Valley of Depth

Bridgit Mendler took an unconventional path to founding a space infrastructure company, but it led her to one of the industry’s most overlooked bottlenecks: the ground systems connecting satellites to Earth. Now, she’s building Northwood to modernize that critical layer of the space economy, the part that doesn’t get the headlines but matters as much as anything happening above it. 

Northwood recently announced its new Prism product, and we get into the business model, the competitive landscape, the government bet, and one of the most critical questions: if Starlink and Kuiper have already built their own versions of what Northwood is selling, who’s actually buying?

We cover:

• Chapters •

00:00 – Trailer

• Show notes •

Northwood’s website — https://www.northwoodspace.io/

• About us •

Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), Decoding Bio (biotech) and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.

This month, Mo and Jack host a live show on the SpaceX IPO, featuring investors and analysts breaking down the company’s valuation, business lines, and long-term growth story:

We discuss SpaceX’s IPO valuation, Starship’s progress, Starlink and Direct-to-Cell, orbital data centers, AI infrastructure, launch competition, public market appetite, and what it will take for SpaceX to grow into one of the most important companies in the world.

• About us •

Arkaea Media is building the definitive media, events, and intelligence platform for the future of the defense industrial base.

We deliver high-quality journalism and actionable insights that shape the business, policy, and investment decisions underpinning technically complex and highly regulated industries that influence global security.

Our portfolio of publications includes Payload, Tectonic, and Ignition.

On this week's episode of Valley of Depth, we sit down with Ross Fubini, Managing Partner at XYZ Venture Capital, for a conversation about what it actually means to be early in a market nobody believed in.

Ross wrote the first check into Anduril in 2016, alongside Founders Fund, before defense tech was a category, before the term sheet wars, and before the word "primes" became a punchline on X. He did it because he'd spent years inside the Palantir network and understood something others couldn't see from the outside: that the company was an unparalleled crucible for entrepreneurial talent, churning out founders who knew how to sell technology to the hardest customer in the world. XYZ has since backed 40+ Palantir alumni across 130+ companies, and the firm now sits at over $1.5B under management.

We cover:

• Chapters •

00:00 – Episode Trailer

• Show notes •

XYZ’s’ website — https://www.xyz.vc/

• About us •

Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), Decoding Bio (biotech) and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.

On this week's episode of Valley of Depth, our first recorded in person, we sit down with Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, in the company's historic Blue Ghost mission control room in Cedar Park, Texas — the same room where 60 engineers watched their lander touch down at one meter per second last year. 

From there, the conversation opens into how Jason actually thinks: about the Moon, about scale, and about being a "mission CEO" rather than a hardware or software one. Firefly went public in 2025, acquired defense software company SciTec within months, and now sits inside Golden Dome. Jason argues the market still prices the company as a pure launch player while he's building an end-to-end stack he puts in the same conversation as Anduril and Palantir.

We cover:

• Chapters •

00:00 - Trailer

• Show notes •

Firefly’s’ website — https://fireflyspace.com/

• About us •

Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), Decoding Bio (biotech) and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.

This month, Mo and Jack host a live show on the future of Commercial LEO Destinations, featuring leaders building the next generation of space stations:

We discuss station development progress, business models, NASA's role, private astronaut missions, station economics, the transition from the ISS, and what it will take to build a sustainable commercial presence in LEO.

• About us •

Arkaea Media is building the definitive media, events, and intelligence platform for the future of the defense industrial base. We deliver high-quality journalism and actionable insights that shape the business, policy, and investment decisions underpinning technically complex and highly regulated industries that influence global security.

Our portfolio of publications (so far) includes Payload (space) and Tectonic (defense tech).

The United States hasn't flown a Mach 3-plus reusable aircraft since the SR-71 was retired in 1990. Hermeus wants to change that and they want to do it faster, cheaper, and with a fraction of the capital. This week we sit down with Zach Shore, newly appointed CEO, at the moment the company's bet is starting to pay off.

Zach walks us through his evolution from VP of Growth to CEO, the company's record-breaking $219 million DIU contract, and a $350 million raise that has Hermeus entering its most consequential chapter yet. But the real conversation is about the machine behind the machine …how a SpaceX-trained engineering team is iterating on aircraft the way rockets were once iterated on, and why Mach 3 might be the unlock that makes Mach 5 a foregone conclusion.

We cover:

…and much more.

• Chapters •

00:00 - Trailer

• Show notes •

Hermeus’ website — https://www.hermeus.com/

• About us •

Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), Decoding Bio (biotech) and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.

Commercial geospatial intelligence has moved from nice-to-have imagery to core national security infrastructure. And Vantor is trying to reposition itself for that new era.

On this week’s episode of Valley of Depth, we sit down with Dan Smoot, CEO of Vantor, to unpack the company’s transformation from a legacy satellite imagery provider into a space-based intelligence platform serving defense, intelligence, international, and enterprise customers.

The shift is bigger than a rebrand. Vantor is betting that the future of geospatial intelligence is not just sharper pixels from orbit, but the ability to turn space-based data into software, AI-driven insights, autonomous navigation, sovereign intelligence systems, and real-time operational decision-making.

We cover:

…and much more.

• Chapters •

00:00 - Trailer & Intro

• Show notes •

Vantor’s website — https://vantor.com

Vantor’s’ socials — https://x.com/vantortech

Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam

Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace

Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear / 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/

Tectonic’s socials  — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/

Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •

Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.

This month, Mo and Jack host a two-hour live show featuring six leaders from the space industry:

We discuss satellite manufacturing, orbital data centers, in-space mobility, high-power buses, venture capital, and the future shape of the space economy.

• About us •

Arkaea Media is building the definitive media, events, and intelligence platform for the future of the defense industrial base.

Our portfolio of publications (so far) includes Payload (space) and Tectonic (defense tech).

The U.S. military doesn’t have enough pilots—and automation may be the only way to scale airpower. At the same time, Skyryse is formally launching its new defense unit, bringing its software-defined flight system, SkyOS, into military applications.

On this week’s episode of Valley of Depth, we sit down with Mark Groden, CEO of Skyryse, to unpack how the company is building a universal operating system for aircraft that can dramatically simplify flight, reduce pilot burden, and enable fully autonomous operations when needed.

The goal is ambitious: turn helicopters and airplanes into flexible, optionally piloted systems that can shift between crewed and uncrewed missions—unlocking a new model for force projection, logistics, and survivability.

The conversation spans the tragic accident that inspired Mark to start Skyryse, why aviation’s biggest safety problem is really a technology problem, how SkyOS works across platforms from Robinson helicopters to Black Hawks, and why defense demand for autonomy is accelerating faster than most people realize.

We cover:

…and much more.

• Chapters •

00:00 – Intro

• Show notes •

Skyryse’s website — https://skyryse.com/

• About us •

Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.

Yesterday we launched our first-ever live show from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) called “The Space & Defense Market Update.” We brought together investors and analysts operating at every stage of the capital stack to stress-test what's real and what’s priced in.

Capital markets are moving faster than anyone has clean answers for. Data centers in space are attracting serious money and serious skepticism in equal measure. Public market valuations are demanding a level of conviction that leaves little room for error. And NASA just rewrote its lunar roadmap while an astronaut crew prepares to fly around the Moon for the first time in fifty years. Our guests this month are:

We get into:

• Show notes •

Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam