# Planet Labs CEO: Why AI Data Centers Will Move to Space Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy. Will Marshall argues that orbital data centers could eventually cost less than ground-based ones, while satellite intelligence gives governments earlier warning. - Show: Sourcery - Hosts: [Molly O'Shea](https://realalpha.app/people/molly-oshea/) - Guest: [Will Marshall](https://realalpha.app/people/will-marshall/) is cofounder and CEO of Planet Labs. - Published: Nov 5, 2026 - Length: 41 min ## The best minutes - [20:33](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1233) [Space-based compute could offer a cheaper power model](https://realalpha.app/s/space-based-compute-could-offer-a-cheaper-power-model/) (4 min) - [4:05](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=245) [Satellite intelligence can give countries an information advantage](https://realalpha.app/s/satellite-intelligence-can-give-countries-an-information/) (3 min) - [29:20](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1760) [Marshall expects signs of life beyond Earth within a decade](https://realalpha.app/s/marshall-expects-signs-of-life-beyond-earth-within-a-decade/) (4 min) ## Also worth watching - [25:26](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1526) [Planet says it can deliver sovereign satellites in months](https://realalpha.app/s/planet-says-it-can-deliver-sovereign-satellites-in-months/) (3 min) - [8:28](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=508) [Planet's imagery reaches agriculture, finance and data centers](https://realalpha.app/s/planets-imagery-reaches-agriculture-finance-and-data-centers/) (2 min) - [17:21](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1041) [Natural-language AI could open satellite data to more customers](https://realalpha.app/s/natural-language-ai-could-open-satellite-data-to-more/) (2 min) - [14:43](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=883) [Planet's satellite fleet ranges from daily scans to methane detection](https://realalpha.app/s/planets-satellite-fleet-ranges-from-daily-scans-to-methane/) (3 min) - [35:23](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2123) [A NASA mentor gave Planet room to test phones in space](https://realalpha.app/s/a-nasa-mentor-gave-planet-room-to-test-phones-in-space/) (3 min) Skip the four-minute facility and company overview, the sponsor reads, and the alien-conspiracy and science-fiction discussion. ## Full analysis: Will Marshall says orbit gets five times more power per solar panel - Marshall says each solar panel gets five times more power in orbit than on the ground. - That is a solar input comparison, not evidence of lower delivered-compute cost. - The next proof is Google's TPU test, not a wholesale move of data centers. Its 6 sections, what it means for you and what to watch are on [the page](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/#analysis), free with an account: - [22:43](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1363) Marshall's five-times figure measures sunlight, not compute cost - [21:00](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1260) Google's first test targets faster satellite answers - [23:28](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1408) The cheaper-power case leaves its cost denominator open - [24:16](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1456) Chip reliability remains an unanswered operating cost - [21:18](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1278) Image processing offers a nearer test than relocation - [23:31](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1411) Community savings remain a proposition without a baseline ## Summary Will Marshall is cofounder and CEO of Planet Labs. The company has built more than 700 satellites and operates a constellation that images Earth's entire landmass daily, producing roughly 4 million images a day for defense, government and commercial customers. Marshall says Planet's daily satellite imagery gives governments earlier visibility into threats, including in Ukraine and the South China Sea, and can help reduce the risk of conflict. He says countries increasingly want their own satellites, while defense demand is growing fastest and commercial and civil customers use Planet's data for agriculture, disaster response and infrastructure monitoring. He argues that AI can make satellite imagery useful to far more people, and that orbital data centers could eventually be cheaper because solar panels in orbit provide more continuous power. He also predicts that scientists may find life beyond Earth within six or seven years and says persistence has been central to building Planet. ### Minute by minute - [1:44](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=104) **Automated production enables daily imaging.** Marshall says Planet has automated satellite manufacturing and made its satellites smaller and less costly to produce. Its fleet images Earth's entire landmass every day, and the company sells that information for agriculture, security, disaster response and other uses. - [4:11](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=251) **Satellite data gives defenders earlier warning.** Marshall says Planet supplied imagery to help Ukraine monitor threats before and during Russia's invasion. He says the US Navy uses Planet data to monitor 13 million square kilometers of the South China Sea, and argues that earlier information can help countries prepare, deter threats and avoid war. - [7:35](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=455) **Countries want sovereign satellites.** Marshall says governments that initially asked to buy Planet's data began asking to operate satellites themselves. Japan is buying satellites, Germany is funding a fleet and Planet is also working with Sweden; customers receive control of the satellites after launch. - [8:28](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=508) **Defense demand is growing fastest.** Marshall says defense is Planet's strongest area of demand, but civil government and commercial customers are growing too. He names John Deere, Bayer and BASF as agriculture customers, and says hedge funds and hyperscalers use Planet data. He reports 58% year-on-year growth in the previous quarter and says defense drove much of it. - [10:38](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=638) **Satellites are changing modern warfare.