Inside The $100M Bet on the Future of Space | Northwood CEO on a16z

1. 0:00 – 6:10

   Introduction

   1. BMBridgit Mendler0:00

      Every satellite requires a connection point back to Earth. If you don't have it, you don't have a space mission. It literally is just, like, a rock in space.

   2. ETErik Torenberg0:09

      You just won a $50 million contract with Space Force to help modernize.

   3. BMBridgit Mendler0:13

      At Northwood, we wanna take space missions further faster. We're looking for a categorical outcome-

   4. ETErik Torenberg0:17

      Yeah

   5. BMBridgit Mendler0:17

      ... not just an incremental outcome.

   6. ETErik Torenberg0:19

      Starlink is working on direct optical intersatellite links. How much of that is a threat?

   7. BMBridgit Mendler0:24

      I view it as, like, a 0% threat.

   8. ETErik Torenberg0:26

      SpaceX was able to bring launch costs down by an order of magnitude from what came before. Why hasn't the same thing happened to ground?

   9. BMBridgit Mendler0:32

      Oh, man. Um.

   10. ETErik Torenberg0:36

       Bridgit, welcome to the podcast.

   11. BMBridgit Mendler0:44

       Thank you.

   12. ETErik Torenberg0:45

       So we're here to talk about Northwood, we're here to talk about space, but first, wanna talk about how you got here. Uh, when, uh, you know, unconventional career path some may say. When you look at the arc of your career, w- what are the threads that tie it together? H- how do you make sense of your path?

   13. BMBridgit Mendler0:59

       You know, following curiosity.

   14. ETErik Torenberg1:01

       Yeah.

   15. BMBridgit Mendler1:01

       I think curiosity becomes the most organic motivator-

   16. ETErik Torenberg1:04

       Yeah

   17. BMBridgit Mendler1:04

       ... for, for people, and that's definitely the case for me. I think, you know, my, my home environment growing up was really, uh, cultivating that curiosity, and my parents also really encouraged excellence, which I think-

   18. ETErik Torenberg1:17

       Yeah

   19. BMBridgit Mendler1:17

       ... is great. So, you know, if you're curious about something, you know, it's not just something you dabble in, it's something you try-

   20. ETErik Torenberg1:24

       Yeah

   21. BMBridgit Mendler1:24

       ... to take to, like, the nth degree. And, and really, like, try to understand what excellence looks like in that domain.

   22. ETErik Torenberg1:30

       Yeah.

   23. BMBridgit Mendler1:31

       And so that kind of is, you know, led me to a lot of different places. I've, I've said this some other places before, my mom is also an incredibly determined person. [laughs]

   24. ETErik Torenberg1:40

       Yeah.

   25. BMBridgit Mendler1:41

       And so that's something that I think I was influenced by, and so, like, you know, follow what you're curious about, do it to the greatest capacity you can, and don't take no for an answer, and then you kinda wind up-

   26. ETErik Torenberg1:52

       Yeah

   27. BMBridgit Mendler1:52

       ... like, doing a bunch of different things-

   28. ETErik Torenberg1:54

       Yeah

   29. BMBridgit Mendler1:55

       ... um, in, in some really interesting experiences.

   30. ETErik Torenberg1:57

       Yeah.
2. 6:10 – 10:06

   The Ground Segment Bottleneck

   1. BMBridgit Mendler6:10

      You know, the problem that we're solving is for every satellite, it requires a connection point back to Earth so that they can, ah, control the spacecraft. You know, it is kind of like a remote control car where it needs some mechanism to make sure that it's going where it's supposed to go, and a way to actually bring that data back to the users on Earth-

   2. ETErik Torenberg6:30

      Yeah

   3. BMBridgit Mendler6:30

      ... 'cause that's where the users are.

   4. ETErik Torenberg6:32

      Yeah.

