Daniel_McGill_Real-Estate-Capital_20260518_R05

Daniel McGill (0:00 - 0:21)

A great example of the kind of partnership that makes this real for the real estate community is Dubai. A few months ago, we actually reached an agreement to integrate our service into the Uber app there, which means that when Joby launches operations, riders will be able to hail one of our aircraft directly through the app they use every day. That's really the ecosystem we're building toward.

Nancy Lashine (0:22 - 2:26)

Hello, and thanks for tuning in to Real Estate Capital. I'm your host, Nancy Lashine of Park Madison Partners. Capital is the lifeblood of the real estate industry, but the decisions on where and how it's allocated are driven by people and personalities.

Who are they? What motivates them? What can we learn from their experiences?

On this show, we introduce you to some of the real estate industry's most influential thought leaders and decision makers, and we talk about what is important to them, how they make critical decisions, who has influenced them, and a lot more. Our guest on today's episode is Dan McGill, who leads real estate strategy at Joby Aviation, one of the leading companies pioneering electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs. Dan's career began in traditional real estate with firms like Hines and Sares Regis, followed by time at Apple, where he worked on real estate initiatives, including their international expansion.

After more than two decades in institutional real estate, he made a shift into the rapidly emerging sector at the intersection of mobility, technology, and the built environment. In this episode, we explore how new forms of transportation, specifically urban air mobility, could reshape cities, commuting patterns, and real estate values. I recorded this podcast with Dan on March 19th, 2026, which is important context, given just how fast the world and the tech scene changes these days.

Dan shares how Joby is thinking about infrastructure, site selection, and partnerships with real estate owners, as well as what it takes to bring an entirely new category of transportation into dense urban environments. It's a fascinating conversation about the future of mobility and its direct implications for real estate. I'm pleased to have Dan McGill join us on the show.

Dan, thanks so much for joining us. This is really very exciting. It was really great to meet you out in San Francisco. I guess it was last fall.

Daniel McGill (2:27 - 2:27)

That's right.

Nancy Lashine (2:28 - 3:12)

First, I really got to understand what Joby does, and what eVTOL is. eVTOL, that's a mouthful, Electric Vehicle Takeoff and Landing. Joby is one of, if not the leader, in that business.

Excited to talk to you about it as we think about new forms of mobility and how they're impacting our real estate environment. Let's start with you. I'm going to call you a traditional real estate guy, right?

You grew up at Hines and did development at Sares Regis. You did some brokerage. You did work at Apple for about five years. What brought you to Joby?

Daniel McGill (3:13 - 4:03)

Thank you, Nancy. Wonderful to be here. I really appreciate you inviting me.

That's a great question. I joined Joby a little over a year ago. After being at the companies you referenced, Apple and Hines and Sares Regis, my entire career now, 20-some-odd years, has been more on the traditional institutional real estate side, including the running corporate.

Just prior to joining Joby, I was working for a life science platform here in Silicon Valley. Candidly, the market was a little rocky at the time. A couple of the deals we're looking at, there just was not a lot of activity. I was vested in my deals. I'm like, we've got a little bit of time here. I just didn't anticipate a lot of activity or deal flow in the next 12-24 months. Concurrently, I had a recruiter reach out.

Nancy Lashine (4:03 - 4:04)

That was prescient, by the way.

Daniel McGill (4:05 - 4:06)

Sorry? 

Nancy Lashine (4:06 - 4:07)

That was prescient. 

Daniel McGill (4:07 - 6:04)

Yeah. Timing's everything in the sense that I had a recruiter reach out from Joby. I was initially a little dubious and thought, what is this? I didn't know much about the urban air taxi industry at all.

In fact, I was very dismissive of it initially. Then, it's like many things in life. Once I had that seed in my mind, I started to see Joby in the media and had to come up in conversation with some friends here locally.

I live in the East Bay of the Bay Area. A lot of folks were encouraging me to consider this because Joby and I did more research on the company, publicly traded. Then, I reached back out to the recruiter.

I was able to coordinate a visit of our Marina, California facility, which is where the aircraft is finally assembled. We have a pilot manufacturing facility there, although we're just basically quadrupled the footprint. We're scaling there quite significantly.

In any event, I had an opportunity to go to see the aircraft fly, see the actual manufacturing facility in the process. I was blown away. Also, I had an opportunity to meet with some of the executive team.

I was extraordinarily impressed. It was very apparent to me that while the company, over 15 years, has made extraordinary leaps and bounds in developing and launching this tech and this physical aircraft, from a commercialization perspective, specifically with respect to real estate, I think there was a lot of meat on the bone and opportunity for me to add value. Even back during my Apple days, I always had an eye towards opportunities where I could be a little bit more forward-leaning and a little bit more on the leadership side.

This checked a lot of boxes for me. Personally, I think it's extraordinarily cool. My father was a pilot. I'm not a pilot. However, I am noodling on pursuing that because Joby now has a part, I think it's the 135.

