Manifest Space: 25 Years of Service with Iridium Communications CEO Matt Desch 11/9/23

Closing Bell

CNBC

Business, News

4.4 • 141 Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Iridium Communications is celebrating 25 years since its first entrance into commercial service. Since emerging from a Motorola research lab in the 1980s, going through bankruptcy in 1999 & expanding service into satellite, what’s next for the company? CEO Matt Desch, chief executive at the company for nearly 18 years, joins Morgan Brennan to discuss the evolution of the satellite communications industry, competition with SpaceX’s Starlink & its partnership with Qualcomm. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Transcript

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0:00.0	25 years ago Iridium introduced its first commercial service when Vice President
0:05.4	Al Gore used its satellite network to call the great grandson of Alexander Graham Bell.
0:09.4	Born from a Motorola research lab in the late 1980s, Iridium is an old-timer in satellite communications,
0:16.0	going through bankruptcy in 1999 and then transforming and expanding service
0:21.0	through iterations of satellite constellations.
0:24.4	We were probably responsible for creating what I would call, you know, Space 1.0, you know,
0:29.5	is the first low-Earth, low-Earth orbiting system, first one in commercial operation. It wasn't successful
0:36.7	the first time around during the dot-com boom but you know as it emerged from
0:41.5	bankruptcy in 2000 23 years ago we've been really on kind of a rocket ship since then and you know this is a chance for us to celebrate not just that we've survived but that we've really thrived and become kind of a leader in the in the whole
0:58.2	Communication from space industry
1:00.5	Matt Dash has been CEO of Iridium Communications for nearly 18 years, a
1:05.3	unicorn among publicly traded companies. On this episode, Dash talks about the
1:10.4	evolution of the SATCOM industry, why Iridium is not competing with SpaceX's
1:15.8	Starlink, and when that Qualcomm partnership announced earlier this year will finally
1:20.8	materialize as a service feature in Android smartphones.
1:24.0	I'm Morgan Brennan and this is Manifest Space. You have a lot of stuff a foot, but I do want to start with the fact that you are coming up on the 25 year anniversary of the company.
1:41.0	So maybe we could just talk a little bit about what this milestone means and we'll go from there.
1:47.6	Well it's certainly been interesting ride for the company. We were we were actually
1:51.8	conceived almost 35 years ago back in the late 80s and of
1:57.2	course we we were probably responsible for creating what I would call you know space 1.0 you know is the first lower
2:06.2	Earth orbiting system first one in commercial operation it wasn't successful the first
2:12.1	time around during the dot-com boom, but you know as it emerged from bankruptcy in 2023 years ago
	...

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