** Marshall says warfare is becoming more hybrid and distributed, with drones, satellites and AI playing central roles. He also describes unexpected civilian uses of imagery, including efforts to protect dolphins in South America and help communities avoid stagnant water linked to river blindness. - [14:43](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=883) **Planet's satellites serve distinct uses.** Marshall says Doves scan Earth's landmass daily at three-meter resolution in eight spectral bands, while Pelicans take higher-resolution images of customer-selected locations. Tanager satellites capture 420 color bands that can identify species, distinguish camouflage and detect methane leaks. He says Planet aims to return and analyze a requested image within 30 minutes, while AI lets more people query the data. - [19:41](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1181) **Space data centers could lower costs.** Marshall says Planet stores most of its compute on Google Cloud and is adding more analytical tools to its data business. Planet has launched NVIDIA chips in orbit to process imagery faster, and its Google Project Suncatcher test will examine Google's TPUs in space. He argues that orbital solar panels can provide five times more power than panels on the ground, making space-based compute potentially cheaper over time. - [25:26](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1526) **Satellites underpin security and sovereignty.** Marshall says satellites act as countries' eyes and ears, supporting missile warnings, GPS, maps, weather and other infrastructure. He says countries want their own sensing capabilities; Planet launched Sweden's first satellite four months after signing a contract and a Germany-sponsored satellite in two months. He says the company screens deals against embargo lists and its own values review. - [29:20](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1760) **Marshall expects signs of life beyond Earth.** Marshall says Planet has not seen aliens and that none of the more than 6,300 planets discovered in the local galactic neighborhood shows obvious signs of life. He predicts scientists may find life within six or seven years by examining planetary atmospheres for chemical signatures such as oxygen. He says the absence of technological signals also raises questions about whether civilizations can survive their own technologies. - [33:29](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2009) **Most alien reports have simple explanations.** Marshall says a friend at NASA handled calls from people who thought they had seen aliens, and that more than 90% of reports involved people mistaking Venus for something else. He says unexplained cases exist, but the evidence does not support concluding that they involve aliens. - [35:34](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2134) **Mentors helped shape Planet's beginnings.** Marshall says astronomer Patrick Moore inspired him as a child, and he later studied with mathematician and cosmologist Roger Penrose. At NASA, he learned from Pete Warden, who gave the team room to try innovative ideas. Marshall says an experiment launching phones into space led to Planet. - [38:15](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2295) **Persistence keeps the team moving.** Marshall says persistence and endurance matter more to entrepreneurial success than timing or the idea alone. He says Planet's team kept going despite doubts from investors because it believed in the mission. Seven of its first 10 employees were still there at the 10th anniversary, and about half remained at the 15th. ## Transcript Sourcery, hosted by Molly O'Shea, with Will Marshall. Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there. [0:00](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=0) Data centers in space, so have you thought about this at all? More than thought about it, we just launched last week the first test project for Google. Data centers is all an energy problem. In space, for each solar panel, you get five times more power than you get on the ground, because you can put them in a sun-synchronous orbit that is always looking at the sun. We're seeing two big trends in the world. One is the geopolitical changes that are happening, and the second is AI. We're seeing a lot of countries needing our data really quickly. The point is, information is power, and by giving it to these countries, we can help them diffuse tensions and make it more likely we don't need to go to war. [0:33](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=33) You're in beta with your AI app, so what are you doing in AI and how does that change? Will Marshall, thank you for having us at Planet Labs. No problem. Welcome again. I mean, it's fun to tour downstairs. We didn't mention this in the tour, which I think was a big miss, but we're in the heart of San Francisco right now. Correct. We're not in South Bay of LA. We're not in the middle of New Mexico. We are literally in San Francisco. Yeah, few people realize that there is a mass satellite manufacturing facility in the middle of San Francisco. So why did you choose this location? Well, we were at NASA Ames, our founding team, just down the road near Mountain View. [1:23](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=83) and but we all wanted to be in the city where the cool kids hang out so we came up here and the same today look at the AI companies. Anthropics a few blocks that way, OpenAI is a few blocks that way and even the Google Gemini team, you think of Google being in Mandeview but the Google Gemini team is a few blocks down the road. All the young engineers want to be in San Francisco so we go where the cool people are. So for people who haven't watched it yet we just came off of a tour of your facility, what did we just see? Yeah, I mean, what we just saw was a manufacturing facility for satellites. [1:58](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=118) We've made it way more automated, taken satellites the size of a double-decker bus and shrunk them down. You can see some of them in the background here and enabled us to be able to launch them many more and at lower cost. And with all of that, we have put up enough satellites to image the entire Earth every day, which is the first fleet that has ever done that. We launched the first set of satellites that grew to over 100 satellites, the first big-ish