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He pioneered an urban air mobility business within Uber, co-authored the landmark white paper in 2016, sold Uber Elevate to Joby, and then spent several years in the wings of the eVTOL industry.
And now, Nikhil Goel is back.
Archer Aviation recently announced that Nikhil would join the executive team as Chief Commercial Officer, taking the controls of a growth strategy that’s already firing at full thrust. Building on an agreement with auto manufacturer Stellantis and a commercial partnership with United Airlines, the company just bagged the U.S. Air Force’s largest eVTOL contract ever. Archer is on a tear.
In his own words, Nikhil will be tasked with building Archer’s holistic commercial strategy: “The amount of inbound interest has been crazy. What Archer really needs—and what I'm going to be focused on—is harnessing demand and fitting all the puzzle pieces together in partnership with our COO of Archer Air, Tom Anderson, as well as our Chief Infrastructure Officer, Bryan Bernhard.”
Given Nikhil’s early and public role in the eVTOL space, I wanted to understand the full significance of his return to the industry: what does this move mean for Nikhil personally? What does it mean for the broader eVTOL ecosystem?
To find out, I called Nikhil and asked him a few questions. Here is what I learned.
Pure strategy
Some eVTOL executives came up as aerospace engineers (see Interview with Whisper CEO Mark Moore). Others by way of sales, finance, or product. Being an Uber insider with the CEO’s ear, Nikhil was able to look at the mobility landscape through the lens of a strategist.
When we started Uber Elevate, I had been at Uber for quite a while already. I started off by helping lead the emerging markets team and thinking about our business in places like India, China, Southeast Asia, U.A.E., and Africa. That work gave me a global perspective on the untapped potential for Uber to grow exponentially over the coming years. My next role was helping co-lead the rider experience team. Our team was responsible for the app and customer experience end-to-end, whether that's waiting on an Uber to pick you up or browsing the map to find your pickup location—or how you thought about price and the different options of the types of Ubers you could take.
So our team built out a lot of the new designs, which allowed me to really understand how the Uber business worked, not just in the U.S. but all over the world. Then I partnered with Travis Kalanick, our founder, and Jeff Holden, our Chief Product Officer, as well as Mark Moore who was still at NASA at the time and quickly joined Jeff & Nikhil to co-found Elevate, to say okay, “Leveraging my experience, where are the opportunities to plant the seeds for the company over the next five to ten years?” And urban aviation was one where it really made sense to invest my time and ultimately build out a team.
“Uber for catalyzing an industry”
For many people in the industry, Uber Elevate’s 2016 white paper was their entry point into the world of advanced air mobility (AAM). The paper laid out all the major components of an AAM ecosystem: infrastructure, pricing, technology, regulation, etc. But it was more than just a research report; the paper showed founders and investors that there was a real customer and a real market for eVTOL aircraft technology. It gave people permission and helped give them the ability to go out and raise the capital necessary to build the aircraft, infrastructure, and systems that—seven years later—look a lot like that white paper.
One of the things I'm very proud of is how we enabled the industry to flourish. If you were to ask any of the CEOs or founders in this space, I think most will be able to point to Uber and say it was a key part of why they were able to raise money and generate so much excitement. They were able to point to a ready and willing customer and say, “Hey, this isn't just a science project—there's somebody who's going to literally deploy hundreds of thousands of these aircraft all over the world.”
In the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Uber’s business was down considerably, and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi came to Nikhil and the Uber Elevate leadership team to explore “strategic alternatives” for the business. Here’s how that went down:
As an acquirer, Joby made a ton of sense because we had already been investing and partnering there. Most of my team went to Joby with the acquisition. I had been in the industry a long time and thought that it was time for me to take a little bit of a break and take on more of an outsider role. So I left Uber and started working with Adam and the team at Archer. At that point, Archer was newer on the scene. There was an opportunity for me to come in and help on an advisory basis. I’ve been doing that for the last three years, and what I’ve seen from Archer has really impressed me.
Now that the industry is more mature—the industry that Uber catalyzed—it’s worth asking: did they miss out on an opportunity to play a bigger role in advanced air mobility?
Why Archer?
I asked Nikhil, why not start your own advanced air mobility company?
I think there are a ton of different companies to be started in this space. For me it's about having the maximum impact on the industry that I can over the next several years. I think Archer is in position to be the industry leader because of the strength of the aircraft they’ve developed, the company’s focus on commercialization, and all the pieces they have in place to scale the business quickly to capture a dominant share of the market. So for me it was about jumping on a rocket ship and helping maximize the opportunity as much as I can, not just within Archer, but really for the industry and world. I think Archer is going to be able to help all of the companies that we're working with across the board grow 10X over the next several years. Ultimately, my goal is to help make cities smarter, cleaner, more efficient places to live – many new companies will be started along the way to help do that, and I hope to be able to help them grow as well.
Trunk routes lead the way
The Uber Elevate white paper focused on urban air mobility, but many companies in the space are finding it easier to financially justify other applications: regional air mobility, cargo delivery, defense, etc. I asked Nikhil where Archer is headed next, and it sounds like he’s sticking to the original plan: urban air mobility, with a focus on what he believes will be the highest demand routes, or what Archer calls “trunk” routes.
If you look at Uber, one in every six trips was to and from the airport, and $1 out every $5 was to and from the airport. Airports were a fundamentally critical part of the business for Uber, because the customer pain was so high. I think for eVTOL, airports will probably be a third to half of the initial business because airports are usually far away from the city center and it’s inconvenient to get there and back with ground transportation—often taking upwards of an hour for a drive that isn’t more than 10-15 miles. Airports are also an easier starting point because one half of the equation is solved: you already have an airport and an area where it's safe to take off and land and city centers typically have several existing helipads, not to mention FAA-approved helicopter routes to said airport. So that makes it really convenient for us to say that the first route in any given market is going to be between the airport and one or two downtown areas. I expect that that’s going to be the bulk of the early deployment of the business, but that will diversify over time into commute corridors, leisure routes, etc. Some markets will grow to be really dense, while other markets may only support a few routes, and maybe just airport transfers. Collectively, the market for eVTOL is massive across civilian, cargo, and military use cases—and the industry’s impact on people and the planet will be enormous.