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Once upon a time, San Francisco was a manufacturing town. For decades, the Union Iron Works built shipssuch as the U.S. Navy’s U.S.S. Oregon (1893) and U.S.S. Wisconsin (1898)in its plant on Pier 70 in the neighborhood now known as Dogpatch. In recent years, that sprawling, long-abandoned complex has been rehabbed and filled with office space, housing, retail, and art studios. Among its tenants are startup accelerator Y Combinator and HR platform Gusto, neither of which has much in common with the Union Iron Works. And then theres Astranis. The company is returning Pier 70 to its roots by applying human labor to turn raw materials into finished products. The products in question happen to be high-orbit satellites. Astranis has sent five of them into space, is currently building five more, and intends to scale up its capacity to manufacture 24 at a time. Now, by the standards of consumer electronics, cranking out 24 of something may not sound like a feat. For satellites, however, it’s a completely unprecedented number for geostationary and high orbits, where these satellites have historically been built one at a time,” says Astranis cofounder and CEO John Gedmark. Astranis headquarters at San Franciscos historic Pier 70. [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis] Astraniss breakthrough isnt just about speed of production. Its MicroGEO satellites are remarkably compactabout the size of a commercial washing machine, downsized from typical school bus-sized units. They are designed to be affordable, in an industry where cost overruns in the billions have been common. Rather than relying on analog technology, they use software-defined radios, which make customization and updates far more practical. So far, Astraniss quest has taken a decade and $800 million in funding from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, and Fidelity. Signs that the company is on its way to success include its announcement in early August that two satellites it had launched for Anuvua provider of mobile Wi-Fi whose customers include Southwest Airlineshad reached orbit and were operating as intended. Later in the month, it said that it had been named as a prime contractor for the U.S. Space Force program, with an initial six-month contract to design and test a jam-resistant military satellite. If Astranis is still in the process of proving the worth of its unique approach to satellites, its in part because what its trying to do is so complex that nobody has attempted it before. We had to go get a few hundred of the world’s best hardware engineers and put them all in one building, and have them working for years at a time, like a Manhattan Project, to get to this point, says Gedmark. To us, it’s not surprising that it hasn’t happened already, because it just turns out its really hard. Spaces next frontiers Astraniss current momentum is the culmination of Gedmarks entire career in space technology. The son of a doctor and a hospital chaplain, he was born and raised in Kentucky. After earning degrees in aerospace engineering from Purdue and Stanford, he found work at big aerospace and defense contractors but was frustrated by the industrys plodding pace. He then became director of rocket flight operations for the X Prize Foundation, which led to him cofounding and running a nonprofit trade group called the Commercial Space Federation (CSF). These jobs exposed him to the progress being made by new-wave space startups such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. “I got to see the birth of this new industry,” he remembers. During the first Obama administration, as the U.S. plotted a post-Space Shuttle future, Gedmarks role at the CSF allowed him to be part of the conversation. The ultimate decision was to rely on private companies to perform tasks such as delivering crew and cargo to the International Space Station, greatly accelerating the commercial space industry. Astranis cofounder and CEO John Gedmark [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis] Though Gedmark found this boom inspiring, he also identified a hole in it. “All the new activity and hype and excitement were in low earth orbit,” he says. “And nobody was doing things in these high orbits, like geostationary orbit [GEO]. And the crazy thing was that those orbits are actually incredibly important, and are historically where most of the value has been created in space.” Like the International Space Station, most satellites are in low earth orbit, no more than 1,200 miles away. Geostationary orbit is 22,236 miles from us. Rockets cant get a satellite all the way there; the final leg of the journey requires onboard propulsion. But Gedmark and Astranis cofounder and CTO Ryan McLinko realized that even a small satellite in GEO could cover an entire medium-sized country with broadband connectivity, Gedmark explains. That factand the potential for a startup to move more quickly than the satellite industrys giantsled them to start Astranis. In 2016, the company participated in Y Combinator’s accelerator program, years before they became Pier 70 neighbors. And