Nancy Lashine (6:05 - 6:16)

Just for people who've never seen Joby, and we'll try to show some clips maybe on a YouTube feed during this podcast, but it's four passengers and a pilot.

Daniel McGill (6:17 - 6:17)

That's right.

Nancy Lashine (6:18 - 6:21)

What makes it different than a vertical helicopter?

Daniel McGill (6:22 - 8:11)

First, it's all electric. It's extraordinarily quiet. We're in the fifth of five phases for FAA certification.

This is a new category of aircraft, powered lift. The FAA has been very stringent on all the certification regulations, the guidelines, and hurdles we need to pass in order to get the final certification. To answer your question, the acoustic signature of the aircraft, we take off vertically and then immediately transition to wing-borne.

When we're actually in flight, it's extraordinarily more efficient than a helicopter. It effectively flies like a plane. In fact, it does fly like a plane.

It transitions to full wing-borne. If you think about the power required for a flight, the highest power load or demand is that, of course, the thrust required to take off. Then as soon as we transition to flight, we're using about a third of the power otherwise required.

The FAA certification process is one of the most rigorous certification standards in the world, as I'm sure many of you know. We've been working through it methodically for years. Back to the real estate angle, it's approximately in this metric we've had studied via some NASA studies. Nancy, I can provide you a team. You can see the contrast between our aircraft acoustic versus traditional airplanes and helicopters. We're about 100 times quieter than a helicopter.

As we think about launching in markets such as San Francisco, where I'm based, where there's not a history of vertical lift or helicopter, I think that is the major unlock that we're trying. We're aggressively working on disseminating that detail and making people more aware of what's to come.

Nancy Lashine (8:12 - 8:20)

If you use this for urban transport, where do you land it in an urban environment?

Daniel McGill (8:20 - 9:30)

That's my job. We are working closely with a number of strategic real estate partners, not only here in the Bay Area, but as you can imagine, the ideal profile from our perspective of a real estate partner are institutional, long-term, innovative. Ideally, we can work with groups that have real estate assets, a larger portfolio or platform of assets in different markets.

We can establish a commercial structure where we partner with a real estate professional group. That can be something we could replicate in various markets. So we have a variety of those discussions ongoing.

But ideally, we are looking to land on the rooftop of buildings, on the rooftop of garages. There will be some greenfield development in some particular markets. I'm not at liberty necessarily yet to disclose some of the specific locations, but suffice it to say, there's a lot of great enthusiasm.

This flight demo we performed in San Francisco, we had a lot of our partners there present and we got phenomenal feedback. Really couldn't have gone better. I think a lot of folks are starting to wake up to what's coming.

Nancy Lashine (9:32 - 9:43)

Let's talk about your partners because that's one of the things that makes Joby so unique. You're not just an OEM, you're not just making this vertical- Aircraft What are we calling it? A vertical aircraft?

Daniel McGill (9:44 - 9:57)

It's an eVTOL. I refer to it generally as our aircraft. The model number is S4, so we're a Joby.

There's a number of ways. Effectively, it's an eVTOL aircraft.

Nancy Lashine (9:58 - 10:15)

You're not just manufacturing it, but it's a fully integrated experience to the user. You've got Toyota as a large partner, Delta Airlines as a partner, and Uber, among others. Talk about the partnerships and how they are integrated with your whole service.

Daniel McGill (10:15 - 11:40)

The Toyota partnership is significant, of course. They are our largest investor, and we are working with them on our strategic manufacturing alliance. Effectively, we're so tickled to have them as a partner because they are arguably the most sophisticated and effective and efficient manufacturing organization on the planet.

They've got engineers embedded within our facility in Marina, as well as San Carlos, which is where I sit, helping us streamline and just really work on the most or implement the most effective manufacturing principles and policies. You think of this aircraft as a lot of the same hallmarks as an auto. Ultimately, we are ramping up manufacturing as we speak.

We've made significant investments in our manufacturing infrastructure. Our facility in Marina, California, is where we're currently building aircraft. We call that our pilot manufacturing facility.

We've been steadily scaling that capacity over the past couple of years. In Dayton, Ohio, meanwhile, we're in the process of building out what will become our full-scale production facility, a major long-term investment for the company. Right now, we're focusing on putting in place the processes, tooling, and talent that will allow us to ramp production at the pace we'll need for commercial operations.

Nancy Lashine (11:41 - 11:55)

Just order of magnitude, this is really early stage. You just had your first test flight. You're going through the FAA approval process.

The Trump administration is fast-tracking, from what I understand, this concept.

Daniel McGill (11:55 - 12:31)

Under the umbrella of the EIPP program, which was, as you referenced, this executive order from the Trump administration, that stands for eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, which, in a nutshell, is an opportunity for states to partner with OEMs like ourselves to effectively stand up pilot operations in advance of final FAA certification. Joby, we're very excited to partner with states for five of these opportunities. I'd say I'm going to get my stage wrong, as you would have thought I had.