   5. BMBridgit Mendler6:32

      Um, so that point of contact on Earth is called the ground infrastructure, and, you know, super basically if you don't have it, you don't have a space mission. It literally is just like a, a rock in space you're doing nothing with. So ground infr- infrastructure, it's, it's completely fundamental. Um, and for us, ah, you know, we, we were observing the space industry, how launch cadence was increasing. You could, you could put a satellite up into space way faster, and you could build satellites way faster 'cause there was this whole, um, boom around space- spacecraft manufacturing. And interestingly, what started becoming the longest pole in the tent was just getting the point of contact on the ground to connect with. So, you know, you could build a satellite and launch it faster than you could actually connect with it from the ground, which just seemed absurd. And so we're like, "Why is that?" This kind of, you know, critical third component was not modernizing because you'd seen all this modernization happening elsewhere. And when we started pulling it back, it was kind of like a classic value chain problem where there was just not, like, the incentives aligned with each stakeholder in the value chain to, to modernize and innovate. So you had, you know, antenna manufacturers that were, you know, responding to a call from a customer and delivering them a, a, a point solution. They weren't thinking, like, holistically about how you, you build better, ah, ground infrastructure. You were having like a, a software integrator layer where they were basically just dependent on whatever infrastructure was being laid by somebody else. And so we realized, like, this is really holding back innovation and, like, a complete thought on, on what this should look like on the ground side. And so really the only way to address fixing the ground segment was to do the whole thing. Um, and when we say the whole thing, like, it includes a lot of disparate disciplines and activities. So, ah, it includes things like R&D of antenna hardware so that the, ah, antenna on Earth that is physically receiving RF signals from space, interpreting them into ones and zeros, sending them back to the users and, and, ah, popping them back up to the spacecraft. That includes, ah, actually, you know, procuring land and doing development at a site to be able to put that antenna hardware somewhere in the world because satellites orbit the Earth, you need to connect with them as they orbit the Earth. Ah, that includes the networking layer. That includes the actual, you know, software API that you have to connect with to give commands at that ground site. And so it was, it was kind of a daunting task. It's like, you know, realizing you have to do this really massive undertaking, this, this big risk in order to experience the big reward on the other side, which is, you know, unlocking this critical third pillar of infrastructure for the space economy and really enabling it to go to new heights. And so that was kind of like our, our venture scale problem where we're like this is gonna require a lot of money, a, a killer team across many different disciplines, and it's gonna require a ton of orchestration of all of those different pieces converging together to deliver something that is really better end to end, as well as, like, something that you can, you can turn around quickly.

   6. ETErik Torenberg9:52

      Yeah.

   7. BMBridgit Mendler9:52

      Um, and so that's kind of the undertaking that we've been on.

   8. ETErik Torenberg9:56

      And when did you realize and how did you realize that space infrastructure was broken? Like, what, what was the idea maze that you guys went? Was this your first idea, ah, that you guys decided to pursue, or

3. 10:06 – 13:18

   Pandemic Antenna Origins

   1. ETErik Torenberg10:06

      yeah, how, how did that come to be?

   2. BMBridgit Mendler10:07

      Yeah, man, we've been doing antennas ever since that-

   3. ETErik Torenberg10:09

      [laughs]

   4. BMBridgit Mendler10:09

      ... that Home Depot run [laughs] during the pandemic.

   5. ETErik Torenberg10:12

      Yeah.

   6. BMBridgit Mendler10:12

      Ah, w- that made us ground nerds.

   7. ETErik Torenberg10:15

      [laughs] Yeah.

   8. BMBridgit Mendler10:15

      Um, yeah, so we were, ah, we started working on the antenna, ah, designs during the pandemic. Ah, you know, that was our, our summer project, and yeah, we just describe ourselves as ground nerds. It was just cool. At, at first it was just really cool to be able to receive signals from hundreds of miles away. Like I said, that's-

   9. ETErik Torenberg10:37

      Yeah

   10. BMBridgit Mendler10:38

       ... the RF waves. They're, like, fainter than, um, you know, the power on a flashlight that you're getting from space, and you get to interpret that into, you know, for us it was an image, but for other, other folks that use satellite data, that's, you know, that's our missile warning system. That's how we find out, like, about any missile going off around the world. That is our GPS infrastructure. That is our, ah, you know, for a lot of people, that's their one source of internet, and it all comes through a ground infrastructure that is able to interpret those faint signals and make it work. So it's just kind of like, you know, one of those magic moments where you just become really fascinated with the technology. And then we started peeling it back further, and we, ah, we did this market study where we looked at all the commercial operators. Um, we looked at, you know, US government use cases as well for how that they were resolving their ground. And it was at that point really from the point of first just being curious about the space that we realized that a big bottleneck was coming.

