From Billion-Dollar Startup to Rock Bottom–and Back: Cameron Chell’s Story

I harken back to 2022, where our drones were delivering insulin into besieged cities in Ukraine. So in the last 25 years, no other North American manufacturer has not gone bankrupt. But it's that purpose and it's that ethos of certainly not just me, but our entire company. Racking credit cards up, second mortgages on homes, all the rest of it, just to survive in order to see this actually get to the point where it's at today. There's nothing that the rest of our company would rather do. Our Bay Area innovator today is Cameron Chell, a serial entrepreneur, technologist, and current CEO of Dragonfly, a leading drone manufacturer. His journey is unlike any other, from founding his first company at the age of 14 to leading billion-dollar ventures before losing it all, going bankrupt and homeless for 10 years. He then made a great comeback to become a successful CEO once again, this time with a different set of values. In this episode, Cameron opens up about what it takes to rebuild from rock bottom, the lessons learned through failure, and how he's applying them today, such as using his technology in working with county sheriffs on surveillance and operations along the southern border. This is Bay Area Innovators, and I'm your host, Steve Ispas. Cameron, welcome to our program. Well, thank you very, very much for having me. Cameron, great to have you here out of Vancouver, Canada. That's where you are now. So you had an amazing career in so many ways, and I really want to start with, you know, you had your first company, your first business at age 14, and then you, you know, you're an where you went all the way to the bottom, and then you started again. It's very unique. I would love if you tell us a little bit about your start, what made you get into business, and coming down and how you came back up again, because that's just such an amazing story. Wow. Well, so first of all, thank you very much for having me on and for the consideration, and thanks for the work that Epoch Times does. It's really important work in any way that we can, you know, support that appropriately. We definitely want to do that. So I grew up in a small farming community. My dad was a local butcher. He was a rancher also, and then my mom was the local florist. So all I really knew was, you know, small business, what they call kind of entrepreneurialism or, you know, it wasn't a word back then, but that's all I really knew. So I didn't, I didn't know that education was really a route or that there was, I mean, I just assumed that's what I was going to be in the agricultural world, or I was going to have a small business of some sort, and so when I was about 14, I was lucky enough to, you know, the, you know, the computer revolution was on, and so I would, I would, I would piece together, you know, PCs and sell them to the local businesses and farmers, and I was, I also installed the duck ditches. I installed irrigation systems, and then from there, I kind of went on and bought a little one-hour photo business and, you know, a little rental property and just, you know, kind of did those, you know, maybe typical kind of things, but my father had always said to me, he said, you can go and get a job, but, you know, and in that job or in your businesses, you know, you need to understand finance and money, but, you know, the rich know money, but the wealthy know people. So we were always very focused on, you know, how do we connect with people? How do we contribute to community? How do we, you know, make sure that what we're doing helps them succeed? And so he gave me a great training in that, but he didn't have any finance background, and so I was lucky enough to study the securities course and started to learn about the markets and some things like that, and so that gave me a little bit of background, but in 19, about 94, myself and my brother-in-law came up with this idea that there's this new thing called the internet, and the idea was, you know, people, what about if we built servers in a central location and allowed this thing called the internet to access these servers so that people didn't have to carry around, at that time, transportable computers, which I was building, you know, literally in my garage and selling to people, they didn't have to carry these around, because they were the size of sewing machines, right, and a five megabyte hard drive was about this big and cost thousands of dollars, and so they could actually, you know, have one computer in one place in the computer and just access it via terminal, and so it was a novel idea at the time and not really well accepted, that's for sure, but we ended up getting a client in a small auditing firm that thought it was a good idea, because they didn't want to buy these transportable computers, and there were already computers at their client's locations, and so I'll make a very long story short, that's kind of how it got started, like we had a real application, so the primary software people were using at that time for small and mid-market firms was called Great Planes, which is now Microsoft Dynamic, and so we ended up, they ended up doing it and implementing it successfully, and then another little, this was back in the day where there were small regional audit firms, now of course there's only three or four out there, big four, a few others, but and they, you know, and we got two clients, and then three clients, and then five clients, and then eight clients, and we had a, we had a real little business, and