a little over two years after its founding, it notched its first achievement by launching a 10-cm-square satellite, dubbed DemoSat 2, into orbit to help test its software-defined radio technology. “We decided when we were just a handful of people basically working out of an apartment that we wanted to put something in space and show we could do it quickly and show that it worked, says Gedmark. Since then, Astranis has continued to chip away at its vision for transforming communications, though not without blips along the way. For example, the company didnt eet its original goal of launching its first satellite in 2019. After further pandemic-related delays, its Arcturus satellite took off on SpaceXs Falcon Heavy launch vehicle in April 2023. Problems with a component provided by a third-party supplier ultimately prevented Arcturus from fulfilling its original mission of providing internet access for an Alaska-based telecom company. Space is hard, noted Gedmark in a blog post about the mishap. Astranis VP Christian Keil joined the company in 2019, when it had 50 employees. Praising Gedmark as super analytical and very, very detail oriented, he says that space is particularly hard when your approach involves so many disruptive elements. We’ve learned so much from doing all these things for the first time that if you transported any one of us back seven years, wed be able to avoid some of the mistakes that we made along the way, he acknowledges. But thats part of doing something new. Made in San Francisco Almost eight years after its DemoSat 2 launch, Astranis has grown from a handful of people to 500 staffers. At first blush, it might be startling that the vast majority of them are in San Francisco. After all, the U.S. manufacturing renaissance, such as it is, has gravitated toward parts of the country where labor costs are lower. For instance, a few years ago, when Intel announced plans to dramatically ramp up its domestic chip production capacity, they involved expansion in Arizona and Ohio, both far afield of its Santa Clara, California headquarters. Astranis staffers at work on one of the companys MicroGEO satellitesso called because theyre small by satellite standards and circle the earth in geostationary orbit. [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis] But Gedmark, who relocated to the Bay Area in 2012, says that everything about what Astranis was trying to accomplish told him it should be in San Francisco, from getting access to capital to hiring people who might otherwise be working at companies such as Broadcom or Qualcomm. “The Bay Area has those talent pools across all those different specialties in one place, I think, quite uniquely,” he says. “And then there’s something in the air of this place, knowing that you can go start some crazy new idea and people will jump in quickly and work on it.” The property the company ended up leasing at Pier 70 retains evocative evidence of its shipbuilding legacy. For instance, a vintage crane marked 30 TONS still hovers majestically from the ceiling. But the place also has more recent ties to the San Francisco innovation economyand maybe some reminders that not every hyper-ambitious attempt to change the world from San Francisco leads anywhere. Thats because most of it was originally rehabbed for Uber ATG, the ride-hailing company’s gambit to develop its own self-driving vehicles. The handsome renovation brought the long-decaying space up to modern earthquake safety code and even won architectural awards. Soon thereafter, however, Uber gave up on building its own robotaxis. It ended up offloading ATG to the autonomous trucking company Aurora, providing Astranis with the opportunity to snag itself a freshly remodeled headquarters. When the company expanded into an adjoining building, it found mysterious blueprints of giant orbs lying around. Only later did it learn that the previous occupant was a display technology startup that had been acquired by Madison Square Garden when it was creating Las Vegas’s Sphere. Astranis needs as much space as it does because its taking on full responsibility for its satellites, from crafting components and developing software to owning and operating the fleet. As Steve Jobs might have put it, the company is building the whole widgetnot standard practice in the space business, where subcontracting and outsourcing are typical, and the companies that build satellites usually dont manage them once theyre in orbit. Consequently, a portion of the companys San Francisco headquarters is devoted to a 24/7 mission control center. Gedmark describes the companys MicroGEO satellites as “pretty autonomous” and the atmosphere in mission control as “pretty chill,” though human oversight is crucial during launches and early deployment. It’s also occasionally necessary to fire thrusters to keep a satellite in its appointed orbital slot. Astranis staffers monitoring satellites in orbit from the companys mission control center. [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis] As for the manufacturing process, Gedmark says that one of the big lessons has been how hard it is to move fast when youre