Welcome, everybody to another episode of today in space. I'm
your space science podcast host from the East Coast, Alex J or
fatos. And we're back for another episode of people of
science where we get to meet with people who are working in
the industry to get to talk about what got them into STEM
their passion with doing for work. And it's a really cool
insight in what is actually like, working in STEM. And, and
really people that I think, have a good passion about. It's not
just, you know, another job that they're doing. So, this week,
we're honored to have Dr. Marsha Petrova on who is the CEO of no
space, and we'll talk about that but first, Marsha, welcome to
the podcast.
Thanks, Alex. Pleasure to be here. Very excited.
Absolutely. I'm happy to to speak with you today. We get a
lot of stuff we're gonna get into. But like we do on every
episode of people of science, let's talk about your stem
origin story. Where did it all begin? And what made you decide
to join this join this crazy journey of of working in a STEM
field?
Sure, so my name is Masha Petrova. I am the Co Co founder
of a company called null space. So we develop electromagnetic
simulation tool for electrical engineers, including electrical
engineers working on all kinds of space applications. And then
my background is I am a recovering engineer. So my
undergrad is in mechanical engineering, and then my PhD is
in aerospace engineering from UC San Diego. And I'm actually not
a natural like, space person, I come from a long line of
engineers, but I'm personally very bad at math, I have
dyslexia. So it's really hard for me to remember our numbers
are not typically a friend, which is, which is funny,
considering why I'm now and so I went into engineering because I
was going to be an astronaut. So I grew up on Soviet Union
science fiction, I'm from originally from Soviet Union, I
moved here when I was 12. To us, because my dad was a chemist,
and he got a postdoc position here. So we moved to the family.
And I grew up on Soviet Union science fiction, which was
really good. Most of it is not translated, unfortunately. But
it's very unique. And it's very different. And I read just piles
and piles of books, I actually have some to show you here. And
most of of that science fiction was about space. And so I grew
up visualizing myself living in all kinds of, you know, spirit,
world and space in the future. Yeah. And so naturally, I
assumed that that's, that's what life is just going to be like,
and so I figured I need to become an engineer. And so I
kind of brute force my way through undergrad engineering.
And then once I got into grad school, I, luckily, once you get
to higher levels of math, it becomes much more conceptual,
there's a lot less numbers, a lot more symbols. And so it
became much more interesting and more natural for me, because
it's much more visual. And so luckily, I was able to push
through that initial bulk of math, to get to the higher
levels of engineering, and then that became fun. And then I then
I was a real engineer for about a year and then decided that I'm
way too extroverted to kind of stay an engineer,
you have to describe what you mean by you just as a real
engineer, what what did that mean to you?
So it was a, you know, PhD level researcher engineering and a
small startup developing simulation software for
chemically reactive flows out of all things. So things that are
flowing and reacting, like, think about gasoline in the car,
or all kinds of fuels in a space engine, and someone has to
develop those fuels and simulate them. And so that's, that's what
I did as a as a quote unquote, real engineer.
And so what was it? Like, what was the moment that you just
decided, like, was there a bunch of things was it's you just
realized, like, this wasn't just what you wanted to do, what you
went to school for, or what you went down this path for? Yeah.
And to be clear, I still love the engineering side of things.
I like solving hard problems. But I just kept talking to
people too much, you know, like, so I was talking way too much,
and not spending enough time in front of the computer. So what
happened was the salespeople were like, Oh, this one can
explain things to us. Let's start bringing her to our
customer meetings. Let's start asking her questions. And I love
talking to them. And so I became sort of a liaison between the
developers and engineers, and sales and marketing people. And
then I realized that Oh, in marketing, you can deal with
things like colors and how things mate to make things
pretty and I will other aspects. And so I went into marketing and
lead marketing teams in hard engineering type of companies
ever since then, wow,
that's, that's super interesting. I find myself in
that I work as an engineer, but you know, is really helping the
customer who has the device on the other end, it's not working,
or it's not doing what they want, I helped them figure that
out. And I also got picked up by a sales team. Because my journey
was more like I couldn't. It was a weird time where in aerospace
there were not a lot of jobs. So you're either overqualified or
under qualified. I, it's different world today. But I,
there were opportunities in that bridge between the technical and
the, I guess, people side of things. And so that's very cool.
Um, how was that first transition did feel like you
were efficient water? Or what were the things you had to learn
along the way?
Oh, yeah, I had to learn a lot of things. So that transition
was pretty crazy. I had a pretty crazy boss, who was VP of sales
at a time, who did a lot more talking about how great he was
and actually selling anything. Actually, I don't know if he
ever closed the sale at that company. But he, because he was
not an engineer, he struggled in front of customers, and I didn't
and I was really young, and I didn't you know, I am a Russian
engineer. I'm very, like, straightforward. Yeah, I say
what I think a lot of times I learned not to since then, but
you know, especially back in the day. And so, you know, there's a
few times that he just I think he I made him feel uncomfortable
in front of customers, because he just felt like an idiot. And
so he would try to teach me things to kind of at least feel,
I think like he was competent in doing his job. And so one of the
things he, he said to me one time, he would say all kinds of
random things. But one time he came into my office, and he's
like, Masha, this was my first year as a sales engineer, right?
