# Planet sells satellite data at software-like margins

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/planet-sells-satellite-data-at-software-like-margins/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Will Marshall](https://realalpha.app/people/will-marshall/) · Will Marshall is cofounder and CEO of Planet Labs. · Co-founded Planet and leads its Earth-imaging satellite network, after developing low-cost spacecraft at NASA/USRA.
- Host: [Molly O'Shea](https://realalpha.app/people/molly-oshea/) · Founder, Sourcery · Ex-Upfront Ventures investor; has interviewed Alex Karp and Palmer Luckey.
- Show: Sourcery
- Episode: [Inside Planet Labs (NYSE: $PL): Satellites, Planet AI & Area 51](https://realalpha.app/v/NjebKeJ8Ws8/), Nov 9, 2026
- Moment: 2:46 to 6:09 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/planet-sells-satellite-data-at-software-like-margins/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/NjebKeJ8Ws8/?t=166

## Quote

> “but our **margins look like a software business** and so it has the best of both worlds”
> — [Will Marshall](https://realalpha.app/people/will-marshall/) at [3:26](https://realalpha.app/v/NjebKeJ8Ws8/?t=206) · Sourcery

## Takeaways

1. Planet sells information services, not just satellite access.
2. Marshall describes the data business as high-margin.
3. Its radio link can send two gigabits per second from over 1,000 kilometers away.

## About this segment

Will Marshall describes Planet as a data business with software-like margins despite its satellite hardware. He shows how its cameras and radios turn imagery into a high-rate data product.

From “Inside Planet Labs (NYSE: $PL): Satellites, Planet AI & Area 51”, Nov 9, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/NjebKeJ8Ws8/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[2:59](https://realalpha.app/v/NjebKeJ8Ws8/?t=179) intelligence which by the way I've heard has great premiums on it but yeah it's a data business fundamentally we're selling information services exactly so even though we have a satellite back-end we have so we our data business is a very high margins business. Each cell of a picture or analytics from that picture is very, very high margins. I love that because, you know, as a business person, we do have some capex, but really it's a very high barrier to entry. People launching satellites are few and far as they come by.

[3:34](https://realalpha.app/v/NjebKeJ8Ws8/?t=214) They're very complicated. Yet, so we have a high barrier to entry, but our margins look like a software business and so it has the best of both worlds amazing okay so what do we have yeah let's talk through the lore of Planet Labs in the law because we have some right here yeah yeah we do this is actually this the the whiteboard from our garage when we were playing around where this This is the garage where we first set. This is our initial team. We were building a first satellite there in the lab.

[4:11](https://realalpha.app/v/NjebKeJ8Ws8/?t=251) We were still working a little bit at NASA, and then we slowly left. This was in our nights and weekends, and then we were like, okay, this is too cool. So we started building these satellites. I mean, you can see various bits of them, solar panels, the actual boards that we make for the satellites. I can actually show you, this is the optical telescope assembly, so this is the telescope and then the camera system. You can look down there and you can see the actual telescope, you can see yourself in the mirror, so to speak, and that is looking down, taking pictures. Now we're 500 kilometers away, so about the same distance as from here to Los Angeles.

[4:48](https://realalpha.app/v/NjebKeJ8Ws8/?t=288) We are taking pictures that far away, but we can see individual trees, we can see houses. It's amazing that we can do that at 500 kilometers away from a telescope this big and This is what the satellite looks like all put together except for the solar panels Now this is one of our older ones, but it gives you a sense. As I said, this is the telescope. This is the Motherboards. This is perking down, right? That's taking pictures up into the stars It automatically recognizes the constellations and then goes, okay, well that constellations there Therefore, I'm pointed exactly in this direction then it can turn itself around using these little wheels so it can spin itself in any direction to take a picture that we want it to take yeah then it beams it down to the ground using these radios now these radios you might think what the heck are these bits of wire we can get two gigabits

[5:37](https://realalpha.app/v/NjebKeJ8Ws8/?t=337) a second from our satellite down to the ground station over a thousand kilometers away so we're talking about about two gigabits a second down to the ground over a thousand kilometers range I mean it's like sometimes our internet in this building is worse than that I can't so so basically all of this electronics tells