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 &#8211; Intro 
3:14 &#8211; How Does Innovation Happen? 
6:23 &#8211; Varda and the No Science Allowed Rule 
7:52 &#8211; A Primer on Solid State Microgravity Manufacturing 
18:25 &#8211; Space Industrialization, Trading Posts, and the Chinese and Portuguese Navies 
21:13 &#8211; Economic Incentives and Future Business Models in Space 
24:24 &#8211; SpaceX and The Costs of Mass to Orbit 
27:45 &#8211; Demand for Space Manufacturing and Varda at Scale 
33:44 &#8211; Manufacturing, Servicing, Machining, and Future Markets for Space 
36:42 &#8211; Incubating Companies 
40:33 &#8211; When Would Varda Have Been Started Otherwise? 
42:19 &#8211; The Hollywood Model of Startups 
45:20 &#8211; Future of Incubations 
47:47 &#8211; Media’s Role in Technology 
50:39 &#8211; What Media Inspired Varda’s Founding? 
52:38 &#8211; Talent, Culture, and Cementing Company Trajectory 
53:57 &#8211; Narratives and Talent Recruitment 
55:28 &#8211; Traits Delian Looks for in Founders 
57:38 &#8211; The ‘Why Now’ When Investing 
1:00:08 &#8211; Bring Non-Consensus and Right 
1:02:53 &#8211; Is Varda Consensus Yet? 
1:03:24 &#8211; Identifying Non-Consensus Opportunities 
1:05:12 &#8211; Lessons from Founding and Investing 
1:07:40 &#8211; What Skill Do You Wish You’d Developed Earlier? 
1:10:11 &#8211; Immigrant Mentality 
1:11:24 &#8211; Less Obvious Reasons for Success 
1:12:55 &#8211; On Speed 
1:14:23 &#8211; What Should More People Be Thinking About?
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Alex LaBossiere

#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 [&hellip;]