constellation of satellites. Now Starlink is a bigger constellation. Now what is all that for? This is what we can talk about now. So I mean really in the end this is an information business. We're selling information. Why? Because we collect all this information about the planet, and we want to help people make smarter decisions, whether that's for agriculture to improve crop yields, for security, for threats around the planet, for disaster response, for all sorts of, all manner of applications. And the addition of AI that we were just looking at means that more and more people can get access. But let me say in a big sense, we're seeing two big trends in the world. One is the geopolitical changes that are happening, the fragmentation, the changes to the geopolitical environment. And [3:23](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=203) the second is AI. Both huge forces. Now space, generally, and planet in particular, are super relevant to both of those. Geopolitics is all about understanding threats around the corner understanding what's going on disasters and so on and what better than information to help you understand that and then AI is all about having better information so we can dive into each one of those a little bit more but basically satellite data is critical to underpinning security sustainability AI, a lot of it. And so we're seeing a boon right now, which is why we're on this floor, which we've just doubled our manufacturing capacity here in San Francisco. And that's all because we're seeing a lot of countries needing our data really quickly. So let's go into that security piece of it a little bit. Take Ukraine. We helped to see the troops build up on the border of Ukraine before the invasion happened the full-scale invasion now actually we help provide data to Ukraine to help them monitor threats well in advance of reaching their borders to try and stop those threats to help them defend their country. I can't get into all of the details but it's really at the core an information advantage. They're facing a conventional disadvantage. Russia has [4:52](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=292) more troops, more tanks, more missiles, more planes. But Ukraine has two distinct advantages. One is they really care about their country and they don't want it invaded. And the second is they have information advantage and information is power. And they've been extremely active at using latest technology, drones, satellites, AI to get advantage. So we've helped them as best we can with their incredible innovation, they've used and seen uses of our data in incredible ways. Now, other countries are going to Ukraine and going, what's going on here? And they see that most of their satellite data comes from planet and they go, wow, okay, we need that too. If Russia might invade us, what about China and Taiwan? What about whatever? We also work with the US Navy. [5:41](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=341) **Will Marshall:** The US Navy uses us to monitor all of the South China Sea, 13 million square kilometers. So [5:48](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=348) slightly bigger than the United States area of ocean and they're looking for illegal fishing activities, illegal like North Korean vessels going against oil embargoes, Chinese activities that shouldn't be where they are, building islands or what have you. They monitor that and they provide that to their allies in the region like Philippines so that they can all have a common understanding of where the threats are. Admiral Paparo, also in that same area, who runs Indopaycom, the command of the United States out in the Pacific, and he uses our data to monitor China for threats across China, but actually industrial facilities that might supply them. Why? Because he wants to get early warning of any threat. So for example, if China are going to attack Taiwan, he wants to get early warning of that. Can he get not just a day warning but a week or a few months? [6:45](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=405) If we can give them that sort of warning then that can help them prepare, deter, help diplomatic options and other things. The point is information is power and by giving it to these countries we can help them defuse tensions and make it more likely we don't need to go to war, right? So that's our mission on the security side and now it's got so big especially because people have seen what's happened in Ukraine, seeing what Admiral Papiro is doing in China and realize, wow, we at Planet are doing something really unique, imaging the whole world. We give everyone a peripheral vision of what's going on to help them see threats earlier. Normally, satellites before Planet were only used to look at the things people knew to look at. The nuclear facility in North Korea, the Russian missile factory, what have you. But we look at everything else and find if there's things that might be emerging that they didn't know they needed to look at so now countries are coming to us and saying can we buy your data can we buy your ai that sits on top to find these new threats and they're also saying hey can we just buy your satellites because we want some of them ourselves as well yeah and we're initially we were like well you could just buy the data and [7:54](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=474) then they were like no no no we really want the satellites so that we have sovereign control of them. So then we started on We're sponsoring the mail on that, and now we've done a number of deals. Japan is buying some of our satellites. Germany is sponsoring and funding another fleet of satellites. We're doing some for Sweden. And these are countries that are now getting their first and best optical reconnaissance system that we build, we launch them into space, and then we hand over the keys so that they get to operate them. And that's also a booming business. So now this is why we're in this lab that's built up, because we're seeing so much demand for all of that. [8:34](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=514) Is all of the demand on the defense side? No. We're seeing the strongest demand there right now. But we are seeing also a boon in commercial business and civil government business as well. So civil government is counties and states trying to use us to help stop wildfires and respond to them, or NASA