Starlink

Saronic's 4 Co-Founders on Building a $9.25B Shipbuilder | Part III

Sep 10, 2026 · 59:52

Saronic's co-founders Doug Lambert, Rob Lehman, and Vibhav Altekar join Molly O'Shea to argue autonomous mass production, not exquisite manned ships, decides naval power as China outbuilds the U.S. 230 to 1—1,000+ commercial ships in 2024 to America's 5. COO Doug Lambert details the $3B Port Alpha shipyard, aluminum welding with Path Robotics, Palantir Foundry for manufacturing, and why casting, forging, and wire harnessing must return to the U.S. Rob Lehman says only 1% of the Department of War's ~$1T budget goes to autonomy, wants AI tooling so contracting officers can say yes, and aims to thank two Apache pilots Saronic tech helped. CTO Vibhav Altekar explains hardware-software co-design for 20-G impacts, redundant comms against jamming, the Nvidia partnership, and open-source AI.

Bridgit Mendler Gives Us the First Tour of Northwood's New HQ + Factory

Aug 31, 2026 · 46:17

Bridgit Mendler, co-founder and CEO of Northwood Space, gives Molly O'Shea a tour of the new 185,000 sqft Torrance factory and argues the neglected ground segment is the space economy's biggest bottleneck. Northwood has raised over $136M since 2022, including a $100M Series B led by Washington Harbour and Andreessen Horowitz, and holds a $49.8M Space Force contract for the Satellite Control Network. The factory will 5x capacity, add 400 jobs, and support hundreds of antennas a year; she explains why ground tech hasn't changed since the 1990s and how Northwood brings Portal/Prism production, machining, PCB assembly, and anechoic testing in-house. She also covers site licensing, colocation, supply-chain choices, national-security concerns, and mission ops moving into the former movie theater.