What JOBY is
Joby Aviation (JOBY) is the all-electric air taxi company that shows up in the “Galactic Supply Chain” presentation as a bonus report rather than as one of the three main picks, and JOBY is the New York Stock Exchange ticker it trades under. Joby is developing an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOL, designed to carry a pilot and four passengers on short, quiet hops between cities and airports. The company was founded by JoeBen Bevirt, who has spent well over a decade on the design.
The bonus-report placement is worth understanding. In this pitch, the core “Galactic Supply Chain” idea is built around three space and defense names, and Joby is attached as an extra. That structure is familiar: Simpkins has pitched Joby before, and the “Uber Air” framing he uses is a repackaging of that same eVTOL story. We have covered the company and its progress at length in our Joby Aviation breakdown.
The company and its backers
Joby sits at the intersection of aviation and electric-vehicle technology. Its aircraft uses electric motors to take off and land vertically, then tilts to fly like a conventional plane, which is the same broad approach several eVTOL developers are pursuing. Joby’s differentiation is its progress: it is generally regarded as the furthest along the path to FAA Type Certification among Western eVTOL names, and it has begun flying piloted test missions and building out a manufacturing footprint.
The backers are a real signal. Toyota is a major strategic investor and manufacturing partner, Uber invested and folded its Elevate ambitions into a partnership with Joby, Delta Air Lines has a commercial agreement, and the U.S. Air Force has funded flight testing. That mix of automotive manufacturing, ride-hailing distribution, an airline partner, and military interest is unusually broad for a pre-revenue aircraft company, and it explains why Joby draws attention from both aerospace and tech investors.
How the eVTOL thesis fits the space pitch
On its face, an air taxi company has little to do with rockets or satellites. The connection in Simpkins’s work is thematic and personal: he covers the intersection of transportation, defense, and what he calls the infrastructure of tomorrow, and he has treated urban air mobility as a companion theme to his space and defense coverage. He is a roughly 20-year veteran of financial publishing who joined The Outsider Club in 2013 and now edits The Crow’s Nest, and his presentations tend to bundle several future-of-mobility and national-security stories together.
That bundling is useful context. If the main “Galactic Supply Chain” picks are about launch and defense infrastructure, Joby is the consumer-facing mobility angle, one that depends on FAA certification and commercial adoption rather than government launch contracts. The risk profile is different, and it is worth keeping the two stories separate even when the promo presents them side by side. You can read more about how he frames the ride-hailing angle in our piece on Jason Simpkins’s Uber Air pitch.
The honest read on Joby
Joby’s last reported share price in the sources we reviewed was $7.19, with a market capitalization around $7.11 billion. That is a large valuation for a company that is not yet generating meaningful revenue from passenger flights, and it is the central tension in the stock: the certification progress is real, but the revenue is still ahead of it.
The fair summary is that Joby is a serious, well-capitalized company with genuine technical momentum and unusually strong partners, and the type-certification milestone is the single event that matters most for the thesis. It is also a company whose stock price already reflects a great deal of optimism about a service that does not exist at scale yet. That is not a reason to dismiss it, but it is a reason to understand that buying Joby is a bet on certification, on manufacturing scale, and on passenger demand arriving in sequence, with each step still in front of the company.
The path to commercial revenue
The sequence that matters for Joby is certification, manufacturing, and then revenue. FAA Type Certification is the gate for the whole story, and Joby is generally seen as the furthest along that path among Western eVTOL names. Piloted flight testing is underway, and the company has been building out a manufacturing facility in California to produce aircraft at scale.
The commercial plan leans on its partners. The relationship with Delta Air Lines points toward airport-to-city routes, and the Uber link points toward a ride-hailing distribution channel once aircraft are certified. Toyota’s involvement is aimed at high-volume manufacturing, which is the part of the story most eVTOL startups fumble.
The honest caveat is that none of this is revenue yet. Certification, manufacturing ramp, and passenger adoption are three milestones that have to clear in order, and the stock’s roughly $7 billion valuation already assumes a great deal of success across all three. That is why the certification milestone, not the promo’s enthusiasm, is the single thing to watch.
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