Robinhood Co-founder Baiju Bhatt on the Journey to $40B, Building Space Solar Power with Lasers

The Peel with Turner Novak

Turner Novak

Technology

4.6 • 11 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You’re probably familiar with Baiju Bhatt’s work as the co-founder of Robinhood. But he’s also obsessed with space, and recently started Aetherflux, a space solar power company.
We get into the physics of using lasers to beam solar power to the Earth, Aetherflux’s early roadmap, and how he went from zero to one going from building software to physical products.
We also talk through the early days of Robinhood, getting turned down by hundreds of early investors, the accidental launch, how to know if you really have product market fit, how Aaron Levie at Box helped get Robinhood.com, the value of creativity and design, Baiju’s philosophies on combining qualitative and quantitative user research, and his favorite animal and classic car. He also tried to cut my hair.
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:31) Aetherflux: a space solar energy company
(02:50) Origins of space solar power in the 40's & 70's
(10:31) Safely beaming energy from space to Earth with lasers
(13:46) Building floating space solar farms
(21:27) Aetherflux's early roadmap
(27:08) Growing up with dad as a Physics professor
(32:18) Going zero to one building physical products
(35:15) Baiju's favorite car, attempting a haircut, contemplating mustaches
(38:27) Trying to prove Einstein wrong
(41:42) Meeting Robinhood Co-founder Vlad at Stanford
(44:10) Starting an algorithmic trading company
(46:41) The beginnings of Robinhood
(52:04) Getting turned down by hundreds of early investors
(56:49) How they convinced Tim Draper to invest
(59:39) Getting Robinhood.com because of Aaron Levie
(01:01:28) Accidentally launching on a Friday afternoon
(01:03:09) How to know if you have Product Market Fit
(01:06:35) Combining qualitative and quantitative user research
(01:14:23) Loving cats despite being allergic
Referenced:
Robinhood: https://www.robinhood.com
Aetherflux: https://www.aetherflux.com/
TechCrunch coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/09/billionaire-robinhood-co-founder-launches-aetherflux-a-space-based-solar-power-startup/
Seinfeld mustache scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzZsLaLChRg
The Michelson–Morley experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment
Episode with Aaron Levie @ Box: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLn_tqPvNf4

Follow Baiju:
X/Twitter: https://x.com/BaijuBhatt
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bprafulkumar
Follow Turner:
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're going to build a constellation of smaller satellites.
0:02.4	Each one generates power and then transmits that power down to the ground.
0:06.2	Instead of using sort of a phased array of point antennas that use microwave radiation or radio waves,
0:13.9	we want to use beams of infrared lasers.
0:16.8	And the benefits of this are you make everything smaller.
0:20.0	So by using lasers for power transmission, we actually can get a much smaller spot on the ground.
0:26.1	Welcome to the Peel.
0:27.4	I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital.
0:30.0	Today's guest is Beju Bh.
0:32.2	You're probably familiar with his work as the co-founder of Robin Hood, but he's also obsessed with space and recently started Atherflux
0:38.4	as space solar power company.
0:40.2	How do you power humanity, cities, states, nations, the whole world?
0:45.8	That's like the big, broad ambition.
0:48.3	We get into the physics of space solar power and the roadmap for the first tests later this year.
0:53.3	Those are the places where it's hardest to get fuel.
0:55.0	It's the most dangerous, where what we're building, we think, has some pretty inherent advantages.
1:01.0	Baintyree shares how we went from zero to one building physical products.
1:04.0	I built a car.
1:06.0	How Robin Hood first got started.
1:07.0	A lot of people of our generation were like, the system's broken, tear it down. There's another path here which is that you actually make it so that everybody can be a part of it. Getting turned down by hundreds of investors raising the seed round. When we were at the pits of not being able to raise any money, and we went and met with Tim Draper and he's like, great idea, it's never going to work. And he's like, how much are you paying yourselves?
1:29.3	We go inside Robin Hood's accidental launch.
1:32.0	And we're like, oh my God, I think we just announced our product somewhat inadvertently.
	...

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