Ashlee Vance is a Tech Journalist, the author of Elon Musk's 1st biography in 2015, the host of "Hello World" on Youtube and the author of "When the Heavens Went on Sale" as well as the accompanying documentary "Wild Wild Space" following 4 New Space companies. We nerd out on rocket companies, 1 rogue NASA administrator, and the time I got to meet Vladimir Putin years ago.

Sponsor: OpenCage

Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
Geomob

About Ashlee:

• Twitter
• Bloomberg Profile

(Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.)

• Ashlee's books:
  • When the Heavens Went on Sale (Affiliate Link)
  • Elon Musk biography (Affiliate Link)
• Wild Wild Space documentary
• Hello World with Ashlee Vance on Youtube
• NPIC book by Jack O'Conor
  Book & Podcast Recommendation:
• Sonic Wind (Affiliate Link)
• Cocaine & Rhinestones

(00:00) - Intro
(01:33) - Sponsor: OpenCage
(02:59) - Ashlee Describes Himself
(06:12) - Chasing weirdos around the world for a living
(11:22) - The man shaking NASA in the 90s
(16:18) - Following Chris Kemp & the beginnings of Astra
(24:30) - Planet co-founders: Will & Robbie
(28:58) - Needing to convince investors
(31:34) - Will satellite imagery ever get mainstream?
(34:50) - A tangent on the US Spy satellite program
(36:47) - Starlink
(38:28) - Privatization
(48:43) - Space Industry outside of the US
(55:23) - Russia's aerospace pride: The time I met Putin
(59:18) - What's on Ashlee's radar
(01:01:42) - People or Companies?
(01:04:01) - Documentary Reception
(01:05:08) - The business of documentaries
(01:08:27) - YouTube
(01:12:45) - Book/podcast recommendation
(01:16:08) - No iPhone?
(01:19:38) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Luke Fischer is the Co-Founder & CEO of SkyFi, a company that we'll describe in a few ways in this episode, but boils down to an Earth Observation marketplace. We talk about Luke's 20 year time in the military before getting into startups, why Luke is bullish on their approach and many more

Sponsor: SatCamp
SatCamp is a different kind of conference, from October 1st to October 3rd 2024, in Boulder Colorado

About

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• SkyFi

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy

• Gabe -unit economics- Dominocielo
• Bill Perkins
• Die with Zero
• Silicon Valley No Revenue
• Book & Podcast recommendations
  • Freedom’s Forge (Affiliate Link)
  • BigDeal by Codie Sanchez

(00:00) - Intro
(00:50) - Sponsor: SatCamp
(02:41) - Luke describes himself
(04:21) - Getting into the satellite image industry
(07:13) - Risks starting a company
(10:16) - Don't start a marketplace
(18:22) - Racing to get customers
(23:08) - What is the Product in all of this?
(25:00) - What is the product that SkyFi needs to build today?
(28:17) - Who is this for?
(33:08) - Biggest pain points
(37:44) - The market's view of Earth Observation businesses
(45:00) - Pivoting from the military
(51:28) - Hiring
(59:12) - Raising big, early
(01:02:08) - Predicting the industry in 2.5 years
(01:09:05) - Consumer market?
(01:14:24) - Health & family
(01:26:05) - Community while all Remote
(01:30:25) - Book & Podcast Recommendation
(01:33:09) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Ben Strong is the Science & Machine Learning Lead at Earth Genome, an NGO working on the intersection of data, science & digital design. Most recently they've been working on Earth Index, an application built on top of Earth embeddings from foundation models. This conversation is the "so what" of Earth foundational model

Sponsor: OpenCage

Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
Geomob

• LinkedIn

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Ben’s blogpost on NDA sequencing for the Earth
• Earth Genome
• Earth Index
• Book & Podcast recommendation
  • Demo Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Affiliate Link)
  • Risky Business

