Relentless Why the Co-Founder of Robinhood is working on Space Datacenters | Baiju Bhatt, Aetherflux
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Feb 22, 2026 
Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood and founder of Aetherflux, is an entrepreneur building space-based power and orbital data-center tech. He talks about shifting from software to hardware, designing satellites that marry thermal, power and optics, networking small sats with lasers, and why now is the moment to build compute and energy systems in low Earth orbit.
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Space Energy Company As Next Orbital Vertical
- Baiju's original Aetherflux thesis: build an energy company in space because photovoltaics are cheap and AI/data-center demand will create an orbit energy market.
- He reasons government applications incubate space tech before commercial scale, mirroring GPS and defense use-cases.
Lightbulb To Move Compute Into Orbit
- In conversation Baiju realized instead of beaming power to Earth they could move compute to orbit by placing chips next to solar receivers, eliminating conversion losses.
- This led to the orbital data center idea: put GPUs near power generation to accelerate data-center deployment.
Design Apps As Functional Buttons
- Users treat mobile apps as single-purpose buttons, so focus on the primary 80% use case rather than building everything.
- Robinhood pivoted from an 'everything' market app to a reductive view showing account value and followed stocks.
