Gavin Baker: Physics PhDs dismissing orbital data centers haven't out-thought SpaceX engineers
GavinSBaker · x · 2026-08-31
Investor Gavin Baker pushes back on physicists claiming orbital data centers are impossible: several PhDs concluded 'never work' after a few hours of thought, while 10,000 SpaceX engineers treat it as solved — one skeptical investor friend admitted 'I was wrong' after meeting SpaceX engineers.
Notes from his interview add market context: AI names fell 50–60% in a month, yet his Silicon Valley digging found no negative metric — GPU availability, rental pricing, DRAM spot prices and token growth all accelerating. One startup rented thousands of B200s at $2/GPU-hour and expects to pay just under $4 for the same cluster seven months later. Hyperscaler operating cash flow margins at Microsoft, Meta and Amazon hit 28–32% last quarter. He argues the installed compute base is about to reprice higher.
Related event: Musk and Investors Push Back on Space Data Center Skepticism(4 posts)→
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