if we need that but we can call the customer; or ‘Hey, I was there last week and I saw the delivery site, we don’t need that’ - that sort of thing. And that’s really powerful. Engineers are a funny breed. I think what makes an engineer powerful is that we are good at imagining solutions to problems. But where we fall on our faces is only imagining the problem & not grounding it in reality.
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The superset of human existence is so much bigger than what one human can imagine. The chances that you can imagine what matters to a pharmacist in Côte d’Ivoire & a Doctor in Nigeria is pretty slim. When you have a customer that you’re actually engaging with - then you get those first-hand insights.
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Once you can actually see the challenge, you can ask questions & drill down to the real challenge. That’s where the magic happens.”

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 485
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- **Comments:** 6

## Tags

humansofzipline

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