Nancy Lashine (12:31 - 12:35)

I think you're Florida, New York, California, of course.

Daniel McGill (12:35 - 12:52)

Florida, New York. Actually, California is part of a multi-state award, but California, New York, Texas, Utah, and North Carolina are ones that we are a part of. That is informing, though, in the near term, where we're going to be focusing a lot of our efforts on the infrastructure side.

Nancy Lashine (12:52 - 13:02)

So you bought the Uber flight business, Uber Elevate. What role would Uber play in this business? And how do you see this integrating to the consumer?

Daniel McGill (13:02 - 13:45)

Last mile connectivity. A great example of the kind of partnership that makes this real for the real estate community is Dubai.

A few months ago, we actually reached an agreement to integrate our service into the Uber app there, which means that when Joby launches operations, riders will be able to hail one of our aircraft directly through the app they use every day. Dubai's aviation authority has been working with us on a regulatory pathway. They're very forward-thinking, and we think it'll be a great proving ground, frankly, for that technology globally.

That's really the ecosystem we're building toward. The goal, of course, here is to save time, just a fundamental base principle mission of the company.

Nancy Lashine (13:46 - 13:49)

Joby bought Blade a year or two ago.

Daniel McGill (13:50 - 13:50)

That's right.

Nancy Lashine (13:50 - 14:02)

Joby bought Blade a year or two ago. That's right. Blade is probably known to, someone described it as a bougie service to get from New York to the Hamptons. But why did you buy Blade and how does that inform-

Daniel McGill (14:02 - 14:48)

Yeah, no, listen. The Blade's acquisition, I think there's been a lot of results from that acquisition. There was a little bit of question going in, hey, it seems to be somewhat maybe perhaps contrary to what our overarching mission is, being eVTOL, clean, quiet, sustainable, different aircraft type.

But Blade is allowing us to basically build our operational muscle day one. We're also acquiring a captive audience of customers already, so you can imagine there's a lot of folks that do use Blade on the regular. And while I understand the perception of it being bougie, it is really a very reasonable price point.

So there is certainly a perception issue from our perspective. They're really not that expensive to utilize Blade.

Nancy Lashine (14:48 - 14:54)

I mean, if you were to call an Uber from the downtown Manhattan to the Hamptons versus call a Blade, it's probably not that big a difference.

Daniel McGill (14:55 - 15:44)

That's right, exactly. And I think the Blade team, they're extraordinary, led by Rob Wiesenthal, who has been a wonderful sounding board to us as we're thinking through our infrastructure strategy. I mean, they also bring with them a number of extremely valuable relationships in various markets with, you can think about sports and stadiums and entertainment districts.

And as you can imagine, Blade's been around for quite some time. So given that they're operational in New York and also in Europe, Nice and Monaco specifically, they are really helping us sort of fast track our commercialization. New York is key.

We're also thinking of where we could potentially bring Blade in in advance of FAA certification for us to stand up operations in markets where we otherwise wouldn't be able to until we do have that FAA's final sign off.

Nancy Lashine (15:44 - 16:09)

So you literally are from manufacturing these machines through to consumer contact with their phone and their app. And your job is to think about, okay, what kind of real estate sites do you need to acquire to make sure you get to the people and get them where they want to go? So tell us a little bit about how you're thinking about site selection and what's important.

Daniel McGill (16:10 - 16:27)

Yeah. And this will very much be a phased strategy, Nancy. But as I mentioned, to the extent we can partner with the right real estate investors, developers, owners that have the correct mindset and recognize this to be a massive differentiator, that is key.

Nancy Lashine (16:28 - 16:30)

Okay so what is the correct mindset?

Daniel McGill (16:30 - 16:54)

Well, I think it's folks that do have a longer term purview, right? So it's tricky if someone has a three to five year hold projection. And we're talking about, let's say, launching in the US after FAA certification.

I mean, this EIPP opportunity does add a new dynamic, which will allow us to launch sooner than we would have otherwise based on pure FAA certification.

Nancy Lashine (16:54 - 16:58)

So what should a real estate owner's timeline be to make it appropriate?

Daniel McGill (16:59 - 18:42)

I mean, now I would say, I mean, truly the message that we are conveying to our partners is now is the time to effectively get these VertiPort builds shovel ready. What makes me particularly excited about our infrastructure work is the caliber of the team we've assembled. Our infrastructure lead comes from an aerospace background, building mission critical systems.

And that mentality is directly informing how we're approaching VertiPort design and deployment. We're thinking from first principles, where do people actually want to go? What does the physical and infrastructure need to look like to serve those routes efficiently?

And how do we integrate into existing urban environments in a way that works for cities and for riders? At the end of the day, that's what we're trying to solve for. It's a very hard problem.

And we do have a world-class team working on it. Certainly rooftops in LA, there's a large universe of existing helipad infrastructure, many of which are emergency use only. But we're having discussions with a number of owners that have permitted commercial helipads.

