Planet co-founder Robbie Schingler recounts receiving their first successful Earth observation photograph from orbit in April 2013.
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Schingler: Planet's first clean room was a $100 deployable greenhouse from Target
“I believe it was less than a hundred dollars, which was a deployable greenhouse that was bought at Target. Then it had some HEPA filters.”
Insight
Schingler: Cheaper satellites enable higher risk tolerance and faster scientific discovery
“If they're smaller, they're cheaper. If they're cheaper, you can take more risk. If you can take more risk, then you can have, then, and they're cheaper. Then you can do more missions. If you can do more missions and you diversify your risk, then it increases …”
Insight
Schingler: Smartphone hardware capabilities and engineering processes closely match satellite requirements
“And really the insight that the team had is, what's so different about a phone from a satellite? And turns out, like, the engineering processes, the capabilities internally, All of that stuff is very similar.”
Insight
Schingler: Past organizational success creates rigid processes that anchor and trap engineering
“When you become successful with a particular thing in the future, that could become an anchor for you, right? And so, great, that's your success. You make a system out of it. You have all these processes, and then you actually do a requirements flow down. That…”
Disclosure
Schingler: Planet raised $3.2 million in its initial financing round
“Yeah, 3.2 million. We ended up having a 200 K. We also had friends and family came in a little bit.”
Assertion Supported
Schingler: Modern economic infrastructure relies heavily on space tech started by the military
“So much of infrastructure of our modern interconnected economy Flows through space, and a lot of people just don't know about that. Yeah, we all now have, you know, we don't know GPS and location now, and it's just, that is just back-end infrastructure for soc…”