Kevin Weil on Leading Product at Planet, Earth Observation, Going Public, and Ukraine

Kevin joined Planet last April to accelerate software and data product development (or help the company move “up the stack”). Before he worked in commercial space, Kevin held leadership roles at Silicon Valley mainstays that have become household names, like Twitter and Instagram. He managed products with hundreds of millions of daily active users.Pathfinder is brought to you by SpiderOak Mission Systems — www.spideroak-ms.com — an industry leader in space cybersecurity.*SNEAK PEEK*Kevin’s journey from studying particle physics to Silicon Valley startups and quickly shipping codeTwitter’s leadership taking a chance on Kevin and how he grew with the company from 2009 to 2016Working at an autonomous Instagram and eventually cofounding Meta’s cryptocurrency projectWhat convinced Kevin to jump ship to the new space industry?How much of Kevin’s experience was transferable from the consumer social world to product at Planet?Selling to governments vs. commercial usersThe “one-to-many” model and what Planet does differently than competitorsGoing public via SPAC and the pressures of being publicly traded“Our growth is accelerating” and “we have a proven business model”Acquiring VanderSat and launching Planetary VariablesPlanet imagery shaping the general public’s understanding of the Ukraine war“Bringing transparency is a massive positive, even if sometimes that means you capture some of the bad things that happen in the world.”How does Planet prevent abuse or misuse of its data and imagery?What does Kevin wish he could change overnight in the EO industry? *CHAPTERS*0:00 - Intro 2:00 - Rundown of Kevin’s résumé, from studying particle physics to quickly shipping code at startups and eventually running product at consumer apps that became household names 4:19 - Joining Twitter in ‘09…and growing with the company until he departed in ‘16 5:07 - Running product at Instagram, while the Facebook division was still relatively autonomous 7:07 - What convinced Kevin to jump ship to the new space industry? 9:11 - Launching what into space?! Unpacking the tech tailwinds powering the cubesat and smallsat revolutions11:51 - A simple walkthrough of what Planet’s constellation does daily13:30 -  the Silicon Valley-style startup product management playbook…What cringe “best practices,” if any, did Kevin take from consumer social to Planet? 15:07 - Where is the EO (Earth observation) industry at today, in terms of maturity and adoption? 18:01 - On selling to both governments and commercial users…and when the “flippening,” as Ryan calls it, may happen 21:26 - Expanding on Planet’s “one-to-many” model 24:20 - The trials and tribulations of being a publicly traded company27:50 - Will SPAC turbulence have a lasting impact on future funding? 30:00 - How Planet processes their data 33:00 - Case study: VanderSat acquisition and Planetary Variables35:23 - Switching gears to Ukraine, and Planet imagery’s role in shaping the world’s understanding of what’s happening on the ground 36:40 - The value of the daily Earth-imaging scans, as it relates to Ukraine and Russian aggression37:55 - The geopolitical value of unclassified commercial satellite imagery for governments, who can point to the data and say: “This happened. You don’t have to take our word for it.”41:55 - Buzzfeed researchers noticing pixelated map tiles on Baidu, digging in to Planet data, and making an ugly discovery43:45 - Mental health and content moderation46:15 - What safeguards Planet puts in place to prevent abuse or misuse of its data 48:30 - Genie in a bottle question…What’s one thing that Kevin wishes could change overnight in the EO industry? 52:30 - Will more engineers follow in Kevin’s footsteps, and move from Big Tech companies to commercial space? 1:00:06- Worlds colliding question…Will Elon end up owning Twitter?*SHOW NOTES*Kevin's Twitter handle: twitter.com/kevinweilCheck out Planet’s Snapshots newsletter: learn.planet.com/Snapshots_newsletter_Subscription.htmlVia Planet CEO Will Marshall, announcing Kevin's hiring last March: planet.com/pulse/preparing-to-scale-planet-welcomes-kevin-weil-as-president-product-and-business/ - "It’s a delight that our business increasingly looks like that of a software company, with product features driven by software advances that deliver value on top of our satellite data. As Planet accelerates as a data and analytics company, we’re bringing on top Silicon Valley software talent to add to Planet’s team. Which brings me to Kevin.Kevin is a proven leader with a track record of leading software and data product organizations through hyper-growth, and delivering market-making customer solutions — a mindset and body of experience that aligns perfectly with Planet’s high-growth business objectives.Kevin has built and scaled teams and products at the world’s fastest growing and most consequential companies. Kevin was one of Twitter’s first 50 employees and ultimately became its SVP of Product, leading its consumer, developer, and monetization products as the company went public and scaled to over $2bn in revenue."*ABOUT US*Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand. While we have designs on becoming the biggest space content company in the galaxy, for now, we send newsletters and publish podcasts. 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