Larry Page is a well-known name in the tech industry. The 43-year-old who co-founded Google with Sergey Brin in 1998 is one of the most famous Internet entrepreneurs on the planet and according to the latest reports from earlier this month, he’s worth almost $37 billion. Apart from being the face and the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, Page is also investing a significant portion of his own money into companies and endeavors not necessarily directly linked with Google. Tesla Motors is one such company which Page has privately funded in the past and according to latest reports, so is Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk.
Zee.Aero is a Silicon Valley-based startup which has been developing flying cars designs since it was founded in 2010, and our sources claim that Page has pumped over $100 million of his own money into the company in the last six years. The company is reportedly testing its flying prototypes in the close vicinity of Google’s HQ in Mountain View, California. Furthermore, not only is Zee.Aero currently hiring aerospace designers, engineer, and other experts, but the company already has employees from the likes of SpaceX, NASA, and Boeing. In other words, even though flying cars may sound like something from the rather distant future, this Silicon Valley startup definitely means business. In recent years, the company has allegedly been testing a couple of its single-seater prototypes which look nothing alike, as one is reportedly more similar to a traditional airplane while the other is a much more bizarre creation equipped with side propellers.
While Zee.Aero is trying to make cars fly using conventional airplane technology, Kitty Hawk is striving to create flying quadcopter drones. This startup is both smaller and newer than the aforementioned Zee.Aero and is in better part composed of people who previously worked for AeroVelo, another startup which built a human-powered helicopter in 2013 and won a $250,000 Sikorsky Prize for its endeavors. It’s currently unknown how much did Page invest in Kitty Hawk.
Sources report that Google’s co-founder is funding these aircraft manufacturers out of personal ambition and has allegedly even retained a single office in one of them where the employees refer to him as “GUS.” That’s not because they’re Breaking Bad fans, but because GUS is short for “the guy upstairs”.