   11. ETErik Torenberg11:39

       Yeah. And is this an idea that couldn't have existed five years ago because there was just not enough of an economy around or, um, and, and sp- Like, h- Yeah, talk about the timing of it.

   12. BMBridgit Mendler11:48

       Yeah. I- I think, um, it really does influence the timing because previously if you're not as concerned about a three-year timeline between, you know, concept of a spacecraft and, and launching it, then, um, it's not a big deal if the ground segment can't keep pace. I also think, like, the ideas for how to use space have changed a lot, both, so, you know, pace as well as the, the ideas around it. So-And the mission sets that we're talking to folks about now, um, are a greater level of proliferation. They're talking about way more spacecraft being in communication at the same time than they used to. They're also talking about mission sets where satellites are moving in new ways. They're moving really dynamically, uh, in and out of different orbits. Um, you know, previously, you could think about, ah, space missions, it was a pretty static world. Like, think about old school space where it's, it's kinda like science missions, one satellite parked over a certain location, not moving anywhere, sending very small amounts of data to now, it's this whole circus of a, a bunch of different missions needing to coexist, transmitting way more data and, ah, having, like, constantly changing parameters. So I think that has really, you know, flipped the switch for, for some of the, you know, government customers that we talk about. Like, their, their missions just would not be able to be resolved without a new ground architecture. And same on the commercial side, frankly.

   13. ETErik Torenberg13:17

       Yeah.

4. 13:18 – 18:19

   Three Months, Not Three Years

   1. ETErik Torenberg13:18

      Your system is able to deploy in three months, whereas a traditional ground station deploys in three years. What enables you guys to have that level of speed up?

   2. BMBridgit Mendler13:26

      It really comes down to the vertical integration. And what we mean by that is kind of like what I, what I mentioned of being able to stitch together all of the different pieces in the end-to-end system so that they inform each other. So for example, when we say three years before, what did that timeline look like? It looked like an antenna vendor who, you know, gets a phone call. After they get the phone call, they press the order on the supply chain. They gotta wait X number of months to actually get the parts to arrive. Then they assemble them all. It's a bespoke manufacturing line because it's, you know, it's a bespoke system. They're just, you know, they're doing it, uh, one-off, and then they ship it, and they're shipping a giant piece of equipment, so it probably has to go over, you know, uh, ocean, uh, shipping methods. And then it arrives at site, and you have to put together a giant construction project because the size of many of these antennas, they're like multi-story buildings. So you have to do permitting, you have to lay a concrete foundation, you have to have whole construction teams in order to put them together. That adds up into a, a three-year timeline. Whereas for us, because we're thinking of all of those things at the same time as we're doing that development, we get to say we need our antennas to fit in a standard shipping container that can go on a commercial United Airlines flight, and so it gets there the same day. We need our system to be able to fork off of that shipping container and land on a patch of dirt with no concrete and, and just plug into a, a standard two-forty power bolt. Um, we need to be able to have that telemetry run across our entire system so that we know how to fire it up in a matter of minutes. So being able to coordinate all of those things is really what's translated to that, um, that outcome of shaving off the time.

   3. ETErik Torenberg15:21

      And when did you realize that vertical integration was just wh- where you had to go? Do you know from the beginning, or is it something you, you, you learned over time? And what, what have you learned about hard tech in, in the process of, of doing that?

   4. BMBridgit Mendler15:31

      Yeah. I think, I think it, it was a bit of, of a peeling back the problem space where initially you think, okay, great, we, we want to, um, we wanna put more capacity-- we wanna make more capacity available. How can we optimize the ground system to do that? Um, but then there's so many dependencies in, um, you know, what the site actually looks like, uh, in what the software integration looks like, and, uh, we just realized that the way to deliver the best solution that actually ensign-- uh, aligns our incentives with the customer was to do the whole thing. So our incentives are aligned when our, uh, our measure of success is their mission success. And you don't have that if you're just solving part of the equation.

   5. ETErik Torenberg16:22

      Yeah. Yeah. SpaceX was able to bring launch costs down by order of magnitude from what came before. Why, why hasn't the same thing happened in ground?