you know, I very much identify with that in 91, when I was 21 years old, I had my first company as well, and it was very similar, I would have computer products, or either an entire computer or parts, that I would send to Romania for them to assemble, and that was my first business, obviously it didn't grow very much, because the limit that people in Romania had to buy computers was, you know, was very low, but I very much identified like buying different hard drives, and motherboards, and monitors, and put, built it together to build it. Now, then you got to bigger things, right, soon after that. Yeah, yeah, so this thing called the dot-com was on, and I can't say I really knew much about it, but we were, you know, we kind of got classified as a dot-com business, and we had a significant New York bank approach us, so what else had happened at the time, is that Microsoft had bought Hotmail, and so after we did Great Planes, we actually integrated the Microsoft productivity suite, you know, Office, and Excel, and PowerPoint, etc., in, well the PowerPoint didn't exist at that time, into our offering, and it was the first subscription deal that that Microsoft had ever done. So, and so I happened to be in the right room at the right time, shortly after they bought Hotmail, and they, and they were like, you know, what do we do with this thing, like nobody really understood like client-server type thing, and, and they were like, isn't that kind of what you guys do, and I was like, yeah, and they said, well can you help us with this, and of course I'm a salesman, so I said yes, no clue what I was talking about, or what I was doing, and so we got to be deeply involved in, in, in kind of how that unfolded, and so because of that, and some notoriety that we got, we got contacted by a U.S. investment bank, and they, which was big, I didn't even know they were big, and they, and they said, you know, there's this thing called the dot-com, and you're this business, little business that's doing 80 million bucks in revenue, like you want to go public, I'm like, sure, let's go, and next thing you know, it's, we had a three and a half billion dollar market cap, and in, in 2000, or 1999, and, and I was 25, is 26, and didn't know what I was doing, and, and, and it was, it was great, right, I learned a ton, you know, prototypical, got fired about a year later, which, which was a good move for the company, because I didn't, you know, I really didn't have the experience to be operating at that level, and, but, but I was able to get a and, and got involved with them, and so we, we, that company ended up going public in London, and it became the largest mover of money in the offshore gaming space, and so, again, just, I, I probably, you know, seemed like a good portion at the time, but unfortunately, I really thought I knew what I was doing, and I didn't, and so, you know, things continued to kind of progress, I was doing, you know, acting like a big shot financer, you know, flying around on jets, and that kind of stuff, and I was in New York for city meetings, and I was walking into the base of the towers on 9-11, and yeah, for sure, life-altering event, not as much for me as for most, or that certainly that were there, and my heart, heart's going to them, obviously, all those that affected by it, and yeah, you know, my, my life was already kind of spiraling in the wrong direction, but that really solidified it, and that was the first night I remember thinking I'm just going to go get drunk, and, and I did, and about eight months later, I was, I was just, I had disappeared, I completely checked out of life, or, you know, drinking progressed into harder substances, I ended up, you know, living on the street. Would you say it was only the drinking that, that created this down, or spiral? Oh gosh, no, no, no, no, the, the drinking was a symptom of the, of the, of the challenges, and the out-of-controlness of my life, and the ego, and everything else that, that were, you know, and, and the drinking just became a, a way to, to, to master, cope with, you know, my own, you know, behaviors, and, and, and ego, and, you know, and then the drinking turned into hard drugs, and, you know, as hard as you can imagine, so quite quickly, I just completely checked out, didn't make any decisions, lost everything over the course of about two years, and, and that, you know, that was, you know, 20-ish years ago now, so I was very, very lucky, grace of God, loving family, great friends, great, great friends, you know, I was able to get myself cleaned up, many trips to rehab, many trips that, you know, that type of stuff, and so since that time, I've, you know, again, grace of God, I've been, I'm, my clean is over, and, and, and best thing that could happen to you, for sure. For someone 25 years old to, to have, you know, billions of dollars company, it's probably not easier to handle. I, I wonder, is there, are you, like, now telling young entrepreneurs how to handle this, you know, it's, it's, it's probably very difficult, right, to, to have that much money, or that much kind of glamour at that young age, right? Yeah, you know, some, some folks, you know, there are certainly many other people, you know, as a percentage, very few, but there are many other people that have been in that situation, an even greater situation than that, and you've seen them handle it with grace, and you've seen them handle it with, and they've been successful, so if you think of, you know, the Zuckerbergs, or the jobs, or the, the gates of the world, or those types of things, you