using it for science and Earth system science. It's Brazil government using it to stop deforestation. But no one can do that on their own. AI is covering all of that. Satellites and the AI enable this scale. At civil government commercial, we just are working with agriculture companies like John Deere, Bayer, BASF. [9:23](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=563) We're working, and there we help them improve crop yields. We work with hedge funds. [9:29](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=569) **Will Marshall:** I can't tell you who, but some of the hedge funds like to work with us to get alpha on stocks and commodities around the planet. [9:36](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=576) We have a lot of understanding of crop yields around the world, a lot of understanding of infrastructure development. We've even had some of the hyperscalers around here buy our data. Why? Because they want to monitor not just their data center construction, but they want to monitor their competitors' data center construction. we have all the understanding of the data center construction all around the world, not just in the US, in China, in other places. So we have a wide variety of applications, but it's true that defense is really what's driving the biggest boon right now. We reported a significant growth last quarter as 58% growth year on year. [10:14](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=614) But I think the biggest part of that was the defense growth. So the other sectors are growing as well, but the defense piece is growing the fastest. Last year at Reagan National Defense Forum, I had an interview with Emile Michael, Undersecretary of Defense for the Department of War, and also the CTO there. And of a few companies, I think it was three or four, he mentioned Planet Labs. Is that why you came? Because you said it was a good idea. Yeah. Look, again, new technology is changing the nature of warfare. Now, it is increasingly hybrid, it's increasingly distributed, and it's increasingly new technologies that can help you address that. [11:01](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=661) Drone, satellites, and AI are the core of that. So, satellites is less known than the drones, but they're playing a critical role around the world, whether that's in Ukraine or in Iran and other places around the planet. I have to ask you, what is the craziest thing or most surprising thing that you've seen? Oh, my God. I've seen so many things. But basically, when you look at a map and you see it's just static, it isn't. The whole world is changing. If you look at a field, the river will move. Human activity is changing everything, but everything is changing. But, I mean, we've seen... What I'm most excited about is what people do with our imagery. [11:44](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=704) Like, it's a huge range of things. To give you some bizarre examples, We had some people in South America protecting dolphins in rivers. Even though we can't see them, we can see the activity that was limiting their... their range or something, and we saw people who use our data in Africa to stop river blindness. You're like, how on earth can we help with river blindness? It's a disease that's river-based, but we obviously can't see what it is. But it's all to do with how close the village is to the stagnant water. And we can see stagnant water in the imagery. So these NGOs were using it to warn villages, you're close to stagnant water, therefore get out of this way or what have you. [12:30](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=750) So it's just all over the place. The most interesting applications on the defense side are a little bit more sensitive, but just know that it's playing a big role in these conflicts around the world. And I believe one that is really helpful for the planet. As I said, diffuse tension, reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties, reduce the likelihood of war at all happening because the best situation is that we don't enter a war in the first place. And information diffuses that tensions because it means that different sides can understand what's going on. This episode is brought to you by Brex, my favorite. [13:12](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=792) You become what you spend on. And I refuse to spend my time on work that shouldn't exist. Expense reports, receipt chasing, and manual closes. the companies building what's next from Vercel, OpenAI, Anthropic, Granola, and Deepgram all made the same call. They all run on Brex. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that combines cards, expenses, and banking into a single stack with agentic finance built in. AI agents that handle expenses automatically enforce policy before spend happens and close your books in minutes. That's why Sorcery runs on Brex, so I can spend time on building and not busy work. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash sorcery. That's B-R-E-X dot com slash S-O-U-R-C-E-R-Y. Bye. From handshake to signature faster, Harvey, the AI platform built for legal work is trusted by 80% of the AMLA 100 and over 20% of the Fortune 500. Learn more today at harvey.ai. That's harvey.ai. AI needs more than chips. It needs power, land, and infrastructure. [14:28](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=868) Zone develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers, and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Zone is building the foundation of the AI frontier. Visit zone frontier.com to learn more. That's zone frontier.com to learn more. To walk through the satellites that you produce, you produce a handful and they're all called different birds. I know we talked about this on the tour, but could you walk through the different use cases or the specs for each one of them, starting with dove? Yeah. So the doves are our mainstay scan. That's the thing that no one else has on the planet, the daily scan of the earth they cover all the earth landmass about 200 million square kilometers so more than the land mass of the earth they cover a bunch of ocean territory as well in eight spectral bands at three meter resolution then we have our pelicans which are our highest resolution satellites and those ones imaged and particular tasks locations that our customers ask for so one is automatically scanning. The other one you