Planet Is An Awesome Company
If we boil them down to the first principles of what they do, Planet are high millimetre, low aperture photographers with a tremendous technological moat.
With a fleet of 200+ satellites, (most of which so small you could carry above your head), Planet makes thousands of circumnavigations around the globe per day, month, year and create, what is so far, heavily discounted value (if you consider their trading price) by documenting the passing Earth flying beneath their wings.
Planet accumulate, day on day, more and more relevant and historical data about the surface of our globe. Now, just to interrupt the flow of reading. You’d be forgiven if this doesn’t strike as an incredibly exciting venture, it might not be so obvious how significant an insight this trailing and live information on the globe can be. But for me, this is one of the most exciting companies to have ever come across my desk. And what’s most exciting is the type of applications for the trailing surface data Planet is compounding upon every single day is yet to be realised.
Because Planet does not simply make current and accurate the world’s maps, although that alone would be a truly remarkable feat. Planet takes their insights multiple steps further and adds proverbial step function increases of value. Planet are at the point now with their technology where they can provide live insights into what would be otherwise impossible information to know irrespective of your resources.
Planet are imaging the surface of our Earth every day.
- Tell me about crop yields in the south of France this winter?
- What type of activity are we getting off the coast of Tunisia?
- How’s the bushfire season shaping up in Australia?
- Explain to me this gang of trucks piling up outside an illegal Copper mine in the DRC.
- How about a trailing image of Arctic ice melt over an entire winter season.
- Wait a minute, is that what I think it is in the Iranian desert?
Planet’s technology yield applications yet to be realised. I don’t know whether I’m over-projecting my own interests in geopolitics and geography onto Planet, or whether they are truly the type of game-changing company I’m making them out to be. But irrespective of where they exist on that spectrum what is certain is that I wish to work for them.
So – Will Marshall, before you read on. Please consider my open letter to you.
For everyone else, stay tuned for my Bloody Good Business Profile of Planet. In the meantime, catch up on ASML, proliferating Moore’s Law & Oatly, one of the greatest marketing pivots of all time.
