The a16z Show Why Every Satellite Needs Earth | Northwood CEO on a16z
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Mar 23, 2026 
Bridgit Mendler, Northwood co-founder and CEO, is a former actress and singer turned space entrepreneur. She talks about why ground infrastructure is the hidden bottleneck in space, how pandemic antenna experiments sparked Northwood, and why vertical integration can speed deployment. The conversation also explores bigger space missions, commercial demand, and national security.
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Follow Curiosity And Push It To Excellence
- Follow curiosity, pursue excellence, and refuse easy rejection when choosing what to work on.
- Bridgit Mendler says her parents pushed both curiosity and rigor, so interests became serious pursuits rather than casual dabbling.
Ground Infrastructure Is The Long Pole In Space
- Ground infrastructure is the hidden bottleneck in space because satellites are useless without a link back to Earth.
- Launch and spacecraft manufacturing accelerated, but antenna hardware, land, networking, and control software stayed fragmented and slow.
A Pandemic Antenna Project Sparked Northwood
- Northwood began with pandemic antenna experiments that turned Bridgit Mendler and her cofounders into self-described ground nerds.
- They started by receiving faint RF signals and images from space, then studied commercial and government markets and saw a bottleneck coming.