I'm the token sales engineer in the company, all salespeople
come to me with questions and customer problems. All engineers
come to me when they're irritated with sales and are
trying to understand what sales is doing. And so he comes to me
and he goes, you know, have you ever looked at your face in the
mirror when you're talking to people? And I said, you know,
I'm a PhD engineer, like, No, I don't typically just stare at
myself in the mirror when I talk to people. And he goes, you
know, because you kind of look like a murderer. Like, it can be
really scary. So because when I I'm thinking about, I don't
know, PhD level engineering problems, you concentrate, and
you tend to, I don't know why I tend to zero, like, zone out and
concentrate, and I guess I click a murder. So he's like, here's
what you're gonna do, go to the corner of like the go to that
CVS on the corner and buy a little mirror and just put it on
your desk. This was before zoom, looking yourself in the camera,
putting your desk and just look at your face when you're talking
to people. And even though I think he totally meant it as a
demeaning comment, like I did not, I don't think looking back,
he meant it as like, Oh, I really want you to grow, and I'm
trying to prop you up, I think he was really trying to push me
down. However, it turned out to be a very useful, useful hints
to be more of paying attention to your body language when you
talk to people. Yeah. So there you go. There's a story for you.
I love that it really is. I cut my teeth in that area. I worked
at Apple for a little while I was genius bar, I help people
with problems. And then I would take the iPhones out back and
work on them. And that was one of my favorite jobs. But it
taught me how to be a better engineer communicating stuff,
because there's all that short time people come, you know,
their life is over, when they come with you with a problem.
And you have to bring them through that whole process, and
also set the right expectations from the very beginning. So that
way they leave happy. And that I think has been a huge tool. For
me. It's been a great tool for this podcast tool just just to
learn how to talk with people and really get to the point. And
not amazing. Yeah, so I think that cross section, there's a
lot more people that would fit in that area or that started in
engineering and then that opportunity to crossover doesn't
doesn't exist at that time, and then they leave the field. So
I'm always interested to hear about stories like this. So I'm
sorry, we were talking about that time. So So take me
further, how did it develop from there?
So at that point, I moved on to I tried to start my own company
because I was always fascinated back in the day I read the book
called Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss familiar. Yeah, right
when it just came out, like no one knew what it was like he was
just Getting started. And and that was very inspired by that
book. Funnily enough, I read some of his other stuff that
came out was never did anything like that. For me again, it was
only that first one. And so I found out about this place
called Silicon Valley never heard of it before. And I
thought like, what is this? This is this is fascinating, you
know, and just became completely fascinated by the startup world
and baby barrier and Silicon Valley and that whole story and
decided I wanted to be CEO of a tech startup. And wonder had
that dream for, I don't know, good 15 years until I became
one. So runnable Yeah, so then I was head of marketing as VP or
brand marketing chief marketing officer, VP of global marketing
for what I variety of engineering software companies,
that all our customers were the same. They were aerospace, they
were defense, automotive, communications, you know, large
companies that do a lot of r&d and engineering tools. And so I
worked in, I don't know, I think a probably total of eight or
nine companies that developed various software tools for those
types of engineers. A bunch of those were startups, some were
complete dumpster fire startups, like out of a SILICON VALLEY TV
SHOW, which was fun. Some were big, public companies. I've been
through multiple acquisitions, overseeing acquisitions as a
head of marketing, and kind of assembling, assembling those
companies together, and being on the acquired side and being
acquired and overseeing the acquisition from that end. So
that's been very interesting. That
must be a journey. That's, I've been a part of that in tech. And
it's a it's a ride. Yeah. How many times now? Oh, I
think I've been through as head of marketing, I've probably been
through five acquisitions, like on the one or the other side. Or
more?
Could you break down to folks, because I didn't understand this
until I got into tech in the startup world? How? How would
you explain that to somebody who isn't in the industry? And what
that process is like,
what the acquisition looks like? Yeah. Yeah. So in, in the world
of startups and large public companies, bigger companies tend
to sometimes buy by smaller companies. And when you're just
an employee, right, you're, you're an engineer out of a
group of engineers. So you kind of like that doesn't touch you
until you start to complain about like, oh, like the coffee
machine has gone. Oh, like all our branding is now purple
instead of green. And it's annoying. And I have to redo my
PowerPoints, things like that. If you're on the executive
level, so you're in a C suite, you're overseeing, let's say, a
department, whether it's r&d department, or sales department,
or marketing department, you have to either integrate into
the larger company. And that's interesting. Or you have to
integrate the smaller companies. And a lot of times the small
company that got bought in the large company that bought that
company have different interests, right. And what's
what's been funny is, and I've been in this, the shoes as well
as before, actually wasn't the acquiring side. I never
understood, you know, I thought there's so many things that were
just stupid that were happening during the acquisition, right?
Like, why are they changing all of this stuff? And why are they
not changing? You don't know why, right. Why didn't they not
giving us more resources? And it's like, well, they acquiring
companies much bigger. They bought you, you know, in Russia,
there's a there's a saying call that says it, I'll try to
translate it but he who he who pays orders the music, you know,
like when you like pay for the machine, the music on the
jukebox? Exactly right. So, same thing here is you kind of
understand, well, whoever's got the money is who, whose
interests are going to come first. And yeah, yeah.