And that is a no-brainer. And that would allow us to, I think, stand up these sites in far more fast, efficient fashion. Really, all we have to do is bring power to that location.

So power is another piece of the puzzle, which is critical. Because the intent is, as we execute and commence commercial operations, the aircraft will live at a maintenance repair operation facility, an MRO, which would likely be somewhere on the peripheral of an urban environment. Takes off in the morning, begins its mission at each location.

The goal is to have the electrical infrastructure such that we can charge for whatever it is, 8 to 12 minutes while we turn the aircraft over and deplane and reboard.

Nancy Lashine (18:42 - 18:48)

So how many megawatts of power, incremental megawatts of power, would you need to bring to the site to do that?

Daniel McGill (18:48 - 19:34)

It's effectively equivalent to about two Tesla superchargers. So it's not extraordinarily high. Now that's for a singular pad.

But if you think about it, the power requirement in use is very peaky, right? We're on the pad for, call it 10 minutes. There's also battery solutions where we can help sort of streamline that.

So charge the battery overnight. And then during the day, as we're utilizing our charging infrastructure, plugging the aircraft in, it doesn't have to necessarily draw straight from the grid or draw from the power, draw from the building. It can pull from that battery to help normalize, if you will, or streamline that demand.

So we've got a lot of creative solutions, which would allow us to potentially sidestep the need for a massive power upgrade at each location.

Nancy Lashine (19:35 - 19:48)

So let me play devil's advocate for a minute. I mean, we know this is a lot quieter than a helicopter. So from that standpoint, it isn't as disruptive. But if I'm a real estate owner, why would I want a helipad on my building?

Daniel McGill (19:49 - 20:45)

Well, I do think, and maybe Bay Area is a little bit unique and Silicon Valley. Anecdotally, I have several sort of friends in my broader network that are in the AI business, right? And that's obviously the name of the game here today.

And they live in my neighborhood in the East Bay, and often quip that, hey, if I could get to our office in Silicon Valley in 10 minutes, rather than the hour and a half it takes me every morning, I would be there every day. I mean, it's an absolute no-brainer. So with respect to real estate, I think professionals and investors and asset managers, that's really the drum I'm beating is this is going to be a massive differentiator for your facility.

If someone can literally go to the rooftop, take an aircraft back to Marin or the East Bay or down the peninsula to San Jose in 10 minutes versus the hour and a half or two that it may take to drive.

Nancy Lashine (20:45 - 20:53)

It sounds though like it might be more interesting for a suburban facility or a facility that's not right in the downtown core.

Daniel McGill (20:54 - 21:47)

I think the use case for downtown core is compelling, personally, in addition to the suburban. I mean, you think about the verticals of real estate asset classes we are targeting, we're talking with hospitality, retail, think about mixed use, large projects, entertainment districts, stadiums. I mentioned hospitality, I mean, master plan, we're also in discussion with a number of the larger home builders who I think that's a very clear unlock of, oh, suddenly you can build in Tracy or Modesto or some of the lower cost environments around the Bay Area and people can get to and from downtown San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose in a fraction of the time otherwise.

So, yeah, it's really just trying to get the message out, right? And that's kind of one of the reasons I'm very appreciative of you hosting me here today.

Nancy Lashine (21:49 - 21:51)

What's the distance? What's the max distance?

Daniel McGill (21:51 - 22:28)

The target range is 100 miles. Now, that is the sort of first iteration, if you will, of the aircraft. We are working on a hydrogen solution, which could significantly extend range.

In fact, we had our aircraft fly north of 500 miles, having just retrofit one of our aircraft. So I do think the form factor could change. Again, I don't want to get ahead of my team, but you think about this first aircraft will not be the last. I think there will be similar to a Boeing or Airbus. we will have new designs and different aircraft sort of fit for purpose for different use cases.

Nancy Lashine (22:29 - 22:32)

Are you currently looking for sites outside of the Bay Area?

Daniel McGill (22:33 - 23:14)

Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, I mean, in order to you sort of stack rank our priority markets, I mentioned Dubai, where we actually have some partners on the real estate development side.

So we're effectively covered there for our launch. However, we're still iterating and thinking through additional nodes to add to the network. But New York will be our first U.S. launch market. And that's largely based on the fact there is an existing helicopter culture. The Blade acquisition absolutely helps accelerate our rollout. There's just that existing sort of audience of passengers and customers. Los Angeles, I'd say, is our next really key market.

Nancy Lashine (23:14 - 23:21)

Right. So you're looking for sites, as we were talking about in New York, Los Angeles, obviously, Sanford, the Bay Area.

Daniel McGill (23:21 - 23:27)

South Florida. And then Texas is also a key priority market. You know there's a regulatory-

Nancy Lashine (23:28 - 23:29)

Dallas specifically?

Daniel McGill (23:29 - 23:31)

Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio.

Nancy Lashine (23:32 - 23:32)

Oh, wow.