say, hey, take a picture of here, here, here, and then we can do that. The most unique aspect of that is that we're building up to a fleet that has much more revisit [15:45](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=945) than anyone else and faster timeliness. So if you say, our goal is that if you say, hey, I want a picture of Tahiti, you can get a picture of Tahiti, you can make the request, get the image back and analyzed in 30 minutes, no matter where it is on the planet. And then we have our Tanager spacecraft, which are hyperspectral satellites. [16:07](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=967) **Will Marshall:** So instead of having three colors like our eye, these have 420 color bands that enable you to sort of get a fingerprint of what you see on the Earth. [16:18](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=978) It's basically 400 different images for every point on the Earth's landmass that you're imaging and with really narrow spectral bands. and that what that enables you to see is not just that that's blue or green there's this type of blue or green such that you can identify tree species crop species so it's useful for ag and biodiversity and monitoring land but it's also good for defense because you can see camouflage and there's a distinction between camouflage and a real vehicle it's good for emissions and pollution so we can detect methane pollutants around the world. So if there's a gas leak, you can literally see the gas. [16:58](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1018) Even though methane gas is colorless, we can see it because in this spectral band, it sticks out like a sore thumb. So we can detect those gas leaks and help tell operators, hey, you've got a gas leak, and then they can turn it off. That's good for the planet, and it's good for them. It saves them money. So basically, different kinds of satellites that do all these different things. They're all about collecting better information to help people make better decisions and actions. And to the point of being in San Francisco, we're moving into the intelligence era. Yeah. You guys are in beta with your AI app. [17:33](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1053) So what are you doing in AI and how does that change? Yeah, well, I mean, what this enables is an explosion of the number of people that can get value out of data. So I used to work at NASA. I know those guys really well that use our data there. It is amazing what they do. But that's because they've got 1,000 people that know how to analyze satellite data. That's great for them. But that farmer in Kansas or the journalist in Kentucky, what the heck are they going to do with 4,047,000 megapixel images every day? They don't know how to deal with that, right? [18:10](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1090) **Will Marshall:** So AI is coming along and is like, you could just ask questions and get answers. That is going to totally explode the number of users. [18:19](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1099) So, you know, I was saying how satellites are going from like a desktop Mainframe to desktop is what we've done on the hardware side This is like the explosion of the number of people that could get value out of it. It's like giving people a desktop that with no software on it and say, all right, off you go For and there one in a thousand people can get value out of it So now you've got a basic operating system that anyone can use now suddenly that computer is useful to everyone right? basically. And that's what we see today. So space hasn't gone through that transition yet. And I think AI is the thing that opens it up for everyone else. So not just the big countries. So I think it's actually going to help with a lot of defense and intelligence because it can, you know, help monitor large areas for threats and so on. But even more, it's going to explode the commercial applications. It's going to explode all the applications in civil government. So many things could be benefited, firefighters trying to stop and respond to fires, farmers, counties trying to just stop illegal activity of whatever, people that don't have permits for swimming pools. I mean, there's just bazillions of use cases of our satellite data in principle, [19:36](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1176) but the AI enables it to have value in practice to them. Adding the layer of AI adds another business model. And we were joking about this when we were walking over there because through all the ai conversations that we have on sorcery it always comes down to compute so where are you first like where are you storing all this how are you handling the shift in business model like where where are you getting all the Well, the compute pieces are simple. We put it on Google Cloud. We have some stuff on AWS as well, but mainly on Google Cloud. Yeah, I mean, it's not changing the business model that much because we were mainly selling data anyway. [20:15](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1215) But now it's just exploding the number of people that can get value out of it. It's true that we're now adding more analytical layers towards what we call solutions, right? That's already using some AI. But the AI tools that you were seeing are much more flexible. So again, it's not so specialized. It's more that you can ask any question in simple language terms, and it will have a go. Satellites, I mean, between what we're seeing with Planet Labs, with Starlink, with even geopolitical issues, like they've just become a really hot topic. One of the hot topics is data centers in space. So have you thought about this at all? [20:56](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1256) Is this rational, irrational? Why would this make sense? We've more than thought about it. We just launched last week the first data centers test project for Google. Suncatcher is the name of their project. And before that, we've launched NVIDIA chips on our Pelican spacecraft. The reason we're putting more compute upstairs is to process the data quickly. It's great if we can do the image processing, recognize the chips, do the querying up there, and then just send down the answers. That means we can get the answers much quicker in the case of the LA fires We took an image within a couple of hours of the fires starting We got it down a couple of