It's, it's, uh, I remember reading Ashley Vance's book on
Elon Musk. And that was right before I got into tech. And it
was it was a really valuable book. To understand what to
expect from Tech, I didn't know anything about acquisitions or
working for a small company or working in tech. I didn't know
any of that. But I remember that book really has been
foundational over the years and has given me a lot of, of good
expectations going in on what? What could happen because, you
know, startup life is not for everybody, like you're saying,
yes, like, I think someone who actually excels in an
engineering role. A classic engineering role, is not going
to enjoy the startup life. Because it's it's crazy.
Yeah, you build your own system that you essentially have to
cook and right, you come in to a larger company, the system is
already built for you, you could be creative, or you could build
things, but it's in your narrow space. And a lot of times people
are very comfortable with that. And that's what they want to do.
It provides a lot of security, it allows you to be creative or
free in a lot of different, you know, in ways that are in a
startup world, you can, I am not free in a lot of ways, right,
I'm building my own company, because of all of my brainpower
and energy is going towards a system exactly that I'm going to
be living in. But for me, freedom is such a big value to
me. And autonomy is such a huge value that I'm willing to take
all kinds of pain and discomfort. For autonomy that I
get in a startup, so and I actually, you know, when I
wasn't public companies, the longest that I've been in, in a
public company, it was at a company called Altium. So they
just got sold for $6 billion. But they developed software for
PCB design, or electrical engineers. And so I was VP of
brand marketing and marketing there for for two years. And
towards the second year, I had a great team as very nice people.
But I was like, clawing the walls. I felt like a trap fly in
or something. And I like climbing in a cage. Because I
forced all the boundaries I could I build everything I
could, but it was still structure of impose structure of
something else. And so I love to go to startup. Yeah,
yeah. It's so interesting. I so for I've been on a real kick
about creativity, and how it comes from a different place
than, say, logic and the things that like engineering comes
from, although I don't think they're separate. What have you
seen, because you've kind of jumped into a creative role, and
then, you know, out into running, you know, a company
leading a company. Is there creativity in each of those
jumps that that you've been in? And is that part of the freedom
and the stuff that you're looking for?
Yeah, absolutely. Every time I came into a new company, you
know, I would always have this joke. It's like a honeymoon
period of six months. Because during that six months, I
typically would build a team, because most of the times when I
would come in, if I was a startup, there was no team. So
I'd start from scratch as head of marketing. If I was a public
company, you know, I came in to all team as VP of brand, there
was no team, there was no, so we build a whole program around
customer success stories that didn't exist, I build the entire
PR department that didn't exist. We build a really cool series
video series about highlighting various customers of Altium. So
all of that had to be built from scratch. So you're building a
team, you're hiring people, you're coming up with projects
are coming up, which tools are we going to use to manage all
these projects and things like that. And then, you know, I got
so good at it, because I've done that so many times that I will
build a marketing department within, I don't know, six to
nine months. And after that, it was like, Okay, now you build
everything you could you can now iterate and perfect things and
make things better, but you're not building from scratch. And
that's what I would get restless, typically.
But classic engineer, you're building a system and then kind
of letting it run. Yeah,
so my, what I figured out is that I love building systems.
That's the weird part is not being a math person. And
typically not being detail oriented. In some areas. I'm
hyper detail oriented, and some pure, pure areas. I'm hyper
focused on systems. And so what I figured out for me because I'm
an extrovert, but yet I'm also an engineer. I like building out
of people and so building systems out of people as creepy
as that sounds, but it's really not that creepy. No,
I get it. Yeah, I'm sure they could be creepy. But it makes me
it
makes me it makes me think of like The Matrix, remember, like
when they roll in a slimy things like that, ya know, like that.
But building out of out of people, and building something
greater than the sum of the parts is greater than each
individual, right? That contribute is what's exciting to
me. And that's where I found my niche. I still build systems. I
still figure out where the parts fit, but it's people so it's
very people oriented. I said that to be my extroverted self.
That's so
cool. It's interesting. I feel similar to 3d printers in that
way. Okay, no, I have I have a lab in my basement here and then
that's, you know, getting one of those and building a kit online
is what made me take the jump into tech in the 3d printing
world. So that skill has just carried through but for me, you
know, the printer it they each have their own unique abilities.
I can tune them certain different ways. But you know, I,
I am weird in that I work in my day job working in 3d printing
systems, and then I go home and work on my own 3d printers. But
for me like that stack is just pure creativity and love. And
then I would do it all day long. People will work with me crazy,
but I love Oh,
that's awesome. See, you found your niche. Right? You really
are very good with your hands. You'll love learning. And you
learned through experimentation with your hands. And that's not
everybody, some engineers that on more on the medical side,
don't right. And so you found that combination of what works
for you, which is so great.
Thank you. Yeah, it is. I mean, this podcast has been a journey
of finding all of that. So it's, it's so cool to be able to talk
with people like yourself that you know, it's different, you
found your different thing. But you know, I love hearing about
that journey. That's what this whole segment is about. But
let's let's dive into null space. Let's How did it start?
And let's tell the folks like what it is that null space is
doing.
Wait, actually, before that, show you could I show you my
problems, because I,
I would love to see that I was gonna see him for afterwards. So
I want to make sure we talked about no space, but let's do it
now. Oh, yeah,
just really quick. So this is some of the books. So I love I
love reading. And this is some of the books that I brought
either brought with me from Soviet Union, or I ordered here.