know, they're, that, I mean, their intellect and brilliance is far beyond why never I could, I could imagine it to be, but also they're, you know, they've got a level of maturity, like them or not, or whatever, that, that allowed them to sustain it, and I didn't, I didn't have that, and, but for the majority of the, the rest of us in the world that may find ourselves, you know, chasing success, and, and, and, you know, sometimes it's the worst thing that you catch, it's like that dog that caught the car, you know, you hang on to that tire, and you're going to go around the tire and get run over, and that, and that's exactly what happened, and, and quite often people don't survive it, and again, I was lucky enough to survive it, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade wealth and fame for the peace of mind that I have today for anything, anything. Absolutely. Well, I definitely want to talk about your, your company, Dragonfly, that's been making news that you're working with the Cochi County in Arizona to protect the border, but before I go there, I, I want to get a sense of what was the moment that you were able to come out of this, this sad, you know, environment, right, you were on drugs, you're on the homeless, how did you come out of it, what, what, what, what made that change? Yeah, so, so, I mean, I had gone through several episodes of seizures and overdoses, and, you know, and the list goes on, and missing Christmases, and all those types of things, you know, subconsciously, I just assumed that I was gonna die, and I kept not dying, like every overdose, I just kept not dying, and, and I finally just got tired, I was like, I'm gonna have to live, and whether that was remorse for 9-11, or just my own insecurities, or whatever that led up to that, I, I was just like, okay, well, if I'm gonna be here, like, I, I'm just tired of being tired, just so tired of being tired, and so, at that point, I finally didn't have an expectation that my life would be defined by success, but that my life would, would, that my life, anyway, for whatever it's worth, everybody's got their own journey, was, was gonna be defined by, by, you know, being alive each day, I'd just be grateful for it, and, and so, like, I know that success isn't, isn't, like, I know that it's empty, and so, if, if I get to live in the day, and, and enjoy whatever the day is bringing, then that, that's all there is, that's, that's all there needs to be, and so, I was like, okay, well, if I, if, if, you know, I certainly didn't have a religious bent at that time, and I certainly do much more now, and it's like, okay, well, if God's gonna, you know, keep me on this earth, you know, I may as well make the best of it, and, and be alive each day, and so, I was just talking, like, yeah, I, too long of an explanation, I, I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired. Wow, that's, that's amazing to, to make such a comeback, and to, to pretty much come back into the business world, right, and then you were able to start new companies, and, and get to where you were before, pretty much, right? Well, from a monetary standpoint, absolutely not, you know, I, I, we've had a couple of modest wins over the year. We built a company called Earthcast, and sold it to a group that took it public, where we, we, me and another co-founder, that a company where we built cameras, and put them on the outside of the International Space Station, and they were doing earth observation work, selling the, the data to hedge funds, and governments, and not highly sensitive data, but really interesting data. It was the first, and still is the only video camera in space, and that camera today is turned off, it's not on, because it sits on the Russian side of the space station, but the servers are on the U.S. side of the space station, so this is, the, the day we turned, I don't think this is a coincidence, but the day we turned the cameras on initially, was the day that Russia invaded Crimea, and so the, the, the, the political understanding, and the experience that I got from that, what the whole company got from that, was really quite amazing. Anyway, the cameras worked for, and the company that bought us and took it public did well, and I don't know exactly how they're doing today, but that particular camera system is not turned on today. So, is that the reason, the reason it's not turned on, is because of the war in Ukraine? Is that the reason? I believe so, yeah. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I think relations have changed significantly, you know, yeah, I think in particular during the Biden administration, that that was no longer at But, but very interesting. So that, that was a modest win, but since, you know, and I've had a couple of little wins, I've had, I definitely had some things that have not worked out as well, but about, but about 15, a little bit, right around 15 years ago, I was developing some software with a team to be able to automatically upload GoPro software to social media, but it would cue your GoPro to turn on and off and record only things, depending on what was happening with your phone that you had in your pocket. So if I was a snowboarder, and all of a sudden the accelerometer on my phone would speed up, or it was spinning, it would turn the camera on automatically. The extreme sport market is not overly prosperous, at least it wasn't for us. So, so we ended up talking with a bunch of law enforcement agencies that were looking to have that similar type of technology used in their body cameras. And so that's