(00:00) - Intro
(00:46) - Sponsor: OpenCage
(02:12) - Ben introduces himself
(03:28) - "DNA sequencing" for Earth
(13:37) - Not building another Foundation Model
(18:06) - Earth embeddings: So what?
(21:49) - What does locally finetuned mean?
(25:48) - Invite only for now: Why?
(29:31) - Journalistic applications
(31:59) - Yet another tool for finding images?
(35:09) - Deciding what to work on
(38:35) - Designing for simplicity
(44:14) - So, why hasn't Google made this?
(51:18) - Funding
(59:54) - Book & podcast Recommendations

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Ib Green led the development of 3D visualisation tools like for example Uber’s deck.gl and is now working at Foursquare, after having started Unfolded, which Foursquare acquired. During this conversation we touch on how browser based visualisations are changing

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• LinkedIn

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Kepler.gl
• Deck.gl
• Foursquare
• Kyle Barron
• Peak Math

(00:00) - Intro

(00:41) - Support the podcast on Patreon

(01:43) - Ib describes himself

(02:33) - How lb got to where he is today

(07:47) - Uber's need for visualization tools

(15:11) - Why do companies build open source tools?

(17:46) - Open source to open governance

(23:41) - Starting a company

(26:31) - How Unfolded generates revenue

(28:28) - Nerding out on browser based visualization tech

(35:11) - Client side rendering challenges

(39:27) - Competing against the smartphone

(41:38) - Looking ahead

(47:43) - Book & Podcast recommendations

(50:24) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Bruno Sanchez is the Executive Director of the Clay Foundation, which just released their v1 of a “Foundational Model of Earth”. We talk about what that means, building open source & non profits and can’t help but draw parallels to the not-so-open anymore OpenAI. Previously Bruno was the Program Director of the Microsoft Planetary Computer

Sponsor: OpenCage

Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
Geomob

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Clay
  • Github repo
  • Website
• My previous interview with Bruno
• Book & Podcast recommendation
  • A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins (Affiliate Link)
  • Bad Therapy by Abigael Shrier (Affiliate Link)

(00:00) - Intro

(01:59) - Sponsor: OpenCage

(03:39) - What is a Foundational Model?

(08:45) - Foundational Task

(11:00) - Embeddings, and why they matter

(13:49) - Comparing to compression algorithms

(16:57) - What do embeddings enable?

(19:50) - Finding the Relationship between data

(24:16) - Implementation of monitoring all the data - I believe this is where you're going with the question

(25:44) - Implementation details

(27:52) - Validating a foundational model

(33:49) - Earth is a "limited problem"

(42:47) - Funding as a non-profit

(47:53) - Raising enough philanthropic funding

(53:02) - A Litmus test for open projects

(56:26) - Future predictions

(58:01) - Transparency/privacy

(01:00:53) - Commercial data

(01:03:36) - Openstreetmap

(01:05:49) - Updating foundational models

(01:12:17) - Clay model v2?

(01:13:43) - Dataset to embedding size comparison

(01:14:41) - Model v2 - continued

(01:16:45) - Difference working at a non-profit vs a corp

(01:20:27) - Book & Podcast recommendation

(01:24:01) - Support the podcast on Patreon!

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Dr Fred Calef III has the unofficial title of "Keeper of Maps" at NASA JPL, he's the Lead Mapping Specialist for most of JPL's Mars Rover missions, most recently that being Perseverance & Curiosity. But to land -and navigate- a rover, one needs maps, and Fred makes them.

Try out Kermap's monthly mosaic viewer Nimbo for yourself

Support the podcast on Patreon

• Twitter
• Mastodon

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• VICAR Github repo (Video Image Communication & Retrieval)
• Mars 2020 Rover: Terrain Relative Navigation
• Airy-o crater
• 7 Minutes to Mars
• MMGIS (Multi Planet Geospatial Information System)
  • Github Repo
  • Mars Rover Location Map

Book recommendations

• Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (Affiliate Link)
• The Martian by Andy Weird (Affiliate Link)

(00:00) - Introduction

(00:48) - Sponsor: Nimbo by Kermap

(02:23) - How would you describe yourself?