So they look pretty ragged. But this is some of the Russian
science fiction. So these two authors are called brothers
Strugatsky. And so they write a lot of amazing. Isn't that cool?
So it's old, I, you know,
I love I read it is in good condition for her.
I think this one is 2004. So this is not better. But this one
is actually publication that was published a by it's called
chemistry in life. So it was actually a well known magazine
back in Soviet Union, read by a lot of scientists, my dad read
it, but they published a lot of really good, like scientific
science fiction that scientists would actually read. So this
what this book is called a village on the edge of a galaxy.
And that's by another Russian science fiction author. I think
this one's was written in the 80s. So since the 80s book, and
then this one is also a collection of science fiction
stories. But you can see that Stalin and Hitler, I believe, as
far as the masks and their aliens, because there's some
sort of a convoluted story of, of aliens and history and the
that's right real world. You know, tyrants that live in this
are
weird and that they're like the aliens.
Weird. Yeah.
Wow. That is weird. But wow, that is incredibly, incredibly
Russian. I love that.
It's very rushed. Hold on. So last thing,
I'm gonna let's go to my wall.
So right through the wall. So my grant, this was just generic
Space Shuttle Space Shuttle photos from, you know, your NASA
center that you could buy in the NASA Visitor Center, you know,
but I do have something here. So my grandfather was an aerospace
engineer. And he was one of the main leaders in charge of the
space race. So he actually developed he was one of the
engineers developing the orbit for Sputnik, the first satellite
and space. Yeah, so you gave me some paraphernalia like that's
sitting here on my wall. Let me see if I can see, I can do this.
So all right, here is a photographs of the permit fee, I
believe this is say us 24 and salute five. This is from year
77. So this is a picture of some of the Russian astronauts
they're assigned. So they signed up for my grandfather, from that
mission from 1977. Some of the Russian cosmonauts, and then
this is a letter from my grandfather that just basically
tells you what these two things are. This is a medal that he
received for his work to in Soviet Union, Soviet Union, the
aerospace, you know, space race. And this was actually a piece of
heat protectant cover for a for like a missile that was read or
non missile spacecraft that was returning from salute was the
space station, I think in 1974. So that's a like a heat
protectant cover that chipped off that is melted on the
outside. From the 70s. So that's, that's kind of exciting.
That's incredible. That's some history right there.
Yeah. Yeah. So I figured, you know, your viewers might be
interested.
I don't think I'll be able to see something like that. Cool.
Like that. That's from that era. That's that's incredibly cool.
Thank you for showing me that.
Probably the other side of the Iron Curtain. Yes. Yes.
The fact that we're seeing it is incredible.
Yeah, it's kind of exciting.
That's it's so cool that you have the connection back to I
mean, As far as Sputnik that's, that's, that's very, very cool.
Tell me about tell me about no space,
no space. So that brings us to no space. So null space is where
about a year and a half old at this point as far as the
company, the technology itself has been around for about 10
years. So we spun out of a defense contractor in
Huntsville, Alabama. They develop very sophisticated
radiofrequency technologies for all kinds of defense
applications. And they they engineers there wanted a tool
that was faster than the current simulation tools. So when you
build anything or you develop anything, you're you know, this
develop anything as an engineer, you got to test the thing that
you've designed, the easiest way to test the thing that you
designed is in a computer in a computer simulation. So there is
all kinds of programs. Actually, there's not that many, but there
are some programs that allow you to simulate real physics inside
of a computer. And so, null space is one of those tools. It
simulates electromagnetics, in your computer, so that as you're
designing your RF device, like antenna, radar, anything else
that has RF signal in it, you can simulate it in the oil
space, and make sure it works properly. And so the reason why
we're different is we're much faster than the commercial tools
out there. Because it actually turns out that it's pretty hard
to develop an engineering simulation software, it's not
like an app, it's not Facebook, it's not Instacart you can't
just take a few developers and put something together in the
few months. Yeah, you know, it requires deep engineering,
understanding, and then coding, and then testing the software
against experimental data to make sure it's simulating
reality properly. Right,
right. I mean, there's so much there. And I think I just got
the word play on on the name. Is that a linear algebra? Algebra?
Reference?
You got it? You got it actually refers to a matrix that's got
the everything is zeros, except on the diagonal, you've got
actual numbers. Oh, they're not zeros. Those are values. Yeah.
So
so. So let's talk about linear algebra. Because that that was
me talking about numbers. I mean, but it makes when you
realize what you're trying to do. And this is like, the
problem of correct me if I'm wrong, but traveling in three
dimensional space without knowing where you are in three
dimensional space. And then it with the software, being able to
interpret physics in three dimensional space? Through
mathematics. Yeah.
So okay, to be clear, I'm not the inventor of the, for sure.
I've got. So my co founders are brilliant. They are also co
founders of the defense company that spun out this technology.
They're both PhD electromagnet assists, and very smart and it's
this is their brainchild. Yes, I'm just here to I made the
pretty logo.
And to communicate it, though, because I'm sure to be that
genius. This is not necessarily what they would want to be doing
right now. Or, you know, you will be able to tell the
message, I think much better. Just as as they would be able to
tell you what's happening in three dimensional space, then
neither of us would be able to yes, they hired
me to do the dirty work of marketing.
is enough food for all of us. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's very
cool. That was one of the I think one of the hardest classes
I've I've ever taken, although I found it completely fascinating.
