Why a Silicon Valley product veteran is betting on rockets
Kevin Weil has spent decades building digital products — first at Twitter, then Meta, Planet Labs, and most recently as chief product officer at OpenAI. Now he’s turning his attention to something far more physical: reusable rockets.
Weil has joined the board of directors at Stoke Space, a Seattle-area startup that’s trying to build the world’s first fully and rapidly reusable rocket — a feat even SpaceX hasn’t pulled off yet. Stoke confirmed the appointment to TechCrunch, though Weil declined to comment.
The move raises eyebrows because Weil’s résumé is almost entirely software and AI. But Stoke CEO Andy Lapsa sees it differently. “It’s real simple for me,” Lapsa said. When he co-founded Stoke in 2020 and entered Y Combinator, he had no network in venture capital. Weil — an early investor through his fund Scribble Ventures — helped him navigate fundraising and company-building from day one.
That relationship deepened as Lapsa went on to raise $1.34 billion, including a $510 million Series D in 2025. Now Weil is taking a formal board role to help scale the company through its next phase.
What Kevin Weil brings to a rocket company
On the surface, Weil’s background doesn’t scream aerospace. He spent three years as president of Planet Labs, the Earth-imaging satellite company, taking it public in 2021. That’s his closest brush with space — but it’s meaningful. Planet operates hundreds of satellites and understands the intersection of hardware, software, and orbital operations.
Weil also brings something rarer: experience bridging Silicon Valley and the Pentagon. He was one of four tech executives who joined the U.S. Army Reserve to improve recruitment and cooperation between the military and the tech industry. For Stoke, which will likely depend on military launch contracts, that network could be gold.
“Kevin comes with all of that background and was able to help me think about fundraising and getting the company off the ground,” Lapsa said.
The OpenAI connection: coincidence or strategy?
Weil’s most recent role was head of OpenAI’s scientific research acceleration efforts, a program that was later folded into the broader lab. He left in April after the restructuring. But his OpenAI tenure raises an obvious question: is there a link between the AI giant and Stoke?
Last year, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was reportedly evaluating Stoke for a potential investment — his own bet on a SpaceX competitor. Could Weil be the bridge? Lapsa waved off the speculation. “I’m not going to comment on gossip and rumors about OpenAI,” he said. “Kevin’s job is to focus on Stoke.”
Still, the idea isn’t far-fetched. AI workloads are exploding, and some VCs believe the next logical step is building data centers in space — using unlimited solar power and avoiding geopolitical constraints on Earth. The main obstacle is launch cost. “Space data centers really only make sense with full rapid reuse,” Lapsa said. That’s exactly what Stoke’s Nova rocket is designed to deliver.
Nova: the rocket that wants to beat SpaceX at its own game
Stoke’s vehicle, Nova, is designed to be fully reusable — every part of it, not just the first stage. SpaceX’s Starship is the closest anyone has come, but even Starship isn’t fully reusable yet. The heat of reentry has defeated every attempt before it. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, where Lapsa once worked, has explored the concept but hasn’t made it a priority.
“The world is realizing that launch is still not solved,” Lapsa said. “The idea of full, rapid reuse was a little bit out there at that time… that’s now been rather normalized, and people see the inevitable now.”
What changed? SpaceX’s blockbuster stock market debut, which valued the company largely on the promise that Starship will fly operational missions this year. That validated Lapsa’s thesis: there aren’t enough rockets to meet demand, and the next company to field a cheap, rapidly reusable vehicle will capture enormous value.
Stoke has raised more than $1.3 billion and is targeting its first flight in 2025. “We’ve got a good chunk of the risk behind us, we’ve got more to go,” Lapsa said. “We’ll work as hard as we can, and we’ll go when it’s ready.”
What’s next for Stoke Space
Joining the board is one thing. Delivering a flying rocket is another. Weil’s role will likely focus on strategy, partnerships, and the kind of organizational scaling that a hardware startup needs as it transitions from development to operations. His experience at Planet Labs — a company that went from building satellites to operating a global constellation — is directly relevant.
Stoke isn’t just competing with SpaceX. It’s competing with a wave of new launch companies, from Relativity Space to Rocket Lab, all chasing the same prize. The difference is that Stoke has bet everything on full reuse from the start, rather than iterating toward it. That’s a high-risk, high-reward bet — and it’s one Weil now owns as a board member.
