About this episode

Chris Powers interviews Ben Nowack about Reflect Orbital's innovative approach to redirecting sunlight from space.

In this episode, Chris sits down with Ben Nowack, co-founder and CEO of Reflect Orbital, one of the first companies building satellites that redirect sunlight from orbit to specific spots on Earth, with the goal of delivering sunlight on demand, 24/7. Why would you want sunlight 24/7? Agriculture and farming, construction projects, rescue missions, military operations, powering solar panels closer to 100% of the time instead of ~30%, etc. Ben started Reflect in 2021. He spent the first year in a garage, $60k in credit card debt, before a $350k raise came in. Reflect has now raised more than $35 million. Sequoia led the seed (its first space investment since SpaceX), Lux Capital led the $20M Series A, and it launches its first satellite later this year. They discuss:• A speech Gwynne Shotwell gave during his tenure at SpaceX that he will never forget• What he learned while working at SpaceX that he implements at Reflect• The story of building the actual company and why building hardware is hard• How they think about vertical integration• The trillion $ business case for redirecting sunlight• How he recruits technical talent, what works and what doesn't Timestamps(0:00) Intro(1:07)…

People in this episode

Host: Chris Powers

Guest: Ben Nowack

Topics covered

• satellite technology
• agriculture
• solar energy
• business development
• space industry

Keywords

• Reflect Orbital
• sunlight on demand
• satellites
• agriculture
• solar panels
• SpaceX
• venture capital

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Reflect Orbital, Sequoia, Lux Capital, SpaceX

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