SpaceX just went public. These alum-founded startups are following its playbook
Space X finally went public on Friday, marking what could be one of the most profitable stock market debuts ever. The move stands to make Elon Musk, already the world’s wealthiest person, even wealthier, while turning many employees and early investors into millionaires and billionaires overnight. It’s been a long road for Space X. Founded in 2002, the company has built an array of businesses around one key achievement: mostly reusable rocket launches that have drastically reduced the cost of sending things into space. Today, SpaceX sells national defense satellite launch services, supports commercial space tourism, provides satellite internet to consumers and transportation companies, and works with NASA on programs including the International Space Station and Artemis. Through Starship, its next-generation vehicle now undergoing testing, the company aims to expand even further, including by launching new satellite constellations and accelerating plans for the Moon and Mars. SpaceX also leaves another legacy: a generation of startups founded by former employees. They have taken the company’s hard-charging mentality and focus on first-principles engineering to new ventures that could one day follow in its footsteps. “A lot of this has to do with Elon and his personality and his ability to attract these types of people,” Robert Rose, a startup founder who led software development for the Falcon 9, told Fast Company earlier this year. “But he also just created an environment that those types of people want to be in.” Here are a few examples. For a broader look at companies founded by SpaceX alumni, see Fast Company’s database of more than 400 SpaceX alum founders, the largest publicly available resource of its kind. Parallel Systems Like SpaceX, Parallel Systems is trying to reinvent a critical piece of transportation infrastructure. The company develops autonomous, battery-electric rail vehicles and, according to its website, aims to replace some short-haul trucking. I