Our guest on Episode 9 of Compounders was Mark Dankberg, the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Viasat. Viasat is a $3.97 billion market cap company that provides broadband and communication products and services worldwide. Viasat started off as a defense-oriented company but has since layered on consumer and business-facing offerings by developing the world’s leading high throughput geostationary satellites.
Over the next two years, Viasat will be launching three new satellites that will give the company the ability to offer global coverage to its military and in-flight WIFI customers. Additionally, Viasat is rolling out community WIFI initiatives to help people in emerging and frontier markets connect to the internet for the first time. All of this is happening while the company is facing a growing threat from low earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers such as Elon Musk’s Starlink.
Given how much is going on and the fact that Mark recently went from being the CEO to assume the Executive Chairman role, I thought it would be a perfect time to talk to him about the following topics:
- The future of the global satellite broadband industry, including competition with Starlink;
- Why satellite broadband will not be a winner-take-all market;
- What the US military needs now from Viasat and how that may evolve over time;
- The cultural differences between the defense and commercial sides of the company; and
- How Viasat can benefit from all the space-related activity going on right now;
Please enjoy the interview at the following sites:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwU3P8OML64
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creating-the-fastest-global-satellite-broadband/id1579124518?i=1000536840977
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2BkuAn8NUnPLAJJPJomjUC
Podbean: https://compounders.podbean.com/e/building-the-fastest-global-satellite-broadband-network-with-mark-dankberg-executive-chairman-of-viasat-inc-nasdaq-vsat/
Also, if you have any comments, feedback, or guest recommendations, please contact us at podcast@covestreetcapital.com. You can also follow the podcast on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/CompoundersPod.
If you missed the previous episode of Compounders with Alan McKim, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Clean Harbors, you can watch or listen here.