Daniel McGill (23:32 - 23:45)

You think about sort of the permitting aspect of this, there's certainly, I think, a pretty reasonable expectation that it may be a little bit faster permitting process in Florida, in Texas. 

Nancy Lashine (23:45 - 23:47)

When you say permitting?

Daniel McGill (23:47 - 23:53)

Actually getting approvals to go to put these on rooftops, get the power we need.

Nancy Lashine (23:53 - 23:58)

So is that local or is that zoning? Is that like zoning or is that different?

Daniel McGill (23:59 - 24:30)

That's right. In California, there's CEQA. So things can take a little bit longer in California, no doubt.

I think despite the fact, as I said, LA and San Francisco are key markets for us. There's certainly a recognition. You're seeing a lot of these companies launch in Texas, in Florida, autonomous vehicles. I mean, Waymo is a company that personally, I really admire. And we sort of are trying to be mindful of how they rolled out. I mean, it was a gradual rollout. You would see there.

Nancy Lashine (24:31 - 24:39)

Well, they're still rolling out. I mean, they're obviously, you can easily take a Waymo. Well, you still can't take a Waymo in San Francisco on the freeway, can you?

Daniel McGill (24:40 - 24:50)

I think they just literally within the last few days announced that they do have approval for the freeway. I've seen them on the freeway and SFO is a part of their network now, as is San Jose Airport.

Nancy Lashine (24:51 - 24:53)

I've seen them on the freeway, but without people in them.

Daniel McGill (24:54 - 24:55)

That may be the case.

Nancy Lashine (24:55 - 25:19)

Yeah. I saw Waymo in London this past weekend. And it's weird because it drives an hour. The steering wheel is consistent with a U.S. vehicle, obviously driving on the other side of the road. So it's like, huh. But I think they have to have a driver in it still in London.

Daniel McGill (25:20 - 26:11)

Yeah, sure. That's right. I mean, it's very similar to how it went initially in San Francisco.

We would see the Waymos drive around and they would have the test driver who wasn't touching the wheel, but in the vehicle. I think to give the community comfort that, hey, this isn't a fully Auto-. Well, I actually think it was.

I don't know. I don't know exactly how that all went down, but I do think they were very savvy and calculated in getting those vehicles into the city environment without passengers yet just to begin socializing the optic of having them in that environment. So I think this demo we executed last Thursday in San Francisco was a first step, really just getting it out into the public domain.

And so far, all the media from that event has been very positive. So I was pleased to tell it.

Nancy Lashine (26:12 - 26:16)

So what did you learn from the Waymo rollout?

Daniel McGill (26:17 - 27:10)

Really just it requires patience. And I think we need to be, from my perspective, viewing this through a real estate lens. We need to be early and often engaging with the community.

you think about San Francisco and there's various demographics, depending on where we're focused. Right. I think Mission Bay, from my perspective, which is south of the city and a recently developed, amazing, new dynamic neighborhood of San Francisco, the demographic there tends to lean a little more progressive, a little more sort of tech oriented.

And so that's a market where I think makes the most sense for us to consider kind of an initial San Francisco node. But anyway, from Waymo, I think we're just trying to steal some of the plays from their playbook, if you will, as far as just that gradual rollout and engaging with the city.

Nancy Lashine (27:11 - 27:12)

What's their pace of adoption been? Do you have any idea?

Daniel McGill (27:13 - 27:25)

I think it's pretty extraordinary. I feel like I've actually seen some of these stats recently. I don't have them committed to memory.

But you see these vehicles all over the place now in the city.

Nancy Lashine (27:26 - 27:47)

Right. Are you thinking about a pricing strategy? I mean, Waymo is a little cheaper than an Uber typically or a Lyft in San Francisco.

Are you thinking about a pricing strategy that will be more reasonable to encourage adoption and then - 

Daniel McGill (27:47 - 28:23)

That is absolutely. The intent, I think what we've said publicly and continue to stand behind will be trying to be effectively Uber Black pricing. So, from San Francisco to, say, Walnut Creek or somewhere in the East Bay, one hundred and fifty two hundred dollars, most likely. Now, that's the first single seat.

So that's something that merits sort of flagging. But it's certainly our goal is for this to be accessible to the normal person. It's not we certainly do not want this to be perceived to be simply something that's an absolute premium service.

Nancy Lashine (28:23 - 28:23)

Right.

Daniel McGill (28:24 - 28:51)

Now, out of the gates, we will be supply constrained from purely just from a physical aircraft supply perspective. So, I think the market dynamics will sort of dictate how this looks for the first couple of, let's say, first launch phase. But once we scale.

Yeah, no, I expect that. I hope to be able to use this personally and friends and family be able to utilize it at a very reasonable price point.

Nancy Lashine (28:51 - 29:09)

Yeah, that's right. No, it's super cool. How are you convincing or thinking about talking to the community about safety?

How are you training the pilots? And should we think about this as sort of very much an intermediate step until it becomes an autonomous vehicle?

