Ex-SpaceX PM: Why I Left Starlink After 3 Months
Jason Calacanis talks with Rama Afullo, an ex-SpaceX product manager and founder of Satlit, which builds software to run AI across satellites from different makers, about why computing is moving to space.
The gist
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Afullo says he left his Starlink product manager role after 3 months when SpaceX dismissed orbital compute, then started Satlit just over two years ago.
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Afullo says Starship launches cost about $1,000 per kilogram and need to reach about $100 to match ground data centers, while rideshare costs $15,000.
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In Satlit's demo, Google's Gemma runs on satellites to filter data, finding only 11.7% worth sending down at $10 to $20 per gigabyte.
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Afullo says Nvidia Jetson Nano boards with spinning fans have survived launch and run in orbit, though radiation shielding helps them last longer.
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On heat, Afullo says both camps are right: space is cold, but chips still need large radiators to push heat out.
"In this case we've chosen to use Google Gemma as a small language model, so running on the edge in space. And we've done this exact experiment in space already on a couple of satellites, and Google DeepMind actually did a case study on the work we've done here."
▶ Play at 21:222 creators recommend it, including Greg Isenberg.
See all on the Gemma page"Right now, we've got a lot of Nvidia Jetson Nanos in orbit and they have a spinning fan and they've got all sorts of moving parts that survive the launch, survive everything, and they're operating in orbit."
▶ Play at 30:33What they recommend · 2 picks
"In this case we've chosen to use Google Gemma as a small language model, so running on the edge in space. And we've done this exact experiment in space already on a couple of sa..."
"Right now, we've got a lot of Nvidia Jetson Nanos in orbit and they have a spinning fan and they've got all sorts of moving parts that survive the launch, survive everything, an..."
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