So what kind of engineer are you, Alex? Aerospace?
Yes. And a concentration in Astronautics. Ah, awesome. And a
jazz performance minor.
So I have a I have a religious studies minor.
So Oh, interesting. That all religious studies. My
minor was religious studies. Yeah. Oh, cool. So it was yeah,
it was all of it. Nice. Yeah. But I'm not religious, which is
funny enough, but that's, that's probably why I want to study.
Hey, now, you know. That's pretty cool. But yeah, if
you think about it, you know, what's, what's interesting is my
background is not in electrical engineering, or
electromagnetics. My first foray into that space was Altium,
which is the PCB design software company. And that's where I
started kind of my customers became electrical engineers. But
really, that's not my background. You know, I'm much
more on the mechanical side, fluid dynamics side of things.
And so electromagnetics is its own beast, as you know, people
call it black magic, because you can't see it. I was actually I
was, I was getting a tour of the parent companies lab. They have
this amazing lab and sort of demo space where they have a
plasma reactor and all kinds of crazy like antenna devices and
things like that. And they were describing to Like a test that
they engineers were doing it was really sophisticated antenna
that cost I don't know millions of dollars to develop and design
for for the Department of Defense. And you know, they were
all excited, they were going to do testing and they set it up.
And the testing is just these two black box boxes, just, you
know, sitting there and a bunch of engineers measuring stuff.
And that's, that's it. That's the exciting, you know, millions
of dollars just as
they are loving every moment of it.
So, you know, but if we think about it, RF technologies and
everything, you know, everything has become a computer. And the
last I don't know, what would say 2030 years, you know, your
satellites, our computers, cars became computers, everything's
connected with Wi Fi, Bluetooth antennas, late LiDAR, all kinds
of stuff that's floating through the air, and we don't we're not
even aware that it's there. Yeah, I'm talking to win two
headsets, you know, the were on the internet, were talking to
each other because of exactly the Wi Fi. Yeah. And all of that
is RF and something has to make it work. And that's RF devices
that all need to be designed and tested and stimulated with no
space.
That's incredible. I and I don't think most people even realize
that. I mean, I didn't fully realize I didn't either.
That's right. And that's what's interesting, you know, so now
we're at a startup, we're actually raising venture capital
at this point, we are funded by our parent company, but we're
raising VC money. So I don't know if you have a lot of
startups here. But in space, there is a lot of space startups
that are starting out. I mean, SpaceX started out as a startup
at one point. And so this journey of raising venture
capital is familiar to a lot of people. Yeah. But you know,
trying to explain to finance people about what is RF if they
have no idea, right, like, and again, you don't it's not
something you hold in your hands. It's not something that
you see. Yeah. And then on top of it, trying to explain to them
what is software that simulates that RF, it's like an extra
another invisible thing that you don't see, but requires a lot of
money and time and engineering expertise to develop. Yeah,
that's been that's been a journey for sure.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's, it's tough. I mean, having
worked in engineering, now, I can definitely say, like, being
able to simulate something 85% of the way is, I kind of do that
with 3d printing, right? I don't 3d print the final product like
we printed, you know, this James Webb Space Telescope and kind of
multicolor filming, because I didn't have multiple colors. But
now I'm getting closer to what will be the final thing. And
this is all three colors here. Oh, fun. That is so cool. Thank
you. So like, I could never have told you that I would have
needed six different software's to get there. But I know that
because I'm I'm deep into this engineers know that a simulation
is going to bring you closer to this final thing than you would
before. And it's your right, I don't think it's a very easy
thing to explain until you have literal examples in front of
you. And you can explain, like, I'm sure you've done through
marketing, explain the story of, you know, here's the problem,
here's what we did to solve it. And this, here's the ROI and all
the value that came from it. Exactly.
But I gotta tell you, so I have a special connection to 3d
printing as well. So one of the startups that I I left a company
called MSC software, another large public company, with
historical roots in Engineering Simulation space. And I went to
a startup. And it was a simulation software for 3d
printing specifically for additive manufacturing, metal
additive manufacturing. The idea was to simulate how the part
will print so this was mental specifically, how the port will
print before it prints so that you can calibrate your 3d
printer to make sure that to account for any deformations or
things like that. And so I was a CMO of that company for exactly
a month before we got bought up by another large, large company.
So that was one of those acquisition stories. But for a
long time I do every player in additive manufacturing space,
all the software tools in that space. And yeah, it was it was
fun. It was during that like the heyday of 3d printing, I don't
know, maybe seven years ago or so. Or, oh, yeah, five years
ago.
Yeah. And I was lucky enough to just have been in the Boston
area when the hub of 3d printing in the world was happening
around me. So yeah, it's It's interesting, I feel like I feel
like the post COVID 3d printing at home, and being able to jump
supply chain has really grown a lot of interest in people having
3d printers at their home, like the start of that boom, the last
time. It's very interesting time for that. Yeah. But it's
interesting. I mean, I, I, I've worked as a as an Application
Engineer, which when I would tell people that most people
think I was an engineer for a software. But really, it was the
application of 3d printing, what is this part? How will this
part, make save our company money? How will this part, you
know, sell a printer. But the irony was that I needed to know
six or seven different software's at any given time to
really be really good at my job, one to design one to check for
problems and design, one to slice, one to eat. So it's it's
so much. It's so interesting, how many programs I know at one
time, and luckily, all the controls are mostly the same. So
I only slip up every once in
a while. Wow, that's impressive.