Daniel McGill (29:10 - 30:23)

Yeah, that's a good question. So currently we have a team, a pretty extraordinary team of experimental test pilots. We also just acquired.

I wish I could think of the specs. This thing is amazing, but a fully sort of immersive simulator in which you can sit in this thing and it's fully 360 degrees. It's like the sphere in Las Vegas.

In fact, we have a portion of the new facility in Marina with a popped roof to allow for installation of this new simulator. And it's literally being brought online as we speak. If folks want to come down to Marina and experience it by all means, but that's all part of the FAA certification.

So we will be putting FAA pilots course into that simulator as well as into our first conforming aircraft, which it's first hover test. So that's extraordinarily exciting and a massive milestone for the Joby team to have the first fully conforming aircraft complete and in the air. But yes, the simulator that allows us to license and train these pilots sort of at a relatively quick clip, because as you can imagine, we're going to scale up that team pretty quickly to make sure we have qualified pilots in each market.

Nancy Lashine (30:23 - 30:35)

How do you think these eVTOL vehicles will impact urban real estate values and suburban real estate values? And what's the time frame for that to happen?

Daniel McGill (30:36 - 32:33)

Well, we anticipate early adopters to, I mean, there is a early first mover advantage, if you will. And as I mentioned earlier, I think there are companies, I mean, we've also have a corporate strategy where there could be, you can imagine executive transportation around various markets, whether we're going to put a dent in, let's say, transportation for the big Silicon Valley companies that is unlikely sort of at the preliminary scale that we'll be operating. But I wholeheartedly believe that if there is a building in downtown San Francisco with a vertiport on the rooftop, and they can market the fact that they have that as amenity, to me, a huge reason why they can jack rents, I think there could be a major kind of needle mover on NOI.

So that obviously translates to a value appreciation. And I also think you can think about ancillary real estate as well. So surrounding real estate, I mean, there could be a retail component, think about a Joby shop, if you will.

I think it's going to be a new kind of a new paradigm, effectively. I think those that are more sort of forward leaning and innovative in the way they think about real estate, I think everybody's looking for ways to diversify and differentiate their product. So certainly in this new world of highly amenitized assets, and I think San Francisco has really been a leader there, certainly in New York as well.

I think we're getting a lot more inbound interest as people are becoming aware of the fact this is forthcoming. And there might only be, at scale, I anticipate we will have multiple, call it five to 10 nodes within San Francisco. But realistically, within the first call it three to five years, we'll have one or two.

So I do think there is a substantial, again, first mover advantage. And there's a way to capture that value for these real estate players that are kind of early adopters.

Nancy Lashine (32:34 - 32:46)

Is it mostly owners of office buildings in the real estate community who are thinking about Vertiport infrastructure? Who's really thinking about it in the traditional real estate community?

Daniel McGill (32:46 - 34:22)

No, it's hospitality. I mentioned there's a variety of mixed use projects where we have inbound interest on, hey, how can we draw more people? How can we broaden the target audience of folks that can get easily to our location?

And this also applies for, we're talking to some of the highest end hotel brands that have destination resorts that might be two to three hours from any given airport. And while there may be helicopter interconnects today, this is going to be such a more pleasant, sort of less impactful mode of transportation, given how quiet it is. So I think, again, there are a variety of these more forward leaning real estate owners, operators, investors that recognize that this is going to be a significant unlock.

So I mentioned retail. So a lot of these large malls where they might have underutilized garages today, it can be quite simple to think about just installing one of these platforms on the roof deck of a parking garage. And it's effectively, it doesn't have to be extraordinarily expensive either.

One or two of these landing pads, you can envision not dissimilar to how you would see a solar array casting shade over the rooftop of a parking garage. That's very similar to what we would look to install an aluminum deck. We have power integrated in underneath the deck.

So you'd lose a handful of stalls, but essentially the intent would be you could park underneath and take either a lift or stairs up to the VertiPort's platform and jump on the aircraft.

Nancy Lashine (34:23 - 34:34)

What's the monetization of these VertiPorts? If I own an office building and allow Joby to put a pad on it, does the owner own it? Do I lease the pad to you?

Daniel McGill (34:34 - 36:11)

Are there some shared revenue? A variety of different commercial structures which we're implementing based on the counterparty, candidly. I think ideally our intent is to try to own and operate.

Certainly we're receptive to having owners, real estate partners, be a part of that joint venture, if you will, and at any particular site. But we want to own the experience. We think we are the most knowledgeable and skilled at ensuring that it's a seamless passenger experience.

We have models, of course, and designs around what the passenger lobby should look like and how we process passengers boarding the aircraft. But certainly I think there could be landing fees, revenue share models. You think of it as sort of more of a restaurant model, if you will, from a leasing perspective where there might be a revenue share component.

But ultimately, say the base structure that we look to implement would be a landlord provides the rooftop, contributes the land, just to use it, base language. We install and sort of own and operate the actual vertiport. And maybe there's a ground lease payment or some sort of a rev share structure.

