The space economy has a ground infrastructure problem. You can build a satellite and launch it faster than you can connect with it from Earth. Bridgit Mendler is building Northwood to fix that — deploying ground infrastructure in 3 months instead of 3 years. She joins a16'z Erik Torenberg to talk about vertical integration, the $50M Space Force contract, and why space is like the early internet: 00:00 Introduction 6:10 The ground segment bottleneck 10:06 Pandemic antenna origins 13:18 Three months, not three years 18:19 Starlink is not a threat 23:48 The space economy market map 29:45 The Space Force contract 36:03 Culture and values @bridgitmendler @eriktorenberg @NorthwoodSpace(a16z)