   6. BMBridgit Mendler16:30

      Yeah. I think it, it does come down-- [chuckles] Like, I hate to be a broken record on the vertical integration, but, um, the reason why that matters is that, uh, what SpaceX has done is they've really streamlined their product, right? Like, they're not trying to build a ton of different bespoke products. They build one thing, and they make it super efficient and effective. They get the economies of scale and everything. And so for us, if we were, you know, just being an antenna vendor, then we would probably need to build a bunch of different types of products. But because we get to, um, see across so many different solutions, we can think, and we invest our R&D in building a solution that works commonly across the industry. So that means that, uh, you know, we're accounting for commercial missions, government missions, allied missions, all within the same system, uh, and that makes our costs lower and more efficient. Um, and when we're able to do it as a shared service, uh, that's really the difference for us. Like we, we view ourselves more so as a platform, right? So it's, it's not like a one-to-one sale where you're trying, you know, get all of your, uh, value off of that single sale. Our platform is such that many missions can benefit from the same infrastructure. So we make our investment, and then many customers get to benefit off of that single investment that we make. And then what's great for customers on, on their end with that is that they're able to take advantage of all the learnings and all the investment that we've made across a bunch of different, um, a bunch of different concepts. And so, uh, you know, it winds up being more beneficial for them. They don't have to do like a big one-off capital expenditure on the system. They get to, you know, smooth out their costs and everybody's happy.

5. 18:19 – 23:48

   Starlink Is Not a Threat

   1. ETErik Torenberg18:19

      Starlink is working on direct optical intersatellite links. H-how much of that is a threat to the ground station business model?

   2. BMBridgit Mendler18:27

      I view it as like a zero percent threat, and the reason why is if you are banking on, um, you know, any of the space, uh, infrastructure, it is about the direction of data volume. And so for us, anything that supports growing the trend of data volume through space is, is great. Like, we're all on board with the same objective there. And so for inters-intersatellite links, what's, what's great about that solution is that, um, it's reducing the latency. It reduces the friction of how you can actually transmit data through space. And so think about like all the use cases that that opens up when... I, I mean, I think Starlink is a great example of this. You know, talking about matching or in-and at certain times beating internet latency speeds, like that would be unheard of in space before, and look at the value of that business. And so I think, uh, technologies that align with that trend, uh, are really positive.

   3. ETErik Torenberg19:24

      Yeah. No, that makes sense. In a potential Taiwan scenario, there's a version where, you know, g-ground stations can become targets. H-how do you think about resilience?

   4. BMBridgit Mendler19:33

      I think that's a... It's a great question, and, uh, it actually is both a commercial question and a government question. Like, both commercial and, and government care about resilience, and I think like you can look at a, a lot of different companies that have tried to address this. We take the similar path of proliferation. So making things like cheaper, faster to deploy, more, uh, volume manufacturing is kind of the solution to that so that when a single site, uh, location goes down, that's, you know, it's not a catastrophe. Um, it's actually interesting for some of our teammates that did come from Starlink, that was their similar model. So they, they consider resiliency in the same way where they have multiple ground sites in a region so that if one goes down, it doesn't totally take their service off of, offline. Um, so I think a similar concept applies here.

   5. ETErik Torenberg20:22

      Yeah. A, a lot of people analogize the space economy to the early internet. They say, you know, a lot of infrastructure being built, you know, lo-lots of companies will fail, uh, and lots of applications, you know, very successful applications will, will be built on top. Do you-- does this analogy hold for you?

   6. BMBridgit Mendler20:38

      Yeah, for sure. Um, I get really inspired by the analogy, um, especially thinking about, you know, for folks that were early with the internet, like they-- there's no way they would have foreseen-

   7. ETErik Torenberg20:48

      Yeah

   8. BMBridgit Mendler20:49

      ... what the internet is today. Um, but they were betting on a direction, and they were setting up a model that would, uh, that would basically like unlock a lot of innovation. And they, they were like, uh, they were developing principles and building aligned with certain principles that would support that innovation and, and look what we have today. Um, yeah, I mean, I think like some things as simple as like TCP/IP protocols, for example, like trying to make different layers as, as easy and supporting for innovation as possible. So I think we're in a similar moment with the space industry where we don't know what is going to be built. Like a year ago today, would we think that everybody would be talking about orbital data centers? No way. Um, but it's captivated the public imagination-