Generally, it's after, call it two to three years of a ramp up period, is how we like to structure it. But ideally, given the complication investment, to install these, we're looking for some permanence. So we'd love, ideally, these will be there for the long haul.

So that's, I don't know if I answered your question that seamlessly.

Nancy Lashine (36:11 - 36:15)

Well, no, because obviously, I think the answer is it depends.

Daniel McGill (36:15 - 36:17)

Yeah, yeah, ultimately.

Nancy Lashine (36:18 - 36:33)

But it sounds like you certainly, Joby certainly has the ability to install this and needs to install it to create the right experience. And then the question is, who pays for it? And, how does it get monetized over time?

Daniel McGill (36:34 - 37:30)

Yeah, I mean, you could think about it as a traditional build, where often we would look to the landlord, real estate owner to help on the base building improvements required. So if there's anything structural, now, these aircraft only effectively the weight of a Chevy Yukon. So if you think of a parking ride, generally, they're structurally sufficient to allow for our use.

Power upgrade, I mean, that's depending on how much power exists or capacity is available, supplies available, that can sort of inform the capital costs required. And the actual, as I mentioned, the platform itself, we sort of have those designs, and we think we have an efficient way to build that in such that it's not extraordinarily expensive. So, and Joby, it's all negotiable, right?

But by and large, I think we're receptive to investing that capital for the Vertiport specific infrastructure, and then sort of owning and running the operation.

Nancy Lashine (37:31 - 37:42)

Right. I know when we first met in the fall, you were very excited about the Dubai launch. Has the war over the last few weeks impacted the ability to get that launch going?

Daniel McGill (37:44 - 38:11)

The short answer is yes. And it remains somewhat, well, I should be, I should be careful how I frame this. I'd say we are still tracking towards the same timeline, such, so much of this remains just unknown.

I think we're all hopeful this could end as early as, some folks are indicating it might. But we, our team, I mean, we have a phenomenal team in Dubai. They're all safe, fortunately.

Nancy Lashine (38:11 - 38:22)

How do you think this impacts real estate more broadly in terms of real estate development and sort of thinking about where people live, work, and play?

Daniel McGill (38:22 - 40:09)

Yeah, listen, I think it broadens the picture. We, as I mentioned, having discussions with some of these large home builders that are today already thinking about designing in the footprint for these Vertiports. And as I mentioned, the keyword there is shovel ready.

I think the message, if I leave, if people leave with nothing other than this, listening to our interview here, if we are receptive, in fact, we're going to have a live portal on our website probably in the next month or two where real estate folks can come and effectively gather more information, but also submit sites for our consideration. But the goal would be for us to provide the specs, these real estate owners can go and whether they burn the hard costs now or not, at least burn the soft costs to go and design these in, get them permit ready, such that when we are ready to launch in a particular market or light up a particular geography, they're effectively ready to go and sort of have that already box already checked so it can be stood up in a rapid fashion.

But, in the Bay Area, a lot of ink has been spilt on how high cost living is here, of course. So if you could still have your high paying job in downtown San Francisco, but live somewhere, East Bay, you think about Sacramento, Fairfield, I mean, there's a lot of very nice areas that from a commute perspective, it's painful. And we'll do that.

But if suddenly you could have your beautiful home somewhere, in Tracy or Modesto or one of these markets, and get to and from San Francisco in a fraction of the time, I do think it's gonna have a meaningful value uptick, if you will, for those owners of those projects.

Nancy Lashine (40:09 - 40:11)

Yeah, definitely.

Daniel McGill (40:11 - 40:12)

Yeah.

Nancy Lashine (40:12 - 40:52)

And then for people's lives, what, when you, I mean, think about well, for all of us who commute from the suburbs and miss so much at home to make the meeting at work that we had to go to, let's talk about you a little bit, just you've gone from a fairly traditional real estate career to doing something that, we've spent most of the last 45 minutes talking about, what is it? What is it about your background that's allowed you to jump into something that's really all about the future, and that has so many unknowns and what ifs about it, but that you've just been able to embrace it and, and figure it out?

Daniel McGill (40:53 - 44:14)

Yeah, listen, that's a fun question. I think, I mean, growing up, my father was a developer, I've sort of always had real estate in my blood. I remember going to ICSC events with my dad and just seeing all the kind of the neat, massive booths that everybody had there and sort of marveling at how Ford think my father worked for the Rouse company years ago, right?

And Jim Rouse, obviously, Godfather of some of these master plan built communities. So Columbia, Maryland has been a bit of time. And I think certainly this eVTOL market and this service will allow for, those sort of communities to proliferate, and basically expand the footprint of the built environment.

And with respect to me personally, I did the program at MIT sort of got my master's in real estate, a lot of innovation coming out of that program. So, there's a lot of thought about urban planning and mobility in general. And it's neat to connect dots back with some of my, one of my classmates now sort of runs the innovation department there at MIT.

