18-Year-Old Founder: Why America Needs Its Own Drone Industry

Meet Tom Rein, the youngest entrepreneur ever featured on the Altium OnTrack podcast and founder of Tom's Aerial Vehicles. At just 18 years old, Tom is revolutionizing American drone manufacturing with AI-powered development processes and proprietary hardware designs. In this compelling interview, discover how this young innovator is building police drones "for Americans, by Americans" while addressing critical national security concerns and manufacturing gaps.

 

Tom shares his remarkable journey from collecting light bulbs as a child to building a six-figure speaker company, and now developing modular drone systems that could reshape the industry. Learn how AI has reduced his development costs from $10 million and 25 engineers to a $30 ChatGPT subscription, and why American manufacturing needs to catch up to China's ecosystem advantages. This episode explores the intersection of entrepreneurship, technology innovation, and national security in the rapidly evolving drone industry.

 

👉 Resources from this Episode: 

- Find Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomrein1/

- Find Tom on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TomReinYT

 

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About Altium LLC

 

Altium LLC (ASX:ALU), a global software company based in San Diego, California, is accelerating the pace of innovation through electronics. From individual inventors to multinational corporations, more PCB designers and engineers choose Altium software to design and realize electronics-based products.

 

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