Thanks. I mean, it's it's job security. So engineering
software is the future I tell you. That's where everything's
going. So
thanks. Thanks. And I mean, it sounds like no space is really
helping with a lot of those areas. And in a really unique,
like, water or multiple of industries like academia,
defense, aerospace and commercial. I don't feel like
you work in all of those most of the time with just one product.
Is there. Is there any kind of challenge with that? Are each of
the software's, like their own independent entity? Or the the
end consumer versions of them? Or have you found a way to kind
of allow them to help with each other? And they're just a
different facet? Hmm, yeah.
So we have two product lines. One is for electromagnetics, and
one is for electrostatics. So electrostatic software is
actually unique, we don't have any competitors to to that
product. And that's, it's been designed specifically for
quantum computing industry. So I know, we wanted to touch on
quantum computers. So there is all kinds of different types of
quantum computer technologies out there, one of those
technologies is called ion traps. So that using ion traps
for the to build the quantum computer, so there's a very
large company that just raise over a billion dollars spun out
of a large defense company that uses our product. And, and so
that that product called nospace. Es stands for
electrostatics is for quantum computing industry. And then our
nospace em electromagnetics product is for any industry that
has large problems, where current commercial software
cannot handle those problems, like phased array, for example.
So there's phased array that are used for what's the Elon Musk's
internet with the satellites? Oh, Starlink Starlink? Yes,
thank you. So Starlink uses a lot of these phased arrays. So
that's a new type of technology. And these things could be very,
it's called electrically large, meaning you can have a small
antenna, but it is a very electrically large problem. And
that's where knowledge base comes in. And we're much faster
and we're able to handle digest process that problem and give
you the result much faster than the current the incumbents, the
current commercially available tools. And so whether it's
defense antennas built for defense applications, antennas
for aerospace applications, or radar type of applications, for
communications, again, defense, aerospace, automotive, doesn't
matter. The electromagnetic problem is still the same, the
application of where antenna might be sitting is different.
But it's still the same. The place where there hasn't been
much maybe simulation as wearables and consumer
electronics because it's so far, it's been so cheap to just
prototype and test that, that historically, there's not been a
lot of simulation, but I think we'll see that changing as as
the software becomes faster and more, more consumable and not as
crazy as expensive as it was before.
Yeah, that's a really interesting cross section where
I've learned working for a company that's making a device
how expensive making the first devices can be. And that's where
even though you know, I think simulation software can can look
expensive from the outside if you if you know how expensive it
can get by actually building the real thing, it, it's really
becomes a big saver.
Yeah, simulation can be a lot more cost effective.
Now is there? How about for, for usability? I remember, now this
is I'm dating myself. But when I was in college in 2008 to 2012.
There, it was difficult to use simulation software, you really
and I say difficult because you just had to set up every aspect
of the reality that you're trying to simulate is, is it
with, you know, electromagnetic radiation with that being the
focus? Does that simplify the user interface? Or is it? Is
there a lot of training that goes into using the software as
well?
Yeah, so not yet. So currently, because it is so difficult to
design the solver, the kernel itself without the kernel,
right? The the solver that actually takes electromagnetic
Maxwell's equations, puts them into a linear algebra sort of
terms. And then we code the linear algebra in computer code,
and that's your solver that is very difficult and takes years
to do then you have to test it on experimental, experimental
data to make sure that you're simulating the right thing. So
that was such a bulk of the work. And that was what the
what's been done for the last decade for no spaces, software
tools. And that's what we focused on. So we focused on the
hardest part, and that's creating the solver. So the
usability, to be completely honest, is not there, this is a
tool that's made for PG level, electrical engineers are
comfortable with Python, that are comfortable with scripting
and Python, and so on, they understand the simulation
process. And that's a very small pool of people. So what is on
our roadmap, and why we're trying to raise funding is to
focus exactly on that to focus on usability to democratize the
software for, you know, a bachelor's degree, electrical
engineer who just quickly wants to simulate something. And then
for that, the usability has to be very important customer
experience, user experiments, experience has to be very
important. And that's the next focus of the of development.
Yeah, and I think I think you guys took the right path. I
mean, we're seeing and this is this is my opinion, based on on,
you know, hours of research, but I'm certainly no expert in AI.