It's about what we're working on. Yeah. And, and while at Hines, I mean, Hines is forward leaning.

We had some folks at Hines in attendance last Thursday at the demo. And, there's just, they're one of those groups that I do think has sort of an imagination and appreciates like what is forthcoming and Apple extraordinarily innovative company. Now, while real estate wasn't necessarily core to the business, of course, for Apple, I mean, I guess fundamentally it is when you think about manufacturing, I was afforded the opportunity to go to London and work on the Battersea power station sort of on the front end of securing that location, which is now the European headquarters for Apple. So that was really cool, but I've always valued and sort of look towards that intersection of real estate and tech. And this is the absolute true manifestation of that in the physical world.

Think about the, how sort of important the real estate industry is in your audience. That's the key target audience from my perspective to what we're trying to bring to market. It's just a amazing synergy.

And personally, I've now been in real estate long enough. I've been a ULI member, involved with NAOP, Cornette, et cetera. So I do feel that I've been able to leverage my network and, kind of cash in some of my social capital, if you will, to convince people this is real. Right. And I've a lot of trusted friends and mentors and former colleagues that, I think have some healthy skepticism and are like, is this real? When is it coming?

And I do think that being able to sort of translate, if you will, or speak to the value proposition that this brings and speak in the same language of real estate has proven valuable and folks are starting to look at it through a new lens and take it all more seriously. And we're doing a barnstorming event, actually, which was really launched here in San Francisco. But again, given this EIPP, this early integration pilot program, we will be doing these demos all over the country, which will allow all these local real estate folks to come and physically see in real life these aircraft flying and witness and experience how quiet they are.

Nancy Lashine (44:15 - 44:21)

Any books or podcasts that you would recommend to our audience who want to just learn more about the world that you're living in?

Daniel McGill (44:22 - 45:39)

Yeah, listen, I recently read a book a former colleague of mine gave me called Super Communicators. And while I don't always think I am the most super communicator per se, I do think there's a lot of tenants and sort of lessons learned of how to prepare for understanding your audience and just speak in very basic terms, right. And just not to say you always have to go particularly basic.

But I think fundamentally, what we're trying to bring is this experience. And I want people to be able to visualize and just understand what it will be like to save so much time. You mentioned getting your kids sporting events or, theaters, plays, etc.

I mean, just being more involved and present on the home front personally, as a dad means a ton. And so to the extent that can happen in the near term, we're just giving people back time. And another fun sort of quip on this is, it is fun with my kids, they're now super excited about telling people what their dad does, where previously, they're like, we don't know, he goes to the office and talks to people all day.

But now, right, they've seen your craft, they get a kick out of it, they just super sort of excited about what I'm into.

Nancy Lashine (45:40 - 45:53)

Right? Well, I think that if you're an office owner, and you're trying to get people back into the office, what a great way to say, you don't have to waste the time for commute. You can get that much faster.

Daniel McGill (45:54 - 46:37)

So that's right. Yeah. So we're, as I said, we're, I'd love to encourage folks to reach out to me via LinkedIn, or however, Nancy's most appropriate, but we're very receptive to hearing from people.

And our partners, we value substantially, and we have some wonderful thought partners on the real estate side. I'm not going to name check folks yet, because I don't want to get ahead of the PR, but they know who they are. And if you're listening to this, and you feel you should be a part of that community, please reach out.

Because this is really, I think the key window to be a part of this and sort of capture this value before it's really out there. And maybe that window begins to close, although we have a long window of this being open.

Nancy Lashine (46:38 - 47:08)

Right, right. Well, that's very cool. And if you're listening to this, we'll, zip onto YouTube if you can.

And we'll try to make sure there's some good clips, because of course, the picture's worth 1000 words. And it's, I've seen the pictures, it's very, it's kind of mind blowing when you feel like you are in the future, which, of course, so much of what we're doing these days. We're feeling that way.

Yeah, this is a pretty exciting component of it. So Dan, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and joining us today. I really appreciate it.

Daniel McGill (47:08 - 47:21)

Oh, you're so welcome, Nancy. I appreciate the outreach and interest. I know it's a little off, probably your normal content, but I'm very excited to be able to share what we're working on and appreciate you making the time.

Nancy Lashine (47:22 - 47:31)

It's actually very apropos of our content. And I think the new normal is looking forward. And that's what you're doing.

Daniel McGill (47:32 - 47:46)

Oh, it's super exciting. Well, I appreciate all, everything you're doing. I listened to your AI podcast.

Just what? The effort it dropped, pretty extraordinary. So it's a fast moving world we're in and we are excited to kind of be leading the way on the mobility side.

Nancy Lashine (47:47 - 48:03)

Yeah, that's true. And as you are, and Moran is certainly thinking about it, we did the AI podcast on the AI side. So many people doing so many exciting things, trying to bring a few more of them to our listeners. So thanks again.

Daniel McGill (48:04 - 48:05)

You're very welcome. Thank you.

Nancy Lashine (48:07 - 48:39)

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