hours later and then had processing time Maybe that's another hour and then then they got the image. So now we're talking several hours into the fire What if we could have got that in minutes that could have meant potentially those firefighters saving more lives or those are the first responders getting more quickly to help people, right? [21:54](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1314) So we want to reduce that timeline, and so having compute in space helps with that. Separately, though, yeah, there's like, should we just put all of the computers in space? And yes, I believe it totally makes sense from a basic economic analysis. And why? The intuition comes down to something very simple. Data sensors are all an energy problem. So on the ground, you would naturally power them using solar panels if you were just thinking about the cheapest way to do it because solar panels are the cheapest watts per dollar. However, then you have intermittency because of cloud and nights but you don't want an intermittent data center so then you have to add gas power or you have to add nuclear power. Then now we're starting to get really complicated, much more permitting, much [22:43](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1363) **Will Marshall:** more time. In space for each solar panel you get five times more power than you get on the ground because you can put them in a sun-synchronous orbit [22:54](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1374) that is always looking at the sun. And that means that you just keep the panel facing the sun and it always is drawing power. No interruption from clouds, no interruption from day and night. So you don't have to have batteries, you don't have to have gas, you don't have any of those other power systems. Five times more power, straight to the chips, and then you just have to add radiators to cool those chips into the darkness of space. We know how to do all of those things. and you can send your commands up via radio and get your answers back via radio. There's a little of a latency, but not very much, actually. [23:28](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1408) So it all actually is just going to be cheaper. Notwithstanding that, it's also going to be better for communities that don't want these data centers in their backyard because of rising energy costs, water usage, and other challenges. It's just going to be smarter to put that infrastructure in orbit eventually. Arthur C. Clarke talked about these sorts of ideas, the sci-fi author, many, many decades ago. But now it's finally becoming reality, and the first piece, it eventually will put power in space and... beam that down and other things. But the first piece, by far easiest, is compute. Back to the Google demo, we're just doing a demo to see how their TPUs do in space. [24:09](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1449) We already commissioned the spacecraft, it's doing very well in space, we're very happy, and Google's very happy and it's very exciting. We will test that TPU, we'll see how that goes, and we'll tell the world more about that as we go. How good is AI at real professional work? Merkur's AI Productivity Index, or APEX, tracks it with every major frontier model release. filled with partners like Harvey and Cognition, see where the frontier actually stands at mercore.com slash apex. Today's episode is sponsored by VCX by Fundrise, the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. Learn more at getvcx.com. Public is a multi-asset investing platform where you can automate your investing with AI agents. Create your own custom agent with a simple prompt. Agents can monitor markets, execute trading strategies, and manage your cash across stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and more. Want to buy at market close and sell the next day's open? Just tell your agent. [25:12](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1512) Automate your investing at public.com. Founders scale faster on deal. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. visit deal.com slash sorcery. That's D-E-E-L dot com slash sorcery. So there's increased demand globally. There's also increased sensitivity globally, and this brings in new national security concerns, especially with satellites. Why are satellites so sensitive and such sensitive assets? And what can you compare that to if someone took down a satellite well in many ways satellites are like the sensors of countries they are acting as their eyes and their ears and obviously it's very threatening if you say hey i'm going to take out your eyes and your ears you can't suddenly you're suddenly blind the u.s for example gets its early warning of missile attacks from space that's how it knows if north korea is sending a missile this way. It's missiles with GPS and then there's all this civilian infrastructure that's now dependent on it. You use your maps, you use your iPhone, you're gonna be using GPS. You pay for a credit card, you're gonna be using GPS. [26:28](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1588) You look at those Google Maps, you have satellite layer, you're using satellites. You use the weather report, you're using satellites. People don't realize how much it's baked into our lives today. So it also underpins a lot of our economy. The space economy is a few hundred billion a year, but the dependencies amount to much more than that. And so countries' security depends on it and their economies depend on it in short. As you mentioned earlier, you're scaling across globally and there has been more interest per country. So why has sovereignty increased and what are you seeing? Well, that's the backdrop of the geopolitical fragmentation. U.S. administration has asked other countries to do more in defense and for the U.S. to shift more of the burden to others. And in doing that, a lot of those other countries, the first thing is, well, I first need to understand the threats in my neighborhood. And how do you do that? Well, satellites, we already just mentioned, are how you get your sensing. It's your eyes and your ears. So one of the first things countries want is that. Now, they look around the world and they go, well, who's produced all the eyes and ears? [27:41](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1661) Well, we produced more earth imaging satellites than any other country company And so they of