The Business of Meetings 72: Revolutionizing Air Travel with Richard Kane
Today, you are in for a treat! We are excited and honored to be speaking to Richard Kane, the CEO of VeriJet. Richard is also the CEO of the Inc. 500 company, Coastal Technologies Group.
Richard is an amazing individual who is changing the way people travel! In this episode, he shares his fascinating story, talks about what he is doing to revolutionize air travel, and shares his goals for the future.
We hope you enjoy listening to our conversation with Richard today!
Richard Kane’s bio:
- Inc. 500 CEO and Company Founder
- Board Member of SF, LF, NHSD, Space Canada Mining
- Seven World Speed Records
- Researcher in AI with patents in multiple verticals
- CEO of VeriJet, where we are reinventing mobility
How it all started
Richard Kane started doing commercial computer work when he was fourteen or fifteen years old. At the age of seventeen, he started writing AI (artificial intelligence) programs. He was featured in the New York Times for inventing new types of security. The principal of his high school quit his job to market the software that Richard wrote, and then Richard became the school’s first computer teacher.
Ancient computers
When Richard started writing AI programs, he worked on machines that would barely be recognized as computers today. A very tight code was required to get any performance out of the eight-bit processors with little bits of memory.
Richard Kane’s journey after high school
The State University Systems in Florida bought the software that Richard wrote while in high school, and Richard was also doing tech support for one of the deans.
Faculty Scholars Program
Richard joined a Faculty Scholars Program at the university. He was backed up by a team of professors who were, in turn, backed up by a team from Motorola. It was the best place in the US for computer education at the time. Richard was one of 100 students recruited from around the world.
Jumping two years
Joining the program allowed Richard to jump two years of college.
Personal Computers
The program had the most amazing professors who created the PC, so Richard learned all there was to know about PCs.
Bigger computers
Richard wanted to learn about bigger computers, so he went to work for a small phone company. A few of the people he had working for him there are still with him today, thirty years later!
A three-decade journey
Richard’s journey has happened over three decades and has been about how to route things more efficiently. His job at the phone company involved routing phone calls, which segued into routing airplanes. VeriJet was built on top of that.
Richard Kane and routing airplanes
Richard Kane and one of his board members, also a pilot, thought that routing airplanes would have a more environmental and social impact, and would be more interesting than routing phone calls. Richard spent the next decade tackling environmental-impact and efficiency problems. He eventually fixed the problems and changed the industry, but they were still flying the wrong machines for what they wanted to achieve.
The last decade
Richard’s last decade has been about software, solving the Traveling Salesman Problem, and making the industry run more smoothly.
Changing the way people travel
The SATS program and VeriJet are changing the way people travel. They are all about tripling the speed of short-haul travel and bringing it up to 300 miles per hour.
The Traveling Salesman Problem
Solving the Traveling Salesman Problem is about optimizing the path of the traveling salesman to cover the most distance with the least traveling time and cost, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Quantum is a first glimpse of what might be a solution to the Traveling Salesman Problem.
Three problem areas
IBM has chosen three problem areas to showcase quantum. They are medicines discovery, catalyst discovery (for clean and unlimited energy), and the Traveling Salesman Problem.
Cirrus Vision Jet
Richard waited fifteen years for a Cirrus Vision Jet. Even when it came out, he waited for the second generation because it is made of carbon fiber so there is no metal fatigue. It was designed for short hops. It is extremely efficient, quiet, and safe. It can land itself, it has AI on board to help the pilot avoid problems, and it has a ballistic parachute that will lower the whole airplane to the ground if necessary.
Two Collier Trophies
The layered approach to safety has resulted in two Collier Trophies for the Vision Jet. One was for safety, the parachute, and its ability to land itself, and the other was for efficiency and design.
Cost efficiency
Having only one engine and one pilot has dropped the cost of flying the Vision Jet. Its fuel efficiency has allowed them to drop the cost of private charter by about a third.
Their second fleet type
Their second fleet type is also fuel-efficient and also has a parachute.
Their third fleet type
Their third fleet type costs about $45 to fill up because it is all-electric. It has no carbon footprint, and takes off vertically, and flies horizontally. It is about a thousand times safer and much quieter than a helicopter. They will be flying electric aircraft around Florida and California by 2024.
Sterilizing
Richard’s planes get sterilized between hops. In-flight, they have a medical-grade FDA-approved device that cleans the air.
A goal
One of Richard’s goals is to fly people in VTOL drones.
XPRIZE
Peter Diamandis wanted to commercialize space, so he decided to put out a ten million dollar XPRIZE for suborbital space flight. The team that won the ten million dollars ended up spending twenty-two million dollars to win the prize. Many of the other teams also came up with super-creative ideas on how to open up space.
Carbon footprint
The AI Richard developed for routing airplanes and using them more efficiently saves 200,000 pounds of carbon footprint every week. It does that with more efficient routing and use of the aircraft.
The right tool
VeriJet is the right tool for safe, efficient, and environmentally-friendly travel.
Convenience
Ninety-eight percent of everyone in the US lives within twenty miles of one of Richard’s 5,400 airports. Go to www.verijet.com, type in your zip code, and you will see all the airports pop up.
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Book mentioned:
The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles Lindbergh