how we got talking. And they introduced me to this company called Dragonfly, which was building drones. And I got to meet Zena Dragon, D-R-A-G-A-N, who founded it. And I was like, man, this is the future. Like this is, nothing collects data better than a drone. Like this thing is amazing. And they were, they were like the world leaders at the time. So I put a little investment group together, and we bought the company. Zena stayed with us for a number of years. He's retired now. And so for the last 15 years, we've been bumping and grinding to keep this thing alive. And so today we're, we're, at least to the best of my knowledge, we're the oldest dual use drone manufacturer in the world. The first drone that was ever credited with saving a human life is a Dragonfly drone. It sits on permanent display in the Smithsonian. And there's likely a dozen different police and law enforcement museums throughout the United States in particular that feature Dragonfly drones as their first drones. And so it's an incredibly privileged position to be in. And the ethos of the company takes that very, very seriously. We're, we're very committed to public safety and, and defense of our security. So now tell us, you're working again with the Cochise County in Arizona. You're working directly with the sheriff there to protect the border. Tell us specifically what does it entail? What do the drones do and what's going on? Yeah, thanks for asking. So Cochise County is, is recognized as the leading or certainly one of the leading sheriff's departments, or you know, the two border management. They have an incredible system, homegrown, internally built of highly sophisticated, but inexpensive camouflage cameras along their board, the area of the border that they manage, which now extends beyond their particular county, because they've done such a great job of it. They've been visited and, and highlighted by both President Trump and Vice President Vance for whatever that's worth, and the governor, et cetera, et cetera. They have their own internal AI system that they built that helps really recognize the pervasive RGB feed or visual feeds that come in and can determine many, many characteristics about objects that are moving through that area. Is it human trafficking? Is it drugs? Maybe what type of drugs? Is it livestock? You know, it's just incredible what they've done internally. So they, they have a, they have a desire to tie that in with visual observation or with advanced sensors or data. And every time that they've looked at drone type of applications, one, they've generally had to rely back to purchase Chinese manufactured drones, which is, as many people may now, now know, has a, has a real security concern, not just actual, you know, eavesdropping or intelligence, but also from a supply chain perspective. So, but the challenge is they all generally have about 30 minutes of play time. And, you know, that's not enough time for them even to get from their, their operations base to the border and back. So much less, you know, conducted operation. So there's generally two types of drones out there. There's a fixed-wing drone, obviously has wings that are, look like an airplane, and very good for long loitering times, high altitude, ISR, intelligence surveillance reconnaissance type missions. Or the other type of drone is, is a multi-rotor drone, which is really good for lifting payloads, staying in place, doing interdictions, you know, kind of prosecuting a situation, but has very poor battery life. So they said to us, if we could, if we could figure out a way to combine these two, you know, we'd really be on the leading edge. So what we've designed with them as the lead, and, and really taking in their concept of operations around what the design has to do, is we've designed a drone, it's about nine feet in diameter. It has 270 cc, cubic centimeter engines on it, that feed a battery management or a power distribution system, and then hybrid batteries. So this drone can fly for about nine hours, can, you know, I wouldn't even call the ceiling, but can easily operate 15 to 20,000 feet at altitude, and can carry up to 100 pounds. Its operational window that it works best in is about, is about, you know, what I'll call the 35 to 40 pound payload, which could be equipment, medical supplies, camera systems, communication equipment, you name it, whatever's on board, whatever sensor, acoustic listening devices, whatever it is, or multiples of those, and it could operate in that environment with the battery drain on it for about three and a half hours. So now what they have, is they have a system that's being deployed, it will go operational in mid-November, but now what they have is a system that's being deployed that can do true ISR work, tie into their artificial intelligence, connect with all of their ground cameras, but it can also provide a communication link, close ground support for personnel that might be involved in interdictions, or might end up having to do overnight stays, or might be in communication weather situations where they've got to have a mesh network stood up. It can deliver medical equipment, it can deliver supplies, if they've got a large interdiction that's happening, and they need an extra air power involved, not that it's shooting anything, but this, I mean, when this thing comes down and it's in front of you, you're stopping, you're not going anywhere. You may run for about three minutes and then realize, one, because of the heat or the cold, you're not going to go very far, and two, this thing isn't going