   9. ETErik Torenberg21:36

      Yeah

   10. BMBridgit Mendler21:36

       ... and who knows what's gonna come next. And so, um, for us, we're directionally aligned with that movement, and we are building to principles that will support innovation. Like the whole thing that we're about is taking companies further faster, taking space missions further faster. And we do that, you know, by our model, which I've described. Um, so if I were to like look forward into the space industry, I think, uh, you know, if you analogize to the internet, like you have a couple of kind of platform infrastructure plays that really wind up becoming enmeshed across the internet. And, you know, it-it's not like you have a thousand different companies that stand to benefit from them, but there are a few that wind up becoming really, uh, influential and fundamental. Um, you know, cloud is one that we analogize to a lot, and we're inspired by, um, and we wanna be one of those companies.

   11. ETErik Torenberg22:30

       Yeah. W-what is the right way of mental model for thinking about the relationship between the public sector and the private sector in terms of growing the space economy and, or, or industry and sort of technological capabilities? Is it kind of like the internet where a lot of the early work was either done by or funded by, um, government and then the private sector sort of, you know, took the ball so to speak, or is it more in parallel? H-how should we think about that?

   12. BMBridgit Mendler22:53

       Yeah. I think it's, it's very analogous. I think it's interesting how the venture ecosystem fits in now-

   13. ETErik Torenberg23:00

       Yeah

   14. BMBridgit Mendler23:00

       ... in a deeper way than it, it did back then. Um, yeah, I think a lot of, uh, technology innovation does tend to take place at those fringes that the government use cases are solving for, and I think that's happening now. And I think the, the benefit that we have, which hopefully will lead to like a shorter cycle in reaching the kind of infrastructure scale, uh, with the space industry, is with venture absorbing some of that risk. When we talk to, um, government, you know, they're looking for partners to absorb that risk. Um, and frankly, when we talk to, you know, some of the commercial companies as well, they're really excited about venture's role in, uh, absorbing some amount of risk so that they can pursue bigger ideas faster.

6. 23:48 – 29:45

   The Space Economy Market Map

   1. ETErik Torenberg23:48

      Yeah. Um, so, so help us, uh, ou-outline a little bit of the, the space e-economy right now. Is it-- How should we think about the, if we were to do a market map, like the different-

   2. BMBridgit Mendler23:59

      Yeah

   3. ETErik Torenberg23:59

      ... you know, t-types of players? Is it... And then maybe the attributes the market data, is it like very fragmented? Are there, you know, a couple big winners to kinda aggregate? Like what is the right way of thinking about?

   4. BMBridgit Mendler24:09

      Yeah. I think, I think the infrastructure plays are really important for space. Like there's a couple or there's a number of fundamental things that, uh, can be those underlying components that make a big difference. So, um, for space, things that matter is obviously launch, like you need to have a way to actually get mass into orbit. Um, power is another big thing to solve for space.Uh, you need to have propulsion. That's another critical thing for space, being able to actually maneuver once you're up there. And then that connectivity back to Earth is really critical, and being able to kind of orchestrate and, and network all of that connectivity is really important. Um, and so I think we are in an interesting moment where that infrastructure is being built out to enable a different set of capabilities. Like, if you look a few years back, you had the small satellite boom, where there were a, a whole generation of companies that were built off of, um, you know, doing a, a smaller level of infrastructure to, um, unlock different capabilities. And it feels like we've evolved into a, a higher threshold of infrastructure that's gonna unlock a whole other layer of capability.

   5. ETErik Torenberg25:20

      Yeah. S-same way... W- here's what you think are the biggest bottlenecks to, you know, sort of unleashing a wave of innovation in space. Like, if in a few years, um, you know, the economy sort of, you know, accelerates significantly or there's a whole wave of, um, startups that emerge or, or, or, or accelerate in their growth, what, what would've needed to happen? W- wh- why could that be?

   6. BMBridgit Mendler25:41

      I mean, like, our biased answer is that ground [laughs]

   7. ETErik Torenberg25:44

      Yeah

   8. BMBridgit Mendler25:44

      ... is really critical for that.

   9. ETErik Torenberg25:45

      Yeah.

   10. BMBridgit Mendler25:45

       Um, uh, obviously it's not the only thing.

   11. ETErik Torenberg25:48

       Yeah.

