eVTOL Is Being Mispriced as Technology.

Archer - Joby... and why eVTOL Is Entering the Phase Where Headcount Becomes the Risk

Adam Goldstein missed a CES panel he was scheduled to speak on. The interviewer said he dropped out… but I see it as he avoided a room that would have forced Archer to be priced like every other eVTOL story… timelines, autonomy wish-casting, and certification “roadmaps.”

That panel instead was led by the people who actually live in regulated flight reality including Amazon Prime Air, describing live operations across multiple U.S. metros - Wind River walking through the safety certification stack used in aircraft systems - and a technologist describing how regulators treat “AI” when a human life is on the line. Goldstein’s absence changed the panel’s format, opened up live Q&A, and put constraint front-and-center.

That same day, Archer emphasized a different anchor… the NVIDIA partnership announcement was framed as aviation AI, backed by IGX Thor, safety-capable compute, and a clean story for investors who want a single sentence they can repeat.

If you want my contrarian take: the NVIDIA announcement is less about what Archer can do, and more about how Archer intends to be evaluated. The market is pricing advanced air mobility as a technology race. It’s still clever.

Now I’m gonna unpack the part investors keep missing… like the workforce composition, certification constraints that lock labor demand into short bursts, and why a hiring surge can be a late-stage signal that precedes role consolidation.

If you’re buying eVTOL on “autonomy” and “AI,” you’re modeling the wrong variable.

I like this phrase- Both Archer and Joby are hiring aggressively. That fact alone is meaningless.