dependent on others. We’ve had to do a lot more in-house than we thought we were going to need to, he told me. Lead times are a lot longer than we thought they would be. And so, during my two visits to Astranis’s headquarters, the big news was the arrival ofan enormous piece of machining equipment known as the Makino Mag3.EX. A lightly used second-hand modelGedmark thinks it was formerly used in the production of F-35 fighter jetsAstraniss Mag3.EX allows the company to make its own parts out of blocks of aluminum alloy. The process is responsible for the oily whiff of coolant in the air and produces detritus in the form of humongous quantities of tiny aluminum shards. They sit by the vatful near the Mag3.EX, awaiting recycling. Before Astranis was able to crank out aluminum components on the premises, it contracted out to get ones made using honeycomb sandwich construction, a common technique in satellite manufacturing. Such parts are lightweight and sturdy. But you might have to wait a year for your order to be filled. Aluminum is a tad heavier, but Gedmark says that the trade-off is eminently worth it. Astranis everywhere Watching Astranis at work, its clear that the company has come a long way since it was an untested big idea. The companys original missioncutting satellites down to size to bring affordable connectivity to underserved parts of the worldremains critical, and the companys customer list is truly international, reflecting the U.S.s dominance of the commercial space industry. When [other countries] need something like this, they have to come to us, says Gedmark. After Id toured the factory, Gedmark told me that one of the satellites Id seen in the process of being manufactured was for a customer in Thailand. Another was headed for the Philippines. Two more were for a Mexican internet service provider (ISP) that wants to provide 5 million people with broadband they can afford. Still another satellite currently in production was ordered by Taiwans largest telecommunications company. It will be the countrys first dedicated satellite. A satellite assembly area at Astranis headquarters. [Photo: Courtesy of Astranis] Taiwan also factors into a market that has emerged more recently for Astraniss satellites: defense applications. Thats because of the long-feared possibility of the country being invaded by China, which Gedmark says he believes could become a reality in two to three years. The U.S.s dependence on relatively few satellites could lead to war in space, with China seeking to hobble any attempts to come to Taiwans rescue. “In a conflict with China over Taiwan, one of the first things that will happen literally on day oneis that a bunch of our most important military satellites will just blink out,” says Gedmark. “And by the way, we won’t necessarily know exactly who did it.” The impact would instantly overflow into civilian life, which is dependent on services such as GPS for everything from wireless phone calls to air traffic control. Already, Gedmark says, China has invested in a bevy of anti-satellite technologies, from lasers to satellites equipped with robot arms that would allow them to grab other satellites. Its a terrifying prospect, but one that a swarm of MicroGEO satellites might be able to help forestall, he argues. The hope is that it’s a deterrent, if you have enough of these satellites up that the Chinese are just like, “Oh, okay, we can’t shoot all of them down. It’s just too many. Then hopefully they decide not to go after this tempting target. Astranis fortifying the U.S.s ability to defend itself in such a scenario is dependent on the company realizing its targets for satellite production and deployment. But developments such as the company being named as a prime contractor suggest it could have a future in military technology, an industry long dominated by a few slow-moving behemoths. Last year, it was also one of four companies that won Space Force contracts to work on design concepts for Resilient GPS, a version of the technology less susceptible to attack. According to Gedmark, the Pentagon is continuing to dial back the bureaucracy that has stood in the way of it acquiring technology from smaller companies, mirroring the changes at NASA that made the commercial space business possible. “It’s very exciting to see the Department of Defense, or the Department of War, come around,” he says, calling the organization by both its post-WWII name and the Trump administration’s bellicose rebrand. “It’s the exact same playbook.” Could a relatively small company such as Astranis play a meaningful role in maintaining the U.S.s preeminence over China, this centurys other space superpower? Gedmark thinks so. And he contends that the entrepreneurial model that made his startup possible in the first place still beats Chinese central planning. This is a uniquely American thing, he says. This is our edge. It’s our ability to get the capital together, get the people together, and go build a new thing that previously just did not exist. Maybe the fact that Astranis built its factory in San Franciscothe epicenter of that go-for-it spiritisnt such a shocker after all.