   12. BMBridgit Mendler25:48

       Like, I think, um, you know, to unlock the innovation, like, you know, power is a huge constraint-

   13. ETErik Torenberg25:54

       Yeah

   14. BMBridgit Mendler25:54

       ... uh, for space. And, and so, you know, being able to do more in space is influenced by that. Uh, but also, uh, the amount of data throughput you can get from space.

   15. ETErik Torenberg26:05

       Yeah.

   16. BMBridgit Mendler26:05

       So, like, power improves, you know, how much data you could generate in space. Um-

   17. ETErik Torenberg26:09

       Yeah

   18. BMBridgit Mendler26:10

       ... but then ground impacts how much data throughput you can have through space

   19. ETErik Torenberg26:15

       Yeah

   20. BMBridgit Mendler26:15

       ... which, uh, is critical for being able to, um, actually deliver those missions to end users.

   21. ETErik Torenberg26:22

       Yeah. I was just listening to, uh, the Elon, uh, John Collison Door Cash podcast on, on, uh, data center space, which is, you know-

   22. BMBridgit Mendler26:29

       I haven't listened to it yet-

   23. ETErik Torenberg26:30

       Oh, yeah

   24. BMBridgit Mendler26:30

       ... so apologies if I don't know.

   25. ETErik Torenberg26:32

       Yeah, yeah. Don't worry.

   26. BMBridgit Mendler26:32

       Yeah.

   27. ETErik Torenberg26:32

       You... I just had to say, this is the first time I've heard of it. What is your, um, thinking o- on it, the feasibility of it? W- will compute move to orbit? Yeah, what do you think about it?

   28. BMBridgit Mendler26:42

       So our mentality at Northwood is we wanna take space missions further faster. Like, w- we want to enable the most ambitious missions and translate them from dream to reality as fast as possible. And so, like, uh, that is the exact kind of juicy problem that gets the nerds at Northwood excited, is, uh, you know, here's this super ambitious concept for space. Um, I think what's captivated a lot of people is thinking about h- you know, how it pushes society, how thinking about, uh, kinda limitless power from space pushes society. Like, it gets a lot of people excited and inspired. Uh, and so we want to be supporters of willing that into existence through taking that further faster. So I think a lot of people raise a lot of really valid concerns about it, um, things that require, or things that, um, mean there's gonna be long timelines to bring it into existence, whatever it is. W- are we talking training? Are we talking inference, et cetera? Like, you know, there's a lot of different, um, uh, there's a lot of different details. Um, but I think, uh, our, our interest in it is, uh, how can we understand the space so that we can enable it to go, um-

   29. ETErik Torenberg27:59

       Yeah

   30. BMBridgit Mendler27:59

       ... faster towards that outcome?
7. 29:45 – 36:03

   The Space Force Contract

   1. BMBridgit Mendler29:45

      benefits of that.

   2. ETErik Torenberg29:46

      You just won a $50 million contract, uh, with Space Force to help modernize. Um, w- what does it mean to, to say that the Pentagon would rather, you know, buy commercially than build themselves?

   3. BMBridgit Mendler29:55

      Yeah. I think it's a pretty fundamental switch that represents the, the timeline urgency, uh, and, you know, the, the, the change in a ground paradigm that we're confronting. Like, you can't have the same models of procurement if you're talking about, uh, proliferated systems, where you need to just have such a huge increase in ground infrastructure in such a short period of time. You need to look at different models. Um, and so yeah, we were, we were fortunate to be aligned with some of the, um, great thinkers over on the Space Force side that are, are really developing what that model would look like, and really fortunate to be entrusted with such a significant-Program so early in our company's, um, lifetime. And to the whole, you know, taking missions further, faster point, like, it, being involved in, in missions of national si-significance is, is something that, um, you know, that's what we're all about. So I think it's very aligned with that satellite control network. Uh, that is a common resource for US government, where, um, you know, every launch runs through a satellite control network. Uh, it, it tracks missions across a really wide set of, uh, US government use cases ranging from, you know, GPS to NASA missions, um, you know, our missile track systems and the like. So it is a great opportunity for us to kind of demonstrate the, the cross-cutting capabilities that we are working on.

   4. ETErik Torenberg31:26

      Yeah. There are 13,000 active satellites ri-right now. Is, is that accurate?

   5. BMBridgit Mendler31:31

      Sounds about right.