course we're one of the first people they call and so that is driving a lot of demand right now It's very exciting. We can really help countries with their sovereignty needs We can help them have their own satellites to which pointing where they want them to controlling those satellites, and they get to do that really quickly. [28:04](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1684) **Will Marshall:** In the case of Sweden, we managed to launch the first satellite for them in four months after we signed the contract. [28:09](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1689) Wow. Which, you know, normally in the aerospace industry would have taken five or ten years. We did the same for the one sponsored by Germany in just two months. So we can do really fast, and that is a complete game changer. So, you know, two big things that Planet does that no one else does is the daily scan and the fact that we can launch satellites real fast for people and those two things uh we're really leading the world in who's on the no-go list well there's definitely no go lists um i mean firstly there's a list of u.s embargoed countries um the eu has equivalent lists the un obviously we don't tell the terrorists and you know to uh north korea um but we in addition have a group of employees that look at deals and really think how is this aligned with our values and ensuring that we're going to see positive outcomes from that so we really care about this it's something that we think very carefully about we know that our technology is very powerful and we want to be good stewards of that well this is a difficult question you You have probably seen more images of the Earth than anyone else. [29:26](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1766) One, have you seen any... Aliens. Aliens. I knew it. No, in the short answer, we've seen lots of funny things. In fact, the U.S. Air Force Alien Office, whatever it's called, did ask us for imagery, and we did provide. No, I mean, in short answer, there isn't really anything... They move too fast? What's the deal? Yeah, I mean, funny objects, trying to look at flying objects, flying to us, what have you, anomalous stuff. Now, most of it, there isn't really. I'm sad because actually the interesting backdrop is that the universe is remarkably silent. We haven't seen any aliens yet. And that's shocking. [30:12](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1812) My co-founder worked on a mission called TESS at NASA, which was looking at other planets around nearby star systems. So we've now discovered over 6,300 planets all around in the local galactic neighborhood. And none of them have any obvious signs of life yet. And now we're still looking, but in many ways the universe is eerily silent. And this is what Enrico Fermi would now call the Fermi paradox after his question, which is basically, what gives? How come there's so many planets, the universe is so big, and we still haven't heard from the aliens? This is a big question. [30:56](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1856) **Will Marshall:** I predict that we'll actually find life off Earth within the next 10 years. [31:01](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1861) Actually, I predicted that a few years ago, so now it's probably more like six or seven. and the reason is we're going to look at all those planets and look at their atmospheres with the modern best telescopes we have on the earth and the James Webb telescope we can actually tell chemical signatures doing what we do with our tanager satellite about looking out and with that we should be able to see certain signs of the atmosphere that might be indications of life like if you looked at the earth you would see 20% oxygen in the atmosphere that's a dead giveaway because oxygen grabs onto anything it oxidizes iron it oxidizes everything the only reason we have all this abundance is because life is keeps on all the plants keep on pushing all that up if we saw anything like that we would go that planet probably has life we won't be certain we haven't seen the picture of the alien yet but we go that is anomalous we haven't done that yet but with all that survey i think we'll probably find it but still that that could be life that's We would expect to see radio waves from these things, and we've looked at most of those kind of things, and there isn't. We haven't seen any obvious signs of technology or technological [32:10](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1930) life forms, and so that's rather worrying because one possibility is that we get to technology stages and then we blow ourselves up. You know, people seriously worry about this. Like, we've got nukes. We're sort of getting through that. Now we've got AI. Very scary. Obviously, amazing upside potential like we were talking about but also brings real risks as we saw with recent hacking events and other things AI could help terrorists build bad things and and we've got real risks over AI and then there's the whole control thing can we even control it we don't know that the reason it's eerily silent is actually because they blow themselves up when they get this stage Hopefully not. But this is why what we do right now, we're taking care of planet Earth, or as I call it, spaceship Earth, because we're all on a spaceship, a billion of us, like Buckminster Fuller observed. And it's the only place that there is life that we know yet. [33:14](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=1994) Maybe there's other places, but so far it's the only one. Therefore, our responsibility to take care of it and not blow it up is like not just locally important, it's cosmically important. It's our cosmic duty to take care of the Earth. And so, in short answer, no, we haven't seen any aliens, but that makes our role here even more important. Question. Are there any conspiracy theories we should be paying attention to? I'm not a big... I mean, you're talking to a scientist here. Okay. Most of that... My friend at NASA used to run the hotline for aliens, and 90-something percent... The hotline for aliens? [33:53](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2033) Basically. Like if the aliens would call? The crazy... No, no, not the aliens. No, the people calling thinking they've seen aliens. Oh, gosh. Is what it meant. Or the fruitcake line, as he would call it. Oh, no. Because most of it, unfortunately, isn't real. It's like most of it is people observing Venus and not realizing that it's Venus. Over 90% is that one use case, by the way. So, unfortunately, most of these things have very simple explanations. and even the ones that we can't explain, and there are definitely some that we can't explain, the chances of it being aliens are really low. