Business Daily · BBC World Service

The self-taught coder building a drone empire

April 2, 2026·22 min·2 clips

A self-taught coder bets his decade on building a drone empire despite aviation laws that could ground it forever.

The business question is blunt. Can a self-taught coder build a drone delivery company when aviation rules move slowly and permission matters as much as engineering? Sarah Rogers sets up Bobby Healy as a serial entrepreneur taking on one of technology's most tightly regulated corners. The risk is not abstract. He says there was always a huge likelihood his team could build something great that might never be allowed to fly. That gives the interview a useful bit of grit. It keeps coming back to how founders sit with uncertainty, especially when the timeline may swallow a decade. Healy is unusually calm about failure. When an earlier business ran out of cash and had no jobs lined up, he describes moving on without much shame attached. Enjoyment sits underneath a lot of his answers. He says he loves the work, has 180 people working for him, and finds the pressure more fun as the business grows. The work rhythm sounds intense, maybe exhausting. Sundays are his favorite because fewer people interrupt him, so he can code late into the night. AI has changed the tools, but the thrill still seems to be making something work through code. Rogers also pushes on the cost at home. Healy talks about being married, having four children, and having a wife who understands what he loves to do. Age comes up too. He remembers wondering whether a 49-year-old had any right to build a startup, or whether he should be slowing down. By the end, his confidence is calm rather than shiny. He says the risks and pitfalls were calculated, the company is where he expected it to be, and he feels even better about what comes next.

As heard by us

A grounded founder profile on drone delivery, regulation, failure, and the stamina behind a long-odds business.

Business Daily profiles Bobby Healy as a founder drawn to hard problems: a self-taught coder trying to build a drone delivery company in an industry where regulation moves slowly and permission matters as much as engineering.

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Hear why drone delivery is harder than the sci-fi version makes it look.

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