   6. ETErik Torenberg31:32

      [laughs] And, um, I think you said that they're collecting millions of data, um, that can't be captured because there's not enough ground capacity. How, how bad is the bottleneck?

   7. BMBridgit Mendler31:43

      Yeah. I-- so, you know, you can think of a satellite as basically, like, as soon as it launches into space, it's just a depreciating asset. It's just a really expensive depreciating asset, and you're trying to maximize the value that you can get off of that asset. Um, and the way that you do that is by sending data, 'cause that is, that is, like, the economic value of the spacecraft is the data that it can produce. And the data that it can produce is, is directly proportional to the amount of ground connectivity that you have. So ground is quite literally how you increase the ROI of your spacecraft. Really matters for both commercial and US government missions. You know, for US government missions to launch a spacecraft and, like, literally there have been a bunch of missions that have been launched with no ground plan. And so that's like, A, you might just lose your spacecraft, which could be a, a very consequential, um, loss of an investment, or you just miss out on being able to make good use of those taxpayer dollars. Um, and, and same for commercial missions. Uh, you know, we've heard from a number of different commercial companies like, "We are throughput limited. We're limited in how many customers we can serve because we don't have a big enough ground footprint."

   8. ETErik Torenberg32:56

      Yeah. We just talked about the, the contract. What, what, what's the next big milestone, uh, a-as you think about your, your guys' development?

   9. BMBridgit Mendler33:04

      Yeah. I think building upon the use cases that we have, uh, I think we've been fortunate to find a lot of aligned customers with the, the product that we are currently putting out. There's other products that we also have in the works. I think people know us as a phased array company, but, um, with announcements we'll, we'll have coming out before too long, we, we are more than that.

   10. ETErik Torenberg33:27

       Yeah.

   11. BMBridgit Mendler33:27

       Um, we, uh, are kind of thinkers across the whole ground solution space. So I think it, it's both that, you know, product maturation as well as product development that we'll continue to be doing. Um, while, like I said, it's orchestrating a ton of stuff, we're also building a global ground network.

   12. ETErik Torenberg33:44

       Yeah.

   13. BMBridgit Mendler33:44

       We have five international entities now across the world. Uh, we're like, we'll be the United Nations of Northwood. [laughs]

   14. ETErik Torenberg33:52

       [laughs] Amazing.

   15. BMBridgit Mendler33:52

       Um, and so, yeah, we're, we're doing... Uh, we're currently on two continents. We'll be on a number of others before the end of the year, and so gotta, gotta do it all at once.

   16. ETErik Torenberg34:02

       Yeah. Uh, with that, there, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of space nerds listening to this. Um, say more about the, the, the company, the, the, the, the s-the size. Um, so, you know, the transition from a one product to a multi-product company. Say more about, you, you know, the, the company itself.

   17. BMBridgit Mendler34:18

       Yeah, I mean, so like I mentioned before, there's a lot of disciplines that need to come together to make Northwood successful. Uh, and so we've really tried to pull from, uh, the best of the best in each of those disciplines, the folks that have done it before. Um, you know, a lot of folks that have experience with building out sites globally. Um, you know, like I mentioned, that's the Starlink team, but that's also, uh, how can we be creative about other, other industries that we can source from? Think about, like, you know, AT&T cell towers. How are they doing that with such, like, global, uh, presence? What about, uh, Tesla, Tesla Supercharger stations? Um, so just kind of looking at, at diverse talent bases for things like that. Um, you know, we, we have like a really robust supply chain team, 'cause you have to be able to source in all of the components and, and make it timely and make it, uh, resilient, especially our, our customers relying upon that. Um, the, the engineering team, uh, we have a huge amount of software actually. Um, so, you know, we're known again for like the hardware of our system, but the software is actually like very extensive across like, you know, networking, we have embedded, we have, um, you know, the actual front end of what we're building. So it's, it's an extreme multidisciplinary company. Um, and so what's come i-important for us is that we really, you know, value the different disciplines. I think that's something that probably I, um, philosophically contribute to the company, um, as well as just, you know, making sure that we're coordinated and, and operating effectively as a team. So, uh, yeah, we have, uh, we have done a lot of scaling. We've doubled in size a number of times already-

   18. ETErik Torenberg35:58

       Wow

   19. BMBridgit Mendler35:58

       ... and we'll hopefully double again in size this year, uh, if not more. So yeah.

