Contrary Research Rundown #34
Unpacking the modern space race, and new memos on Navan, Outschool and more
Research Rundown
On April 20, SpaceX launched its Starship spacecraft — an enormous vehicle capable of carrying up to 150 tons of cargo into orbit — from SpaceX’s Starbase test facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Starship flew for just over 4 minutes on its first orbital test flight before automated systems initiated a destructive abort procedure and caused the rocket to explode. The success of Starship clearing its launch tower indicates a significant accomplishment for SpaceX. This remarkable rocket is the largest and most powerful in human history, measuring 394 feet tall and powered by 33 engines – the most of any rocket ever. Starship’s launch, therefore, represents a leap forward in the space race for the US.
SpaceX is now preparing multiple Starship vehicles for flight tests at Starbase, keeping with CEO Elon Musk’s preference for rapid iteration of tests, regardless of outcomes. These flights are expected to take place soon. If successful, humans could be traveling aboard Starship in the near future. SpaceX’s Starship was selected as NASA’s first crewed lander for its Artemis Moon Program and is planned to launch in 2025. The astronauts will head to the lunar south pole on the Artemis 3 mission. See our full report on SpaceX.
Space startups raised $14.5 billion from private investors in 2021, a 50% increase from 2020. In the past, launching a satellite would cost around $200 million. Through reusable rockets, it is possible to launch a satellite with $60 million. Mass production of satellites could reduce the cost from $500 million per satellite to $500K, which is contributing to the Satellite Renaissance. Companies like Relatively Space design, develop and build 3D-printed rockets. Rocket Lab is another space company that builds rockets and has completed 35 launches as of April 2023.
When SpaceX perfects Starship’s launch process, significant opportunities will open up. It will be possible to send larger payloads into orbit due to Starship’s size. This would enable applications such as hyper-localized weather forecasting, earthquake prediction, better GPS location and navigation, video communication, air traffic control, and more. Additionally, constructing large space telescopes and exploring further planets will be easier and cheaper, and space tourism will become a growing reality.
Dialpad is a cloud-based, modern business communication, collaboration, and contact center platform. To learn more, read our full memo here.
Railway is a software deployment platform tailored for engineers to simplify the deployment of apps and services. To learn more, read our full memo here.
Outschool is building a tech-enabled K-12 education product intended to tackle the stagnation of US education. It is a marketplace of live online classes for kids aged 3-18. To learn more, read our full memo here.
Navan is a corporate, end-to-end travel management platform with booking, tracking, reporting, and expensing tools. To learn more, read our full memo here.
Sam Altman’s Worldcoin debuts World App, a self-custodial app that lets users manage their World ID and coins in 80+ countries before its 2023 token launch.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the US SEC is on “a lone crusade,” rows back on his suggestion the company may leave the US and expresses interest in the UAE.
Wendy’s partnered with Google to automate its drive-through using an AI chatbot, rolling out in June to an Ohio restaurant; the bot has been programmed to upsell.
Spotify removed ~7% of tracks uploaded by AI music startup Boomy, or “tens of thousands” of songs, over suspicion of bots posing as human listeners.
WhatsApp partnered with Stripe to let Singapore-based users pay some businesses within the app after launching merchant payments in India and Brazil.
Microsoft opened the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program to 600 global customers, up from the initial 20, and added new features, like a Semantic Index.
Meta unveiled ImageBind, an open-source AI model combining text, audio, visual, movement, thermal, and depth data, as rivals become more secretive with research.
OpenAI said it is developing a tool to automatically identify which parts of an LLM are responsible for which of its behaviors.
Niantic announced a new AR game called Peridot based on the original IP. Check out our memo on Niantic.
The co-founder of Oscar Health has launched a new fintech startup that wants to provide banking services to 62+ communities.
Anthropic, founded by former OpenAI employees, revealed new details of the principles it uses to train its chatbot Claude using its ‘constitutional AI’ method.
Q&A with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on the revamped Rooms feature, flexible work, making principle decisions, the future of AI, inspiration from Apple, and more.
Helion Energy will provide Microsoft with fusion power starting in 2028. Check out our memo on Helion Energy.
Uber launched flight bookings on its UK app in partnership with travel booking company Hopper as part of its efforts to become a travel “super app”.
Twitter lets users reply directly to any DM with a threaded message and react to messages with a wider range of emojis.
Google made Bard available in English in 180 countries, promised AI image generation with Adobe, and integration with services like Instacart.
Google announced PaLM 2, with improved multilingual, reasoning, and coding capabilities, available in four sizes and powering 25 Google products.