(03:18) - Keeper of the Maps

(05:04) - What it takes to map Mars

(10:21) - Deciding where to put (0,0)

(12:33) - Current accuracy of Mars mapping

(14:01) - 150m / pixel: How do you find anything?

(18:14) - Rover cameras on the ground

(22:39) - Creating detailed maps for the Rover's automation

(26:07) - How would we be navigating on Mars if we send people there?

(31:20) - Comparing to the early days of car navigation

(34:15) - Using a compass on Mars

(36:13) - Mapping tools

(48:54) - Has every image of Mars been seen by at least 1 person?

(53:37) - Mars doesn't change that much

(56:45) - More strange difference between Mars & Earth

(01:00:53) - Mapping other celestial bodies

(01:05:04) - Missions or mapping projects that Fred is looking forward to

(01:06:10) - Book/podcast recommendation

(01:10:06) - One last question: Mars time

(01:13:19) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Sponsor: OpenCage

Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
Geomob

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• GeoLayers
• geolayers.app
• Johnny Harris
  • Markus’s cameo in a recent video
• Search Party
• Felt
• Procreate dreams
• Jason Boone’s episode
• Podcast recommendation: Syntax.fm

(00:00) - Intro
(02:26) - Sponsor: OpenCage
(03:52) - Markus Describes himself
(04:29) - GEOlayers in simple terms
(05:50) - From Motion Designer, to Map Animation Developer
(07:51) - The team behind GEOlayers
(08:20) - How does a Motion Designer turn into software engineer?
(10:45) - Tricky nature of Map Animation
(13:10) - OpenStreetMap
(14:57) - Markus before and after diving into GIS
(17:01) - Map projections
(20:01) - Business Model & Funding
(24:08) - Self Funding
(26:38) - Being your own user
(27:37) - GEOLayers used on Youtube
(30:23) - Working with creator, example of Johnny Harris
(32:20) - Paid Support
(33:33) - Focusing ones time on what you enjoy doing
(35:11) - Making a web app
(42:35) - Subscription models
(46:34) - Expectations in modern software business models
(49:22) - High tech barrier to entry
(55:01) - Inspiration from 2 other projects
(01:05:32) - The future of GEOLayers
(01:07:21) - Local vs Web based software
(01:16:13) - Marketing & Social Media
(01:20:50) - Book/podcast recommendation
(01:23:18) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Volodymyr Agafonkin is the creator of Leaflet, an open-source JS mapping library started in 2008 that is used pretty much everywhere on the Internet today. We end up nerding out on what makes building simple open source software & rendering maps online tricky but also so endlessly interesting. Volodymyr lives in Ukraine, a country shaken by a war for the past few years, which we also talk about.

Try out Kermap's monthly mosaic viewer Nimbo for yourself

Support the podcast on Patreon

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Website

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• Leaflet
• Mapbox blogpost on adaptive map projections
• CloudMade
• How Simplicity Will Save GIS
• Books & Podcasts
  • The Storyteller by Dave Grohl (Affiliate Link)
  • My Effin’ Life by Geddy Lee (Affiliate Link)
  • Reply All podcast
  • Search Engine podcast
  • Heavyweight podcast

(00:00) - Intro
(01:50) - Sponsor: Nimbo
(03:26) - Volodymyr Describes Himself
(04:22) - The story behind Leaflet
(13:31) - Cloudmade Backstory
(16:42) - From closed software to open source
(23:43) - Maintaining high quality code
(27:56) - Cloudmade today
(31:21) - Leaflet, funding, sustainable
(35:09) - Raster vs Vector maps
(41:34) - Map projections
(46:36) - Current main challenges to mapping
(50:52) - Future of Leaflet
(51:54) - Leaflet and Ukraine
(01:05:39) - Book & Podcast recommendation
(01:09:35) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work