But what we're seeing with the application, you know, the AI
rubber hitting the road, we're seeing weird subtleties. I don't
think any of us would have realized, like, AI giving us an
answer, even though it doesn't know that that answer is
correct. Because it was asked to give an answer. And, you know,
in some cases, you know, not, it depends on the person who's
written the code, and maybe the approach that they took to it. I
find it really interesting. When we think about all of, you know,
3d space, kind of being shown back to us, right, with a lot of
stuff that's going with AI with AI and VR, and the amount of
processing and power that's going to be needed to convert
all that stuff. I'm super interested to see where a lot of
this goes. And I think, what you guys focused on it, making sure
that it's actually explaining reality? Well, I think the user
interface aspect is is not going to be an easy problem. But it's
going to be I think,
much easier. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It's much easier,
for sure. And you know, and to be fair, that's the reason why
our competitor tools out there, their solver technology has been
around for 3040 years unchanged. And what those companies have
been focused on just perfecting the user interface, and tweaking
things to make the user interface user interface, much
better. And so that's, that's our biggest challenge. Really,
it's not our software is better, it's faster, it's more accurate,
and most cases, but because it's not as user friendly as these
commercial companies that spend millions of dollars developing
the user interface, you know, we really have to find those
experts who understand the value in a faster, more powerful
solver. And so that's that's our early adopters. And that's the
customers that we have right now that appreciate the power and
the speed of the tool. And then the next level is to start to
really build out that user interface. And you know, it's
interesting, you mentioned AI and the whole the chip
proliferation right now and that whole craze in the recent, I
don't know two three months. The two public companies that I
worked for, which is company called ANSYS, which you've
probably heard of as an engineer
as an engineer. Yeah. Outside of it. I wouldn't have though.
Yeah, right. Right.
Exactly. No one. It's like a company. No one's heard of
except, except engineers, right? engineers know really well. has
no idea what the heck it is. So it just got acquired by synopsis
for a pretty crazy multiple of 16 times revenue, which, in
investment world is a crazy number, especially for Golden
Goose. Oh, right. Right, the slow non sexy company that like
no one's ever heard of, if you're not an engineer, and then
all TM, just a quiet got acquired for 6 billion for 30
times multiple revenue, which is again an investor I mean, to me,
as an engineer, it's like, okay, whatever, like, that's a really
big number to an investor, 30 times revenue, multiples
humongous, and crazy. Yeah, and doesn't happen in engineering,
software space. And so And today, there was another
acquisition announcement by cadence, Cadence Design systems,
which if you're an electrical engineer, you've heard of
cadence they, they've developed a tool that was competitor to
Altium. They just acquired another simulation company, not
as crazy with exit, it was, you know, only for a billion some
dollars, and, you know, 1010 times revenue multiple, but also
very large, and the kind of like, exit that we haven't heard
of, for years, and years and years and engineering software.
And so the question is, like, where are these all acquisitions
all of a sudden coming from, and I think it does tie back to AI
and the need for a lot more chips, and the whole ecosystem
of, of engineering tools that are kind of in that space,
they're just getting dragged along, you know, swept along
with us need to develop faster and keep up with the artificial
intelligence that we're creating, apparently. Yeah.
And to get a little meta here, I've been thinking about it
from, you know, I think that world that we both live in not
the super technical in the weeds of it, but a little bit higher
up and just looking, looking at what's, what's happening more
global. I definitely, I don't know is I think about space and
infrastructure, after talking to so many folks in the field and
how we really have no more infrastructure around the moon
than we did 50 years ago. And so we have to build all of that.
And then down here, we're still using the same internet that we
had 10 years ago, the infrastructure has not changed.
Yeah, that we might have 5g from 4g, and LTE. But what happens
when all this AI starts building content on the internet? Are the
pipes gonna get filled up and close? That's a great enough, is
there enough power to power? All of is there are enough resources
for whatever it is that is being created, for it to develop at
the rate that it needs to develop? And I'm wondering if
we're hitting a limit before it and rushing at this AI thing too
soon, where we're just going to clog up the pipes. It's it's a
weird, I haven't gotten a good answer from it yet. But it's a
weird question. And we were talking about sci fi and it just
made me think about that.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, just, technology scares me.
Wild.
Yeah, you know, I do feel growing up with a lot of science
fiction, I do feel that science fiction doesn't have a tendency
to come true. Not all of it, luckily, but it does. And so
it's interesting times that we live in I definitely above my
paygrade to talk about what AI is gonna do to us all to say
that things are it does feel like things are moving really
fast, right? Doesn't it to I don't know. To me, it just feels
like things are everything's just moving too fast. And like,
we're we're rushing, we're where we trying to get to?
I know it's it's true. And it seems like the deeper into the
technology hole you go like if you go web three and and
cryptocurrency stuff, that stuff is the most Tech Tech of it. And
it's moving way faster than I can even keep up with it. I
don't even know if the people writing about it can keep up
with it as much as they can. It's it is I don't have any good
answers. I just know that the principle that we're running on
here is we don't ever want it to look like magic or to be you
know, believed in as magic like it it is a science there is we
can we can try and at least understand it at some level. And
at least if we can talk about it and ask The question ahead of
time, maybe we'll be okay. But if we don't, I think it's it
might speed past us and become magic. So who knows?
Who knows, there is a really good book I read recently called
the quantum supremacy by Yeah, a professor at NYC, I think he's
originally from Japan. And it's a really good book, I read it
like, I don't know, an evening. And so he talks about different
scenarios of what happened with AI. And it's, it's fascinating.
You know, it's not, if you if you like science fiction, but
you're an engineer, that's a great, great book, I highly
recommend
to check that out. Thank you. To the quantum supremacy, quantum
supremacy. Yeah,
very cool.
It's really good. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens. One
thing I do know, though, for sure is I don't know what's
going to happen with AI and with all this technology, and where
are we trying to rush to? I do know that the number of
engineers is not increasing drastically. And I do know that
engineers make this world a better place for the most part,
developers. No, I'm just kidding. I don't say that. But
you know, studying jokes. That's right. You're just you're
studying Mechanical, aerospace, electrical engineering,
engineers tend to be we tend to be very methodical, thoughtful,
risk averse, people. And you can blame engineers for going too
slow, especially larger companies and things like that.
