#48 - Delian Asparouhov

Delian Asparouhov is the co-founder, President and Chairman of Varda Space Industries, a company building spacecraft to manufacture materials in microgravity that are difficult or impossible to produce on Earth— starting with pharmaceuticals. He’s also a Partner at Founders Fund.

Previously, he was a principal at Khosla Ventures, head of growth at Teespring, and founder of a healthcare company called Nightingale. Delian is Bulgarian, attended MIT, and likes to ski and play soccer.

0:00 - Intro

3:14 - How Does Innovation Happen?

6:23 - Varda and the No Science Allowed Rule

7:52 - A Primer on Solid State Microgravity Manufacturing

18:25 - Space Industrialization, Trading Posts, and the Chinese and Portuguese Navies

21:13 - Economic Incentives and Future Business Models in Space

24:24 - SpaceX and The Costs of Mass to Orbit

27:45 - Demand for Space Manufacturing and Varda at Scale

33:44 - Manufacturing, Servicing, Machining, and Future Markets for Space

36:42 - Incubating Companies

40:33 - When Would Varda Have Been Started Otherwise?

42:19 - The Hollywood Model of Startups

45:20 - Future of Incubations

47:47 - Media’s Role in Technology

50:39 - What Media Inspired Varda’s Founding?

52:38 - Talent, Culture, and Cementing Company Trajectory

53:57 - Narratives and Talent Recruitment

55:28 - Traits Delian Looks for in Founders

57:38 - The ‘Why Now’ When Investing

1:00:08 - Bring Non-Consensus and Right

1:02:53 - Is Varda Consensus Yet?

1:03:24 - Identifying Non-Consensus Opportunities

1:05:12 - Lessons from Founding and Investing

1:07:40 - What Skill Do You Wish You’d Developed Earlier?

1:10:11 - Immigrant Mentality

1:11:24 - Less Obvious Reasons for Success

1:12:55 - On Speed

1:14:23 - What Should More People Be Thinking About?