Starcloud

Starcloud (@Starcloud_Inc1) recently made history by launching a satellite with an NVIDIA H100 into orbit — the first time a GPU that powerful has ever operated in space. It's the first step toward building AI data centers in orbit, powered by continuous sunlight and cooled by radiating heat into deep space. Their approach could one day rival the world's biggest data centers while using less energy, zero fresh water, and far lower emissions. YC's @aaron_epstein visited Starcloud's HQ, where co-founders @philipjohnston, @EzraFeilden, and @Adi_Oltean explained how they built a working prototype in just 15 months — and why big tech is racing to space for AI compute.

This is the slide deck from our seed round in September of 2023, right after @adarsh_exe, @suryamidha, and I dropped out. It was clear that organizing human intelligence was the core bottleneck to AI progress. Most investors who passed on the round claim that it was before we "pivoted" into the AI data market. It's funny how selective memory works.

Hahah we now get the same regarding our preseed at the end of 2023 (slide below) where investors that passed now say “Oh, if I’d know you were going to build thiiss…” I used to finish every pitch with this slide and say all compute is going to space once the launch cost hits a certain point. Some seem to have forgotten! For context, we were raising $2M at $10M cap SAFE and had at least 100 investors say no. Thanks @FinnMurphy12 for leading and @russelllong for being the first ‘yes’!

Personal update: I'm taking a leave of absence from YC to join Anthropic. I'll be working with @NotTomBrown on the compute team. Powerful AI has the potential to improve the life of every human on earth and, as we enter the early stages of recursive self-improvement, availability of compute becomes one of the most important issues to solve. I'm excited to get started 🚀

@PhilipJohnston Is dark matter actually the Dyson Swarms of advanced civilizations?

@PhilipJohnston @Starcloud_ this guy should do more company building and less yapping

Good intro to the Kardashev Scale for the uninitiated! edition.cnn.com/2026/07/10/sci…

@PhilipJohnston What if it all goes RIGHT!

@elonmusk yes. gdp ~ energy The dyson swarm company will be the most valuable

Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath "Bro, there is no failure." "That is what other people think of you to keep you down. There's no failure. If you were left on an island and it happened, you would just brush it off and move on. It's everybody else that you think is judging you. But then, here's the secret. They don't give a fuck about you. They are living their own lives. So it's your perception of what they think of you." "There is no failure. There's do and learn. Do and learn. Do and learn. Do and learn." @StanfordAILab