Leadership
Archer Aviation is scheduled to take commercial flight in 2024.
Adcock credits Archer’s recruiting success to a couple of core factors, the first being a strong mission. From the beginning, Archer’s reason for being was clear: advancing the benefits of sustainable urban air mobility. “It’s a new industry, so that mission is very ambitious and hard to achieve,” he explains. “We work hard to give some of the best people in the world a chance to come in super early and build what will hopefully, over time, be a really important global business.”
“Half of the global population lives in cities, and a lot of those people spend way too much time in traffic. We need to reinvent the entire urban experience.”
$1.5tn Morgan Stanley 30
The estimated value of the new urban air mobility industry by 2040.
From there, says Adcock, retention is a matter of ensuring employees are properly incentivised, well taken care of, and always working on important projects. “At the end of the day, people have a degree of freedom around where they want to work, so it’s really important to put them on fun projects and treat them fairly,” he emphasises. “That’s our north star.” Beyond their history of launching companies and raising capital, one of the most remarkable things about Adcock and Goldstein is the fact that they’re still working together after more than a decade. “I think it’s really hard for founders, especially co-CEOs, to make it for a long period of time,” says Adcock. “There are very few folks that get to the point where they’re able to successfully coexist. Adam and I are really close friends and pair well across our personal values. We also pair really well from a working relationship perspective, getting along and talking through problems or disagreements. Over the years, we’ve learned how to divide and conquer very effectively across the business.”
For Adcock, the benefits of being a co-founder far outweigh any occasional challenges. The biggest perk of all? Knowing you’re never alone. “Running a
company is difficult,” says Adcock. “So having somebody with you through that journey is actually really, really, helpful. Doing it alone would be lonely. It’s unique in the start-up world for co-founders to have stayed together for this long and been successful, but it works really well for us. I think we’re always stronger as a pair.”
Ready for take-off
So, what lies ahead for Archer? Smiling, Adcock points at the futuristic aircraft that gleams behind glass in his Palo Alto headquarters. “I’m really excited about the future of cities and making urban air mobility work in a big way here,” he says.
In an industry rife with federal regulations, doing
so won’t be easy. But for the Archer team, inspiration trumps intimidation. “It’s going to take a long time, and we have a lot of work to do,” says Adcock. “We’ll start slowly, then scale up to be bigger and bigger over time. Remember, some of these successful businesses like Tesla or SpaceX have been running for two decades. We’ll be doing this for a long time.” Like their role model Elon Musk, Adcock and Goldstein are aiming high. “I think it’s important to be solving problems, and to be making the world a better place,” says Adcock. “Beyond that, it’s important to be inspired and excited when we wake up each morning. Half of the global population lives in cities, and a lot of those people spend way too much time in traffic. We need to reinvent the entire urban experience. I’m really excited about trying to solve that every day.” Meanwhile, Adcock and Goldstein are clearly as ambitious as ever. A week after we spoke, an Archer banner was unfurled at 11 Wall Street – marking the company’s IPO. Facing a crowd of cheering employees, Adcock and Goldstein stood side by side in the city that once launched their careers. When the clock struck 9:30am, they reached out and rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange. Below them were the streets of Manhattan, where they first met over a decade earlier. Above them, endless sky. ●
Chief Executive Officer /
www.the-chiefexecutive.com
Archer Aviation
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