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and we haven't got that. [34:31](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2071) But it's fun to think about aliens in our galactic neighborhood, and I think, again, in the next few years, we might see some. Do you have any particular sci-fi movies or books that you like? Well, I like Star Trek. I like... Probably my favorite is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was made into a film, but the best is the radio series original. Which is, I mean, those guys sometimes were drunk doing this radio, but they were amazingly funny. And that's why, yeah, my favorite number is 42, the answer to life, the universe and everything and all the rest of it. Amazing. OK, so as we close out, I'm going to ask our partner a question. [35:09](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2109) So our partner is Brex, Spending Sparter, Moving Faster, their corporate agentic finance platform. they're super intelligent because that's what we call it now super intelligence um so in terms of the topic of performance i like to take on this in more of like a personal bend like people say you're a culmination of the five people you surround yourself with or people that inspire you or mentor you so i'm curious who is that person or people for you when i was a kid i was really inspired by an astronomer in england called patrick moore who i got to meet he's a bit like the Carl Sagan of England okay and I was young building telescopes not so different from these it's just on the ground pointing up not in space pointing down and and so one of my teachers took me to meet him and he was like a god to me and I was Oh my god, we're going to see Patrick Moore! [36:02](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2162) So he became a bit of a mentor, but I have been lucky to have many mentors that I look up to. I did my PhD very fortuitously with Roger Penrose, who's a mathematical cosmologist. But he doesn't limit himself even to that. I was doing stuff with him on physics, but he also has ideas about consciousness, he speculates, he does amazing stuff in mathematics. like he came up with these Penrose tiling, he could make contributions in cosmology, he actually helped to prove that singularities could really exist in practice, like stars could collapse into a black hole. The theory was clear from Einstein, but he actually proved that a non-symmetric star could eventually be a black hole. So in practice, and that also means that there could be the end of time. If the end of the universe collapses, we don't think we're in that scenario. We think we're going to continue expanding now. But anyway, really interesting mathematics. And I mean, when you meet people like that, it's just, I'm inspired by the genius. [37:06](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2226) I mean, these guys are totally different playing field. And it's very humbling. He at 70, when I was doing my PhD was running rings around all of the rest of the professors and of course me as a student who's probably come in half hangover from the night before and this guy is going you know talking about string theory and cosmology and all the rest of it and it's humbling to see genius basically and so I've been very lucky with mentors like that through my career. When I was at NASA I had Pete Warden, who was a sort of maverick in the space industry. He was in the U.S. Air Force. Then he went to NASA to run the NASA center that I worked at. And we argued a lot, but I learned a [38:02](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2282) **Will Marshall:** huge amount from this guy. And he really gave us a shield at NASA to do innovative things. [38:08](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2288) And that's where we started with this, let's throw some phones into space and see if they worked. Which, by the way, is what led to all of this. Yeah. And so we're very, it sort of brings us right back to where we began. I guess to distill that down, what is the key lesson that you've learned through building the company throughout the years, going public, launching more into space? Well, people say startups are all about timing. I say, and the best idea. And, of course, those things are obviously important. But I'd say persistence and endurance is the biggest thing that actually distinguishes entrepreneurs that succeed and don't. [38:48](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2328) Our team has been at this for years, and we knew that we were on a mission that was really important to help the planet. Security, sustainability, AI, all the things that we can envision, how it can help us. And we weren't going to stop just because some VC said, no, you can't. That's crazy. No one's ever launched that many satellites. no one's ever, you know, whatever. And that determination, that grit is what keeps and that inspiration of helping the planet and making the best positive contribution with these tools is what keeps us going every day. And I was so proud on our 10th anniversary that seven of the first 10 employees of Planet were still working at Planet. [39:33](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2373) Wow. And we just had our 15th anniversary and there's still about half of the first 10 is still a planet. That says a huge amount, right? They could probably work anywhere, these guys. The incredible skills. But they choose to continue to work at Planet because they think the mission's cool. They're doing amazing. They get to work on satellites every day. And who doesn't like that? I don't know. People love it. People love it. And if you haven't watched the tour yet, please watch the tour. It's amazing. Will, thank you so much. What an amazing place to end it. And congrats with all the success. Thanks for coming. [40:09](https://realalpha.app/v/llGHpPbCtHo/?t=2409) Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, Sorcery.bc, where we deliver a once-a-week top deals and tech headlines email, and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.