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Baiju Bhatt, the co-founder of Robinhood, is no stranger to disrupting established industries. After spent a decade democratizing finance for millions, he has turned his sights toward the final frontier: space. As the founder of Aetherflux, Bhatt is leading a "pirate ship" of elite engineers to solve one of the most pressing challenges of the modern era—the global energy crunch fueled by the rise of artificial intelligence. By rethinking the physics of power distribution and orbital infrastructure, he aims to build an energy grid in the stars, proving that the lessons learned in the world of fintech can be applied to the rigorous demands of hardware and aerospace.
Key Takeaways
- The Pivot to Hardware: Moving from software to space requires a shift from broad engineering roles to highly specialized disciplines, including thermal, optomechanical, and laser engineering.
- Orbital Data Centers: Aetherflux is pursuing a strategy to place GPUs directly next to solar power generation in orbit, bypassing the efficiency losses of beaming power back to Earth.
- The Failure Loop: Success in new ventures depends on "getting failures out of the way quickly." Bhatt emphasizes testing ideas to completion rather than over-intellectualizing them.
- Design Philosophy: Influenced by Steve Jobs, Bhatt believes the "form" of a satellite should natively represent its "function," emphasizing simplicity and heat dissipation.
- Work-Life Harmony: As a second-time founder with a family, Bhatt prioritizes "harmony" over "balance," using analog hobbies like Magic: The Gathering to maintain mental clarity.
The Architecture of Innovation: Software vs. Hardware
Transitioning from a massive fintech platform like Robinhood to a space startup involves more than just a change in industry; it requires an entirely different organizational operating system. In software, teams are often divided into front-end, back-end, and product design. However, at Aetherflux, the engineering landscape is far more fragmented and specialized. Bhatt notes that his current team includes thermal engineers, laser specialists, and experts in optomechanical systems, all working in a high-stakes physical environment.
Despite these differences, the core of a successful company culture remains the same. Bhatt argues that when people are legitimately enjoying themselves, they become more creative and willing to vocalize "halfway formed ideas." This psychological safety is critical in hardware, where the barrier to sharing a risky idea can be higher due to the physical costs of failure. By fostering a "pirate ship" mentality, Aetherflux keeps a small, agile crew rowing in the same direction, avoiding the bureaucracy that often plagues larger organizations.
Powering the Future via Space-Based Solar
The concept of space-based solar power has existed since the 1970s, but it was historically dismissed as economically unfeasible. Critics argued that the massive scale required—satellites kilometers wide—made it impossible. Bhatt took intellectual issue with this "all-or-nothing" approach. Instead of aiming for gigawatts immediately, Aetherflux is focusing on "kilowatt-scale" power beaming, which can be achieved with smaller, more affordable satellites.
The primary driver for this technology is the energy crisis created by AI. As ground-based data centers face 5-to-8-year lead times due to power grid constraints, space offers a massive accelerant. Bhatt explains that by networking satellites with lasers, Aetherflux can create a modular energy grid. This leads to a radical architectural shift: putting data centers in orbit.
"The real benefit of this is... the time it takes to bring a new data center online is like 5 to 8 years. Like there’s a real crunch here."
By placing chips directly next to solar panels in low Earth orbit, Aetherflux can eliminate multiple conversion steps—turning photons into electricity, then light (lasers), and then back into electricity on the ground. This "magical architecture" allows for rapid deployment; once a satellite is launched and networked, it is effectively online and ready to compute.
The Founder’s Mental Model: Action Produces Information
One of the most valuable lessons Bhatt carries from the early days of Robinhood is the importance of the "failure loop." Before Robinhood became a household name, Bhatt and his co-founder built an app called Analyst. It was a bloated "everything app" for finance that attempted to provide news, social features, and stock ratings all at once. It failed to gain traction, but it taught them a vital lesson: users view apps as "functional buttons."
This realization led to the hyper-reductive design of the original Robinhood app. Bhatt applies this same "knucklehead" approach to Aetherflux. Rather than spending years in the "pit of sorrow" over-analyzing physics, the team is committed to shipping hardware. Aetherflux has scheduled its first test payload to launch just over two years after the company’s inception.
"My philosophy is get your failures out of the way quickly. Don’t be too precious with the idea. Just try it."
This bias toward action is intended to build "intuition" in an industry where he was previously an outsider. Bhatt acknowledges that while he was a "finance bro" just a few years ago, the muscle memory of building a company allows him to distinguish between catastrophic problems and mere "paper cuts."
Form, Function, and the "Fingerpits" of Design
Bhatt’s design philosophy is heavily influenced by the legacies of Steve Jobs and Brian Chesky. He believes that beauty in engineering is not "window dressing" but is integrally tied to how a product works. This was evidenced during the pandemic when Bhatt built a Shelby Daytona race car from a box of parts. This hobby wasn't just a distraction; it was a way to exercise "creation energy" and understand the tactile feel of physical objects—a concept he refers to as fingerpits.
The Aesthetics of Satellites
In the context of Aetherflux, design is driven by extreme environmental constraints. A satellite's form is defined by two primary needs: power generation and heat dissipation. Bhatt describes early renderings where the back side of the satellite consists of massive radiators. The goal is to reach a design that feels "final"—where the form so perfectly matches the function that it couldn't look any other way.
Applying Digital Simplicity to Hardware
Just as Robinhood focused on the "80% use case" to keep the interface clean, Aetherflux focuses on the core physics of power. By identifying the smallest possible satellite that can still perform "power beaming" (defined as roughly one kilowatt), Bhatt avoids the trap of building "mega-structures" that are economically unfeasible in the current launch environment.
Personal Foundations and the Long Game
Now a father of three (with a fourth on the way), Bhatt’s approach to the "founder's grind" has evolved. He has traded "goblin mode"—the state of total immersion to the detriment of health and family—for a more sustainable "work-life harmony." He credits this stability with giving him the confidence to take big risks during the workday.
To keep his mind sharp, Bhatt maintains analog hobbies like Magic: The Gathering. He values the game for its complexity and the fact that it is purely analog, requiring players to put their phones away and engage intellectually. This helps him practice a specific type of resilience: being comfortable with losing.
"A basic part of this actually relates nicely to the 'get your failures out of the way quickly.' Like a part of being successful... is being comfortable failing."
Conclusion
Baiju Bhatt’s journey from fintech to the stars is a testament to the power of cross-disciplinary thinking. By applying the "fail fast" mentality of Silicon Valley to the rigid laws of aerospace, Aetherflux is attempting to solve the AI energy crisis from a literally higher perspective. Whether he is building an orbital power grid or a classic race car, Bhatt remains focused on the "joy of the pursuit"—the intellectual breakthrough that happens when a founder realizes their intuition was right all along. As Aetherflux prepares for its first orbital tests, the mission is clear: the future of energy isn't just on the ground; it's in the infrastructure we build in the sky.