   20. ETErik Torenberg36:02

       And the size right

8. 36:03 – 40:34

   Culture and Values

   1. ETErik Torenberg36:03

      now is?

   2. BMBridgit Mendler36:03

      Uh, around seventy-five employees.

   3. ETErik Torenberg36:04

      Cool. Talk a little about how you think about culture-

   4. BMBridgit Mendler36:07

      Yeah

   5. ETErik Torenberg36:08

      ... at Northwood and what types of people you're, you're trying to bring on, how you think about team building.

   6. BMBridgit Mendler36:12

      Yes. I'll give a little window into my-

   7. ETErik Torenberg36:15

      Please

   8. BMBridgit Mendler36:15

      ... uh, expectations that I share with people when, um, they interview for Northwood. The first one is that we accomplish unreasonable things on unreasonable timelines.

   9. ETErik Torenberg36:25

      Mm.

   10. BMBridgit Mendler36:25

       They surface level like, "Sure. Okay." Everybody, you know, everybody can kind of get on board with that. But, uh, you know, it's not just a matter of like applying more force to the problem. Um, it's about taking smart risks. So i-it's not just force, it's also cleverness. It's like understanding the problem deep enough to know what the trades are that you can afford to make. Um, and so people that are able to do that kind of, uh, mental calculation, kind of like-Take, take big leaps is really how you can actually move quickly. Um, the, the second one is the end-to-end ownership of your work, and for me, really what that translates to is, you know, people who are gonna be bought in, in a deeper way to the outcome beyond just checking some boxes off the list. I've, like, kind of been reflecting on, like, where does that come from for me? Like, why is that something that matters for me? And I think, you know, it traces back to when I was, uh, you know, pursuing my first passion growing up as a kid. Uh, my mom was a, a huge supporter of me in a way that kinda went, went beyond just demonstrating that she supported what I cared about, but actually enabling me to do it in a way that, like, went beyond reasonableness. So, um, I, uh, you know, I wanted to be an actress. She's a full-time working mom, sometimes, like, the main breadwinner and, like, literally could not step away from her job. Like, a lot of parents would have probably, like, put me in an acting camp and just been like, "Good luck, cool," um, and then, and then maybe just, uh, thrown up their hands. But she, like, you know, was on the phone coordinating travel and, like, caretakers and, you know, booking me plane tickets and, um, you know, figuring out how to get me the resources to accomplish my dream, um, in a way that was, you know, pretty ridiculous at times. Um, and I think that that's been, like, something that has really stuck with me, is, uh, the amount of care that she had investment in, in my, my dream and where I wanted to go is something that, you know, I get inspired by from a mission perspective. Like, the amount of care that people on our team have invested in the outcome that goes so far beyond, um, you know, the description on, on their job description and, you know, that means that, like, on our North Dakota trip, where we were, you know, back deploying our first antenna, people, like, stayed up, you know, more than twenty-four hours on multiple occasions in, you know, a span of a week, where, uh, we just needed to, to get the system running. And then the third one is, um, uh, we're looking for a categorical outcome, not, not just an incremental outcome. And I think, like, what that comes back to is, like, if you wanna do something that moves the world forward, you need to have a team. Um, that's something that I learned back from my time in entertainment. You know? Like, I, I was, uh, working on a TV show, and I'm just, like, one cog in this really big operation. Like, there's no way you could get a TV show on air without a whole coordinated team of people to make that possible. Um, and then if you wanna function effectively as a team, you need a lot of trust. And so what's really critical to me in having teams that trust each other is, uh, you know, basically, like, a low ego environment. Like, when people come in the door, they need to, they need to be able to, um, admit their faults in a way that, like, is just purely pursuing understanding what the problem is, understanding what the goal is, um, and, and also be bold enough to raise flags when there's issues in a problem set. So, um, yeah, I, I think that teamwork, the amount of care, and the ability to be clever and take smart risks is kinda, like, the foundational pieces of, of our culture.

   11. ETErik Torenberg40:26

       That's a great note to, to, to, to wrap on. Um, the story about your mother was particularly inspiring. Thanks for sharing it. Bridgit, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

   12. BMBridgit Mendler40:33

       Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Episode duration: 40:54