away. So it just, and it can provide real-time data in all of those situations. It also has a capability to tie into multiple commands, so you you might have Customs and Border Patrol, you might have other Sheriff's Departments, you might have the local police, you might have even military that need to see the feed of what's going on at any given time, and all of that capability is built into it. And this is for, you know, in the range of a hundred thousand dollars. Wow, but that's what I was going to ask, so the way it would work is that the drone observes something, so it can do two things. One, it can actually land and deter that person, or it can get troops or police or Sheriff to come there, right? Yeah, they know the exact location, and or it can deliver equipment. So you might have personnel that are out in a situation, they might be, it might not just be an interdiction to prevent a crossing, you might have human trafficking going. Like one of the things that really helps us feel really good about how we're supporting Cochise in particular, is they're very concerned about the humanitarian aspect of this. So they have situations where human trafficking trains are coming across, and you've got people that are dehydrated, they might need EpiPens, they've got medical conditions, they might not be in the best condition because they may have been beaten or they may have been, they're forced, those types of situations. So you know, you can get medical equipment to those people, and you can two-way communicate with them at that same time. Or you can provide close personnel support for those folks when you've got your personnel officers on the ground trying to administer medical help, or trying to keep a situation where they're actually acting in a humanitarian, not necessarily an enforcement role. And so, I mean, those things, that like, it's just so incredibly heartening. Like that is at the top of their list in terms of like, they are law enforcement, but they are very, very focused on humanitarian and search and rescue, etc. So, and again, for people that are crossing or safety of their own personnel. Sounds like an amazing contribution to Defend the Border. Now, what portion of the border are your drones involved with? Is it? Well, yeah, so at this point, it is a pilot project. We have very high expectations, probably too high expectations, and lots of indications that this will expand across, if it's successful, across the southern border, but also the northern border. And we certainly have indications from the Canadian northern border, or their southern border, that, you know, they're watching this closely as well. So right now, it's an 80-mile strip, you know, that Cochise County is very specific, and that's where we'll keep the pilot. And we're going to spend a lot of time, you know, leading up to going what they call TRL 9, which is operational level. We'll spend a lot of time doing testing, but even after that, we're going to test, and not just test the equipment, but test the concept of operations, the use cases, what are all the different ways it's just being used. Like, I think we're going to, I think what's most exciting about this is the learnings that we're, that everybody hopefully will be garnering out of it. Now, you've been involved with maybe tens of companies. Do you feel different about this one, in the sense that, do you feel more rewarded for the fact that you may be helping someone in distress, or you may be helping catching a criminal? Is that, does it give a different kind of reward for you as an entrepreneur? Yeah, without question. I think, you know, quite luckily, you know, whether I do it to justify it to myself or not, we always try to, like, what's the bigger purpose of what we're doing? But in the case of Dragonfly, you know, maybe just because of a confluence of circumstances, and where the world's at historically, and such, and where the technology is at, it is probably the most impactful technology that I could imagine being involved with, largely because it involves so many other technologies. So, we talk about the impact of AI, and what it may have, you know, good, bad, or indifferent. But this is where that type of technology and thinking actually gets put into practice, right? And when you've got an aerial platform that can do what these things do, you know, I harken back to 2022, where our drones were delivering insulin into besieged cities in Ukraine. Like, that, like, there's nothing I'd rather do. So, and there's nothing that the rest of our company would have. So, yeah, so it's meaningful. And I think it's the reason that we've survived. So, in the last 25 years, no other North American manufacturer has not gone bankrupt, that, you know, except for the last maybe five or six years, where a new wave of startups has come in, very well funded. And a good amount of them are going to make it this time, because, you know, regulatory environment, you know, Ukraine, military, like a bunch of stuff, like the world's ready for drones now, where the last 25 years, it was dominated by the Chinese, who could produce a low cost, you know, kind of consumer, prosumer type product that North American manufacturers couldn't, couldn't deal with, but, or couldn't compete with. So, but it's that purpose. And that's that ethos of certainly not just me, but our entire company, that, you know, racking credit cards up, second mortgages on homes, all the rest of it, you know, just to survive, in order to see this actually get to the point where it's at today. So, without question, purpose is