Planet: Will Marshall and Robbie Schingler

How I Built This · 13 Dec 2021 · 1h 00m

What this episode covers

Will Marshall and Robbie Schingler, co-founders of Planet, explain how they left NASA to build small, inexpensive Earth-observation satellites, starting with prototypes in a garage and launching the first Dove satellites in 2013. They detail the strategic decision to leverage consumer electronics and accept higher failure rates to achieve daily global imaging, eventually scaling to a fleet of over 400 satellites. The company recently went public on the NYSE, raising nearly $600 million, while maintaining an ethics committee to manage the dual-use nature of their data for both humanitarian and security applications.

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