Awais Ahmed is the co-founder & CEO of Pixxel, a company building a constellation of hyperspectral imaging satellites. Unlike “traditional” cameras, these satellites can see across hundreds of bands, opening up a lot more applications. We talk about the engineering -and funding- required to pull this off and how Awais manages a company between India (where Awais is from) and the US. But that’s just the 1st part of the interview. Then we talk about his vision for the company, which goes way, way beyond sending imaging satellites.

Sponsor: OpenCage

Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
Geomob

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

• Awais’s personnal website
• Pixxel’s 3 phase vision
• Maxar HD machine learning upscaling
• Book & Podcast Recommendation
  • The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch (Affiliate Link)
  • Profiles of the Future by Arthur C. Clarke (only found it in ebook here, Affiliate Link)
  • Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Affiliate Link)

(00:00) - Introduction

(01:09) - Sponsor: OpenCage

(02:34) - Awais describes himself

(03:46) - Pixxel

(05:07) - What is hyperspectral?

(10:36) - Spacial, Temporal & Spectral Resolution tradeoffs

(18:01) - Hardest part of building satellites

(22:58) - The resolution spotlight

(28:38) - Image Quality Rabbit Hole

(30:42) - The tricky part of raising money

(38:52) - Awais has a big, big vision

(50:42) - Likeliness of Awais's vision within 10 years

(54:14) - Working between India & USA

(59:04) - Personnal investing

(01:01:20) - Importance of Reading

(01:05:36) - Sci-Fi & History

(01:08:33) - Book recommendation

(01:10:43) - Awais in space?

(01:11:54) - Pushing the boundaries of humanity

(01:13:14) - Optimism in a cynical world

(01:19:11) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Sina Kashuk is the co-founder & CEO of Fused, who wants to make iterating & deploying in Python faster with serverless computing. We break down what that actually means, why it matters and what data science workflows could look like over the next few years.

This also isn’t Sina’s first company, a few years ago he started Unfolded.ai, focused on making visualisations for data scientists faster. The company was acquired by Foursquare in 2021.

Get access to high quality, fresh map data at https://beemaps.com/minds
Use promo code MINDS to get 50% off your API credits through Dec. 31 2024

• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• My blogpost joining the team
• Uber’s H3 tiling grid
• Foursquare acquires Unfolded
• AWS Lambda
• My conversation with Ib Green
• Fused.io
• Book & Podcast recommendation
  • Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins Affiliate Link
  • I’m pretty sure you can find Minds Behind Maps by yourself if you’re here

(00:00) - Intro
(02:38) - Sponsor: Beemaps
(03:55) - Hacking
(06:07) - Fused.io
(07:23) - Why run your algorithm in the cloud?
(10:06) - Serverless computing
(12:40) - Optimizing for iteration speed
(18:52) - Breaking Fused into smaller parts
(23:27) - "User Defined Functions: UDF"
(31:08) - How do you make money?
(31:56) - Why start companies?
(42:41) - Convincing people to use your tools
(49:44) - Speed isn't all: Train / Plane analogy
(54:36) - Going beyond geospatial
(57:33) - Building a team
(59:54) - Podcast/book recommendation
(01:01:11) - Building a Long Term Vision
(01:06:59) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work

Andrew Peterson is the Co-Founder & CEO of Array Labs, with a simple mission: Mapping the whole world in 3D, at 20cm in near real time.

We peel the layers as to what it takes to get there: the engineering that’s required, how to build a constellation to do that, how you fund such a project.

Sponsor: OpenCage

Use OpenCage for your geocoding needs with their API
Geomob

• LinkedIn
• Array Labs

Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.

• My 20min video explaining radar satellite images
• Find USGS 1m LiDAR data across the US
• Y Combinator
• My episode with Ashlee Vance
• My episode with Brian McClendon
• Albedo
• Book & Podcast recommendation
  • Spin Selling by Neil Rackham (Affiliate Link)
  • Acquired

(00:00) - Intro

(01:08) - Sponsor: OpenCage

(02:34) - "Being a Recovering Engineer"

(03:15) - Mapping the world in 3D

(09:59) - "Near Real Time"

(15:46) - Applications will only use what's available, by definition

(18:15) - Why use radar for 3D images?

(22:23) - The coolest Space Shuttle mission, period

(27:19) - Tradeoff between resolution & coverage

(36:26) - Building cheap radar satellites

(39:46) - Array Labs's image resolution

(45:10) - A GPU Analogy

(50:34) - A story of image processing & computers

(56:07) - Array Labs today

(57:57) - Let's talk $$$

(01:06:38) - Low barrier to entry: Comparing XRay & MRI

(01:12:09) - Why stop at 10 satellites?

(01:15:50) - Focus

(01:19:53) - Max & Andrew's 1st chat during covid

(01:23:22) - Subscription model for satellite images?

(01:32:50) - Convincing the rest of the world your idea is worth something

(01:43:58) - Engineer to Founder

(01:47:30) - Book & Podcast recommendation

(01:51:06) - Array Labs's next 4 years?

(01:53:45) - Support the podcast on Patreon

• Support the podcast on Patreon
• My video on an introduction to satellite images
• Website
• My Twitter
• Podcast Twitter
• Read Previous Issues of the Newsletter
• Edited by Peter Xiong
• Find more of his work