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E-Commerce
The front of the Wheaties box has served as a hall of fame for some of the greatest athletes of all time, from baseball star Lou Gehrig to boxer Muhammid Ali, basketball legend Michael Jordan, and seven-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles. Now, a fresh face is gracing the boxs hallowed orange frame: Marty Mauser, the fictional ping-pong player played by Timothée Chalamet in A24s upcoming film Marty Supreme. [Screenshot: Instagram] The cereal box comes just weeks after A24 released a now-viral 18-minute long parody of a marketing meeting to promote the movie (which releases on Christmas). In that video, Chalamet joins a Zoom call full of supposed marketing executives and proceeds to fill up the meetings airtime with increasingly ridiculous suggestions for the films marketing efforts, leaving the eight other members of the call scrambling to accommodate his wild ideas. Since then, several of the comedic ideas have, astonishingly, become realityincluding an ad campaign on bright orange blimps and, now, a $25 limited-edition Wheaties box. Our current era of movie marketing is dominated by discussion of properties like Barbie and Wicked, which have rewritten the roles of brand partnerships by flooding stores everywhere with hundreds of collabs per film (Wicked part one, for example, netted more than 400 collabs). When Barbie can show up on a Heinz bottle and Elphaba in a box of mac n cheese, the novelty of movie-branded partnerships can start to wear off. A24 is combatting that consumer fatigue with a masterclass marketing campaign for Marty Supreme. Its co-branded merch balances scarcity, which makes every drop feel aspirational, with a kind of unexpected flair that makes perfect sense for the filmand for its audience of young Chalamet fans. How Marty Supreme is courting its young audience In late November, Chalamet posted the address of a New York storefront with the message, C u at 7. By 4:30, fans were lined up around the block. View this post on Instagram They were queuing to get their hands on what turned out to be a line of Marty Supreme-themed merch, designed by the luxury L.A.-based brand Nahmias. Every item sold out, but one in particulara $250 windbreaker inspired by an outfit from the showwas the clear star of the show. Since then, its sold for $5,000 on Grailed and become a topic of considerable discourse on Reddit, where users are avidly yearning for a bigger drop. View this post on Instagram The Marty Supreme marketing campaign is leaning unabashedly on Chalamets star power and influence with a younger, primarily male audienceand clearly, its working. Chalamets audience wants a piece of his effortless swagger, and that becomes even more desirable when, instead of being available on the shelves of every local Target and countless digital Amazon storefronts (Wicked, were looking at you), his Marty Supreme collabs are only available in the most limited of supply. That thought process clearly also applies to this new collab with Wheaties. Why the Marty Supreme marketing campaign is genius, actually Like the windbreaker, the Wheaties collab is directly tied to a moment in the film, when Marty, (whos portrayed as an extremely confident, assertive salesman), says, It’s only a matter of time before I’m staring at you from the cover of a Wheaties box. Its also a reference to the aforementioned Zoom parody, wherein Chalamet tries to convince the marketing team that Marty deserves a spot on the Wheaties box alongside names like Michael Jordan. To me, its marketing 101, Chalamet says in the video. Apparently, the team at Wheaties agrees. View this post on Instagram For more than 100 years, Wheaties has celebrated iconic athletes and moments in culture that transcend boundaries, from sports to unexpected heroes, says Emilie Knox, vice president and business unit director of cereal at General Mills. Marty Supreme fits squarely into that tradition as he embodies determination, heart, and the belief that greatness can come from the most unexpected places. When designing the box, the Wheaties team leaned into its most recognizable brand elements, including its iconic orangewhich, coincidentally, is also the central color of Marty Supremeand the featured figure front-and-center. A fictional athlete, with real return? General Mills produced several thousand of the special edition boxes, each at the hefty price point of $25, which Knox says reflects the collectible nature of the box and its limited run. On Reddit, users are skeptical of the cost. One commenter wrote, This would be a cool giveaway gift, but for $25 you will not be staring at me from the cover of a Wheaties boxa sentiment that appears to be shared by several others. [Image: A24/General Mills] Wheaties declined to share specific numbers, but as of this writing, the limited box is already ‘sold out’ on the A24 website after going less just a day ago, creating a sense of scarcity among consumers (though its still available through Wheaties’ site). According to Knox, the early response has been extremely strong, with collectors moving quickly to get their hands on a box. A24s marketing team has been incredible partners, Knox says. The playful teasers leading up to the drop, like the Zoom marketing call seen around the world, were driven by their creative genius, and weve had a lot of fun working together to continue building fan excitement. Marty Supremes marketing prioritizes depth over breadth, opting to prioritize a few deeply thought-out collabs over an all-out blitz. Ironically, by limiting its marketing’s scope and availability, the films team has managed to break through the sea of content online and reach new audiences.