But at the same time, they also make sure that there is multiple
safety factors in in the bridge or in the car in a plane. And
you know, that the engineers biggest fear is that to avoid
any, like, large disaster, or whatever, like the biggest goal
in life is to avoiding harsh disaster. And so I do believe
the world needs more engineers. And so anyone, any young people
listening to us right now, and contemplating what to do become
an engineer, you could always do other things, like Alex and I
are doing but Exactly,
yeah, there's always there's always the opportunity to have
another career change. But I will say the I definitely
struggle with the the engineering side of things. You
know, it's mainly personal stuff of just like that I've gotten
over. But I realized that that's the angst that started this
podcast was was not being able to find that engineering job.
And of course, now that I've found my niche here, and I
figured out really what I was looking for. I have a huge
respect for the engineers that are real classic engineers,
because we, we've, like you said, I flew on two planes the
last week, and I'm very glad that there were good engineers
that built those planes. And made those safety factors in
play. I'm very happy about that. I definitely think I've seen
this online, you know, there's the as I'm getting older, I'm
watching that kind of the next generation of engineers coming
out. And a lot of them who are now more online, I'm seeing a
trend of a lot of burnout, and a lot of career transitions out of
engineering. And I'm wondering, Is it is it less people getting
into engineering as a field? Like, is there a large brush of
people getting in college wise and then not completing? Um, I'm
definitely interested because I know, it's, it's a struggle. I
mean, you've you've been there, it's not an easy degree or field
to get into, but you learn a lot about the real world, and how
matter and things and, and how everything interacts with each
other. What kind of advice would you have for, you know, as you
see your your teams that you're building, you know, especially
the, the the generation that's coming up here? What kind of
advice do you have for folks for getting into engineering and
into the field?
Yeah, I think you're right. I think there's a lot of burnout
everywhere. People just tired, like COVID really hit the world
hard. And then ever since then, and I think just seeing the pace
of things with AI, how just everything is just too fast, and
people are just exhausted. And engineering is hard, and doing
hard things when you're exhausted. A lot of times,
there's not much reward on the other side of things, right?
Yeah. And so I think if people are burned out, then you got to
take care of yourself first. But if you can persevere and still
push through the hard thing. I can tell you that I've never
regretted my engineering degree. And again, I'm not a typical
engineer. Math is very hard for me. I had bad grades and math
like that was one of my worst subjects until I In high school,
I decided that's it, I'm gonna force myself to do well in math.
Yeah. And I always had to hard work a lot harder than anybody
else in my engineering classes. I was never straight A student.
But I found ways to learn engineering in a way that's much
more social. And I it opened so many doors for me. And I would,
I would not give up my my engineering PhD for it for
anything. So I would encourage people to persevere and push
through and know that if you do the hard thing that, you know,
99.9% of the world does not want to do that it'll reward you on
the other side. Yeah, one way or the other. Even if you become a
musician, and artists dancer, I don't know a dog walker, or a
3d, a podcaster tuber, tick tock or I don't know what people
become nowadays, that engineering degree, it just
gives you a level of discipline that other degrees don't give
you and then gives you a level of confidence. I think that it
may be you haven't, you mentioned, you know, like, it
was hard. Trying to find a job and sure that happens. But I do
feel like it gives you a level of confidence that you got a
degree that most people are not able to get through. Yeah,
and now that I have that job, I have such an appreciation for
it. To finally be here to be that problem solver. You know,
that's that's in the mix every single day. And it's very
Sherlock Holmes. It's very, you know, I love the aspect of it.
So I wouldn't trade the journey of it for anything, and And if
anything, that journey is exactly what made me start a
podcast so Exactly. So if we can communicate here and, and do the
more human side of things, we may have a job when the AI takes
over, so
think any of us are gonna have any jobs. We're alive. I just
don't want to be in the matrix. Let me tell you my biggest
fears. I don't want that slime. Do you remember the slime he had
to go through? Like when he was in that thing? I just don't want
to go in that slime. That's all I'm asking. First
of all the slime feel looks like.
And I always wonder like, you know, he couldn't breathe,
right? Remember, he came out of it. And he was like coughing,
and that I don't want everything else I'll deal with? Yeah.
Well, what we hope for here always in the podcast is we used
to say, here's to a fantastic future. And I think now it's
changed to here's the building a fantastic future for all of us.
So thank you. Thank you so, so much. And thank you so much for
for coming on the podcast and talking about no space and your
stem origin story. And I think we got into some, some pretty
great topics.
This was awesome. Yeah, absolutely.
Any any last thoughts to the folks out there as we close up
the podcast?
Well, we've got we've covered a lot of topics, just you know, if
you think about engineering, just do it, do it, stick with
it, get through it. The world needs more engineers.
You heard it here, folks. We've got rode to Artemis to build so
that we can live in space. And I think if there's a problem hard
enough for AI to solve, it's the final frontier. So let's all
join that path together AI and humans and let's go tackle the
final frontier because that's probably the only problem it's
gonna not be able to solve quickly. So that's right. That's
right. spread love and spread science. Have a great week and
we'll see you on the next episode today in space. Thank
you