The $50,000 Underwater Drone - EP 66 Ulysses

The $50,000 Underwater Drone - EP 66 Ulysses

From Core Memory by Ashlee Vance

April 16, 2026 · 1h 11m · Episode 66

About this episode

The episode discusses the development and applications of autonomous underwater drones by the startup Ulysses.

Guinness. Sharks. American manufacturing. These are a few of the interests I share with the founders of Ulysses, a San Francisco startup building autonomous underwater drones. The idea for Ulysses started when one of the four co-founders was on a surf trip and learned how much of humanity depends on a single marine plant: the humble seagrass . He spent a weekend designing a robot to plant it. Two years later, the group of Irishmen — and for diversity, a Scot — have moved well beyond ecological restoration. They’re providing services for the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and selling their drones to the U.S. Navy. The robots are called Mako. They’re two meters long, weigh about 400 pounds, and can dive 5,000 feet for up to 72 hours at a time. They’re also modular — payloads swap in and out like Legos, so the same vehicle that plants seagrass in Australia one week can inspect a submarine cable in the Baltic the next. A base Mako costs $50,000. Most legacy underwater drones built by big defense contractors can run between $1 million and $20 million each. On this episode of the Core Memory podcast, we’re joined by Will O’Brien and Akhil Voorakkara, co-founders of Ulysses. They build…

People in this episode

Host: Ashlee Vance

Guests: Will O’Brien, Akhil Voorakkara

Topics covered

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ulysses, Great Barrier Reef Foundation, U.S. Navy, Andreessen Horowitz

Products: Mako

Places: San Francisco, Australia, Baltic, Ireland, Scotland

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