Core Memory · 3 min · Nov 4, 2026

Airbound designs for payload volume, not just weight

NPNaman Pushp · Founder, Airbound

Naman Pushp says Airbound prioritizes a roomy basket that can carry several orders, since volume can matter more than rated weight.

In this episode

1:14:11 Carbon fiber needs its own manufacturing methodsPro pick 5 min
17:45 Drone delivery competition comes down to unit economics3 min
53:46 Venture capital is fueling India’s hardware startups8 min
14:18Airbound designs for payload volume, not just weight3 min
41:02 Pushp sees India as a better base for Airbound5 min
1:04:29 Pushp says assertive government sped up Indian reforms3 min
1:07:45 India could combine innovation with mass manufacturing6 min
1:21:38 Airbound treats manufacturing as its core scaling challenge4 min

“So I think one of the main differences in our approach is that we realized weight alone is not the issue.”

NPNaman Pushpat 15:08 · Core Memory

Takeaways

A large basket can serve several orders in one flight.
Payload volume may limit usefulness more than payload weight.
Airbound says its larger aircraft carries five kilos of cargo.

About this segment

Naman Pushp says Airbound prioritizes a roomy basket that can carry several orders, since volume can matter more than rated weight. He says the larger aircraft carries five kilos with a three-kilo aircraft.

NP

Naman Pushp is founder and CEO of Airbound.

Ashlee Vance, Host · CEO, Core Memory
Wrote the best-selling biography Elon Musk; covered tech for Bloomberg Businessweek, The Economist and The New York Times.

From “He's Taking On Amazon With A New Kind Of Aircraft”, Nov 4, 2026. Watch the full episode

Transcript

From the transcript Core Memory publishes with the episode.

14:23
And for the moment, I mean, this is vaguely comparing to Zipline or what Amazon is trying to do with delivery. I am most familiar with Zipline by far, just because I spent a bunch of time with them. I mean, they had pretty lightweight aircraft. It was made of sort of like a styrofoam material in a lot of parts. They do this thing where the big drone is covering the distance and then they pop out this little baby drone on a tether.
14:54
And that's what's like bringing your sandwich or your coffee down to the ground. And they have mechanisms on that, if I remember right, like kind of little propellers to try to... Combat the wind while it's lowering this thing down on the tether. Is your approach similar? I remember. I mean, there is a bit of a tether.
15:14
So I think one of the main differences in our approach is that we realized weight alone is not the issue. Volume is actually a much bigger issue. And so you can build an aircraft with like 3 kg, 5 kg of payload capacity. But if you have to fit that all in a tiny space, you'd be hard pressed to find payloads that actually use up the full capacity. So what we focused on is just making like a big, what we call a big payload basket where you can just dump items in and you can put like, frankly, a disgusting amount of stuff inside of each aircraft. And that's the thing, right?
15:49
Like you can put five, six orders in there. You can use this to restock, you know, dark stores, restaurants, small warehouses, et cetera. Like it's viable for a lot more than just single package delivery. Okay.
16:01
And then in one contention, I mean, well, I guess this is just math and metrics. I mean, Zipline and Amazon, they're just heavier machines than what you guys make. I forget off the top of my head. I mean, do you know the comparisons?
16:17
Yeah, so generally sort of industry best is around for every kilogram of payload that you lift, you need about four to five kilograms of aircraft. I think Zipline's at about 5.8. Amazon is even higher, I think somewhere in the six to seven range. So, you know, vast majority of the weight is the aircraft there. What we've managed to do is we're lifting five kilos of payload with a three kilo aircraft, right?
16:42
Yeah. As compared to, you know, industry standard would be a like 25 to 30 kilogram acre.