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Star Catcher CEO Andrew Rush (@RushSpace) grew up loving science fiction. Now he’s helping to bring a whole new generation of tech into reality in space by tackling its biggest bottleneck: access to power. “Everybody basically goes on camping trips. You bring your solar rays with you,” he says. “Our daily lives are based on and enriched by space, regardless of who we are. So providing more power ultimately enriches humanity.” Rush isn’t new to the problem. He was previously CEO of Made In Space, which built the first 3D printer used in space more than a decade ago. In 2024, he co-founded Star Catcher, raising $12M to harness the Sun’s power by beaming concentrated energy to solar panels and satellite arrays. On The Upstarts Podcast, Rush talks about his orbital career journey from patent lawyer to space CEO. He explains why energy and power are such an important unlock for space innovation, and why space startups are slowly getting better at raising venture dollars. And he shares his Upstart Moment, as Star Catcher passed key checkpoints by completing optical tests at Jacksonville's EverBank Stadium and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center last year. youtube.com/watch?v=FuWsAh…

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$50 billion. That’s how much money startup founder Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen (@typesfast) wants to retrieve in tariff refunds for U.S. citizens. "I want to put it on my tombstone someday," he says. Whenever trade or shipping is in the news, the tech world turns to Petersen as if with an X bat signal to make sense of it. But despite an $8B valuation, Flexport was struggling when Petersen returned as CEO in 2023 after 6 months out of the job. Customers were fleeing; morale had plunged. On The Upstarts Podcast, Ryan talks about his Upstart Moment in engineering a comeback – and why he sees AI agents transforming not only how Flexport ships products faster, but also how it solves the messiest challenges in global trade.   "There's way less planning than there used to be at Flexport," Ryan says. " It used to be a one year strategic plan. Now you're like, 'all right, let's go see if you can make this work, come back to me two days later.' And it works." Thanks to our partner @mercury for supporting Upstart stories like this 🫡 youtu.be/1JamC0WvI24