Alex Taylor

Founder

Orb Aerospace

After working an infinite number of hours per week to make his dream a reality, Alex Taylor is reaping the benefits.

The 21-year-old entrepreneur founded Orb Aerospace, an electric humanitarian aerospace company, in 2017, and in 2022 became the lone Michigander to become a Thiel Fellow and the recipient of a $100,000 grant.

The Thiel Fellowship is a two-year program that was created by PayPal cofounder and billionaire Peter Thiel.

Orb Aerospace is in the process of building an aerospace network without the need for infrastructure. Instead, aerial vehicles referred to as orbs will be able to travel between different nodes in various locations, relying on air as the only means of transportation and infrastructure.

Taylor has secured contracts and partnerships with the World Championship Air Race and the U.S. Air Force’s AFWERX program.

The entrepreneur’s aviation dreams stemmed from he and his family’s relocation from the U.S. to the Middle East for a service opportunity when Taylor was two years old. That’s where he began to form a desire to help others.

“I think fundamentally, my obsession with aviation comes from these incredibly desperate needs in these developing countries going completely unmet,” he said. “Both the greatest opportunity and the greatest burden for me is to have been exposed at a very young age to problems worth solving.”

Through the Thiel Fellowship program, Taylor is working toward his goal of making Orb Aerospace the world’s largest humanitarian air force.

“I want to use this obsession I have to make a meaningful impact,” he said.