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E-Commerce
AI is part and parcel of many corporate design processes these days, including one company making a product many creatives are familiar with: Dropbox. Its VP of design and research, Shannon Butler, is optimistic about the techs integrations into her teams workas long as designers are pragmatic in its integrations. Butler leads a design team that she feels has a bigger impact than filing deliverables on deadline: redefining work through the intersection of creativity, collaboration, and AI. A veteran of Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and LinkedIn, Shannon has spent two decades shaping products that influence how billions connect and create. Shannon Butler [Photo: Dropbox] In her interview with University of Texas School of Design and Creative Technology assistant dean Doreen Lorenzo, Shannon discusses how Dropbox is reimagining design in the age of AInot as a replacement for human creativity, but as a force multiplier for it. She reflects on lessons from leading design through hypergrowth and crisis, the role of taste as the next big differentiator in tech, and why the future of design leadership will depend less on tools and more on human judgment, curiosity, and conviction. When did you realize you were interested in design? Like many creatives, I was always a maker: drawing, writing, creating. The pivotal moment came in college. I was studying to be a teacher but told my dad I wanted to be an artist and didnt know how to make a career of it. My dad, a self-taught software engineer, said, You need to be in technology. This was when CSS and JavaScript were freeing web design from rigid HTML tables. I started building websites for small businesses to pay for college and graduated with a full roster of freelance clients. That led to a marketing agency role helping larger clients go online. Then the iPhone came out, the world discovered UX, and the rest is history. How is AI influencing your work from a design perspective? We have this unique opportunity to make design a differentiator again, by putting ourselves in a human-first perspective rather than an AI-first perspective. Dropbox isnt using AI to replace people or steal from creatives. Were inserting it into creative workflows so that output is amplified and accelerated. By removing the grunt work of knowledge management or finding the right assets, we empower people to become even better at what they do, whether that’s crafting a commercial, running a photo shoot, or pitching a business plan, all the things that only humans can do. What do you enjoy about the meshing of technology and design? The scale is unmatched. I’ve been fortunate to work on products that don’t just serve users, they actually shape how society connects, creates, collaborates. I see that as both a tremendous privilege and responsibility that I take very seriously. I also love the pace. Technology moves so fast that you’re constantly operating at the edge of what’s never been done before. At YouTube, we invented new ways for creators to build community. At Airbnb, we reimagined trust between strangers. At Google, we designed for billions coming online for the first time. You have to be visionary and pragmaticdesigning experiences that feel magical while working within technological constraints. Its like being an architect who not only designs buildings but new ways to live. Can AI play a role in making peoples lives better through design? AI is an accelerant to the design process. Tools like Cursor and Figma Make are now essential for rapid prototyping. We built internal Slack channels called Ask a Writer or Ask a Researcher that tap into our brand guidelines and research repositories instantly. The speed boost is dramatic. Were getting to meaningful first drafts in hours, not days. But our approach is pragmatic. AIs limitations are realsome temporary, some long-lasting. We use it as a brainstorming partner, not a decision-maker. Anything customer-facing goes through rigorous human review. AI can optimize for metrics, but it cant make judgment calls. It doesnt grasp cultural nuance, brand intuition, or the subtle human behaviors that build long-term loyalty. Thats where designers become more valuable, not less. Who inspires you, and how does that show up in your work? Im drawn to people who refuse to accept thats just how its done, especially in a tech landscape where consolidation has created a dangerous gravitational pull toward sameness. What energizes me are leaders who stay true to their values, even when it’s harder. RJ Scaringe, CEO of Rivian, could have built a Tesla clone, but hes challenging the industry without sacrificing brand or product excellence for short-term goals. I also admire investors like Kate McAndrew at Baukunst, who unapologetically focus on women, creativity, and the long view in an industry obsessed with quick exits. Shes proving the status quo can change. Across your career, what projects are you most proud of? Im drawn to win-win-win projects where