unbelievably important. You mentioned the recognition you got from the administration. How about the county or the, just the people who live in that area, the citizens, the people in Arizona? Did you get any feedback? How do they feel about this? I would say, you know, initially, this was pushed forward by the Sheriff's Department, who are very forward thinking, and they are completely, like the one thing about that particular Sheriff's Department is they're very in tune with their community. They really understand clearly what their community wants. And, and what happens at that border affects that community, because as soon as they get past that border, now that, you know, drug or human trafficking or whatever is in their community. And so the, the Sheriff is, is, is, is unbelievably aware of that. But, you know, so we were brought in, I have no working knowledge of the area really, you know, at that time. But certainly I would say over the last six weeks, the amount of outreach that we've had from, say, local people, press in particular, who are incredibly proud of the work that that Sheriff's Department is doing. Again, not because it's like enforcement and da da da da da, but because it's about, you know, what's good for the community. And, and, and many of those folks that are coming across are like, they're forced into it, whether they're carrying drugs, whether they're, you know, human trafficking, you know, some, there are some true bad guys, right? There's no question there's evil going on there. But, you know, I don't know, maybe the majority of those folks are in situations they don't want to be in. And the people of that community really care about that. And they're very, very proud of the work that the Kochi Sheriff is doing. Well, thank you for sharing that wonderful story. That's very amazing. It's fantastic. Now, I want to ask you, how would you define success? You, you know, many people define success as being financially stable, as building a company, making a million dollars. You've been so many episodes in your life. What is your definition of success in your life? Yeah, if I can sleep well at night. Yeah, it brought maybe two things. And it is much more complicated than this. But if I can sleep well at night, and if I can wake up excited about the day, if I can do those two things, and that often doesn't happen, right? Because I'm worried about something or, you know, or that, you know, that, you know, I've made a mistake, and I've got to own it. And, or I've embarrassed myself, because I didn't do the best job I could have done it. So it's those very small things, like if I can go to bed every night, they can, I did the best job I could do, I contributed to people, I owned my side of the street, completely on my side of the street, didn't point a finger, didn't, you know, just own it, and got up the next day and was was excited about, you know, the work we get to do. That's, there's whatever happens after that. I think you mentioned before that the ego was a big part of your spiraling down of your downfall. What would be your advice to people in your position, how to bring, bring up that humbleness in order to avoid, you know, because obviously, when you make it in so many ways, you will, your ego will increase, will, you know, will get big, you know, things will happen. What, what's the, you know, what's the way to solve that? Well, you know, candidly, it's, it's getting connected to something bigger than myself. And where a lot of us, myself, deeply included in this is, you know, I thought I was, I didn't know that I wasn't that, you know, I thought I was the center of the world, and I was the center of my world. And candidly, I just didn't know any better. I didn't know. And it took an extreme humbling for me to, to, to hope, you know, and I got to work at it every day still. But it took an extreme humbling for me to get to a spot where I'd be open to that. The best way that I stay connected to something bigger than myself, whatever it is, right, you know, whether it's a purpose, a cause, a God, whatever does, you know, I'm not, I have no ethos to prove to or, or platform to preach about anything about that one. But it's, it's, you know, I take time to be quiet. I take time to meditate, I take time to listen. And if I do that, I realized, the more I do that, the more I realized that everything is connected. You know, and I'm a pretty logical, right brain person, I like to think in terms of like, what can you prove? And what does the data say and everything else? And the more I look at that, more evidence is that everything is connected. And so, you know, I'm not, yeah, I just be quiet. Listen, meditation is an incredible way to start to understand that connection. I know that's probably not what, what business minded people want to hear. I'm a very business minded person, I think. But that, that if I had a secret weapon, and it's not so secret, but that would be it. Cameron, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Any concluding thoughts? Yeah, candidly, the work you guys do is great. And we really appreciate being here. And if there's some way we can support more of what you do, that's what we'll do. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and best of luck with what you're working on and continue. Thank you. Thank you for watching another episode of Bay Area Innovators. If you enjoyed this episode, and you know someone who should be on our show, please send us an email at sfbay at EpochTimes.com. We would love to hear from you. Thank you and see you next week.