Building sovereign orbital infrastructure @Exosat_
Singapore
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I’ve joined @ycombinator to build @Exosat_
As the world becomes more multipolar, enterprises and governments are nervous about dependence on Starlink or Chinese state-owned satellites for critical network infrastructure
Meanwhile, much of the world still has no reliable connectivity and other providers face years of delay and need millions of dollars just to build a single satellite
Exosat is filling that need by designing satellites with zero ITAR/EAR-controlled content, enabling us to leverage manufacturers anywhere in the world to produce our satellites at under a tenth of the cost and launch them from other nations to bypass capacity bottlenecks and access equatorial orbits
We launch our first in-house satellite next April, have hundreds of millions of dollars in Letters of Intent with early partners across six nations, and have a ITU spectrum filing for 11,000 satellites to build the largest space-based cellular network outside of the United States and China
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After my first abortive try at a startup, I went back to college for two semesters and got straight Cs because I had the founder bug and was burning all my time on side quests
Dropped out a second time to do my first real startup (Aethero) and never looked back
Don't start a startup expecting you'll go to college (or back to college) afterward. Those two paths are incompatible, and you're lying to yourself if you try to pretend otherwise.
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I’ve always wondered about doing this in the Venusian stratosphere with acidophilic microbes that consume CO2 and replace it with oxygen
Carl Sagan proposed it in the 60s
Instead of only two habitable worlds in the solar system, why not three?
Today, Pioneer Labs is announcing our first step towards terraforming Mars. 🚀🌼
With equipment that fits in just a single rocket launch, we can convert Martian dirt, water, and air into enough building materials to construct a small city on Mars.
To do it, we made the first microbe for Mars. We found the best microbe on Earth and used evolution to teach it how to source all of its nutrients directly from Martian materials.
The first astronauts will be greeted with safe shelter already filled with water, oxygen, and rocket fuel for the return journey.
This is the first step toward using biology to make Mars a friendly place for life. It lets us live off the land and helps us build the next great frontier.
It's the first of five organisms we need to green Mars ⬇️
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Those who compete with SpaceX respect Musk and consider SpaceX to be the measuring stick to compare themselves against
Even engineers I’ve met in the rival Chinese space ecosystem speak of Musk and SpaceX with reverence
Only unserious players disrespect the OGs!
Accurate. In the next 3 years we’ll find out if all the folks who talk shit about SpaceX can actually build anything themselves
Games on!
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I think SpaceX will hoover up almost all commercial space markets across AI, telecommunications, mining, and orbital manufacturing in the western world
The options that remain are thus to go after niches with USG customers who inherently can’t be sole source or to head overseas
when SpaceX needs more revenue they will probably dig through the giant stack of papers of labeled “how 2 make money in space” that have giant sections in their conclusions about how “oh well it would be viable but launch costs are too high :c”
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YC works with thousands of founders every year, which gives us an early look at how startups are changing. Right now, the shift is striking: startups are moving from bits to atoms, nearly one in five YC companies has a solo founder, and companies are reaching meaningful revenue faster than ever.
In this episode of the Lightcone, @garrytan, @snowmaker, @sdianahu, and @harjtaggar dig into what’s driving these changes and what they mean for founders.
They discuss how AI is making it possible for smaller teams to take on more ambitious problems, why experienced founders are having a resurgence, and why knowing what to build is becoming more important than simply knowing how to build it.
01:06 — Startups Are Moving From Bits to Atoms
03:29 — Why AI Is Making Hard Tech Easier
05:21 — Defense, Manufacturing, and the Return of Hard Tech
09:48 — AI Compute Is Becoming a Physical Infrastructure Problem
12:34 — Robotics Is Approaching Its ChatGPT Moment
15:40 — Software Isn’t Dead. It’s Becoming the Harness
17:59 — Why AI Startups Are Growing Faster
22:52 — The Hidden Boom in Data and RL Environments
27:08 — Why Robotics Will Need Specialized Models
29:38 — The Rise of the Solo Founder
32:54 — Why Experienced Founders Are Back
34:59 — What Founders Should Do Right Now
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Last week, I got to go up on stage at YC Demo Day and pitch the idea of non-aligned, sovereign orbital infrastructure to thousands of investors @Exosat_
YC was an incredible experience
Huge thanks to @bradflora and @ChristinaG325, it was great to work with you both!
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Multiple startups in the Summer 2026 batch were at 100M+ post around Demo Day
YC is still the best when it comes to fundraising
YC Demo Day founder told me today that they raised $7M last week at a $50M Valuation. Then proceeds to tell me they’ve opened up additional $2M allocation at $75M valuation, expected to close in next 24hrs. Heating up.. @ycombinator
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