customers, business, and society all benefitproblems that feel almost nonprofit in ambition but are positioned for sustainable impact at scale. At Google, we worked on products to bridge the connectivity divide in underserved marketsexploring satellite-delivered content and peer-to-peer transfer when those approaches were considered radical. The goal was to bring the internet to billions who couldnt access it via traditional infrastructure. At YouTube, I loved the transformation from distraction media to engagement media. We built features that empowered creators and supported movements like It Gets Better. The comments sections of videos improved from cesspool quality to featuring content almost as compelling as the videos. At Airbnb, I led Trust, core to the vlue proposition. Later I led nearly every product area through COVID and the IPO. AirCover was the culmination, radically transforming what happens when something goes wrong on a trip and eliminating the fear that prevents people from trusting strangers or having transformative experiences. The throughlines have been purpose-driven breakthroughs, a shared sense of “why,” and rallying a team around “impossible” goals. What are some of the most important lessons you have learned? Al Gore once came to Airbnb and told our team, People do what you pay them to do. That changed how I evaluate design opportunities. Some of my biggest successes were failures because I ignored the fundamental question: how does the company actually make money? I invested in work that would never translate into impact because the organizations werent structured to profit from that impact in the short term. Its brutal to realize talented people can pour their hearts into work thats structurally doomed, not because the ideas are wrong, but because the business model doesnt reward those outcomes in the short term. Is todays AI discourse helpful? How do you guide your creatives to take the right signals and uplift creativity? Competition is tough. Everyones racing to be the fastest, biggest, and most innovative. That focus on competition forces many tech companies to lose track of what matters most. Much of Big Tech product development is disconnected from the end customer, often because the business model isnt optimized for them. Echo-chamber thinking focuses on beating competitors or last months metrics, not delivering real value. Short-term optimization is addictive and damaging. I coach my team that, yes, AI is powerful, but its another wave of tools like weve adapted to many times. Humans must provide talent and judgment AI cant. Our mandates havent changed: human-centered design and delivering real value. How has design changed since you started? Where is design headed? When I started, in-house design barely existed. Design was misunderstood as beautification at the end and often outsourced. Then agencies like IDEO and frog proved its strategic value. Everyone brought design in-house, and teams ballooned across design, engineering, and PM. Now were seeing a retrenchment. Unfortunately many companies often lack the talent and the muscle memory to ship new value. Theyre in optimization land, not innovation land. Design has gone through cycles of being valued and devalued. After several years of devaluation, I believe were entering a period where taste will again be the differentiator in the AI era. Everyone can move fast and ship quickly, but durable brand loyalty and user value require design input. Companies bought design firms, moved them in-house, but didnt know what to do with them. Then they started hiring designers to manage designers, shaping teams differently. Now were seeing better output. I believe the next era for design should be more design founders and design-minded entrepreneurs, a new crop of companies that show a fundamentally different way of working and doing business. I believe that if design leaders were truly leveraged, we’d have fundamentally better products and a healthier digital society. What advice do you have for aspiring designers? Design is more relevant than ever. Twenty years ago my job didnt exist. Now theres a wave of enthusiasm and talent we desperately need. Every poorly designed product or soulless interface should strengthen your conviction that creativity is necessary. Pair your anger about whats broken with a vision for what can be. Dont quit. I love Ira Glasss point about the gap between your taste and your work. Youre in this field because you have great taste. Now your execution just needs to catch up. The only way to close that gap is through relentless practice. My early agency years at Sapient Nitro and frog forced me to deliver at high volume under tight deadlines, and those reps gave me confidence for impossible briefs later. Design in tech is nothing but change, and thats what keeps it exciting. Becoming a lifelong learner, staying curious, and being unafraid to try new things are critical for designersand for anyone navigating the 21st century workplace.
Category:
E-Commerce
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