In recent years, one of the great privileges of my work has been the chance to speak with an unusually diverse set of thinkers: founders building from zero to one, like George Chamoun and Dan Magnuszewski; public company executives like Noah Glass and Mike Wisler; pedagogical innovators like Sal Khan and Shirzad Chamine; and economic historians like Chris Miller. 

Each conversation, in its own way, has been about the same question: how does a bold new idea transform into a one-of-a-kind company?

Later this month, I’ll have the opportunity to continue that thread in conversationwith my friend Tejpaul Bhatia, who most recently helmed Axiom Space after leadership roles at companies like Google, Chatwala, Kaptur, and Explain Everything. Tej has spent his career oscillating between technology, storytelling, and space, the literal frontier of human possibility.

Our breakfast-hour chat will center on the idea of moonshots: those outlandish, high-velocity visions that seem to teeter on the edge between fantasy and inevitability. The original moonshot (Kennedy’s call to land a man on the moon within a decade) was as much a psychological leap as a technological one. It demanded not only new engineering but a collective re-wiring of what people believed could be done.

Today, we’re surrounded by moonshots again: in AI, in climate technology, in synthetic biology, in the long-overdue reinvention of the physical economy. The difference is that the tools are more powerful, the markets less forgiving, and the timelines more compressed. The line between science fiction and quarterly roadmap has never been thinner.

But not every moonshot looks like a rocket ship. In the world of vertical SaaS and applied AI, the breakthroughs are often quieter, tucked inside industries most people rarely think about: construction crews, regulated manufacturers, physical therapy clinics. On the surface, these verticalized innovations may not always sound transformative. Yet they can fundamentally change the lives of the people doing the work, keeping critical systems running and corners of our economy humming.

These are grounded moonshots: ventures that restore leverage and dignity to essential trades by giving them better tools, better data, and more time. They don’t dominate headlines, but they transform balance sheets and, in many cases, entire local economies. They remind us that progress isn’t only about building toward the stars. It’s also about building better ways to live and work here on Earth.

At Armory, this has always been the animating idea: that the frontier of technology doesn’t only run through Silicon Valley, but through the factories, hospitals, farms, and municipal offices that make up the rest of the country. Innovation in these verticals may not glitter, but it compounds, quietly and profoundly.

That’s the spirit in which I’m approaching this upcoming conversation with Tej: to think about moonshots not as metaphors for escape, but as ways of expanding the realm of the possible. Stay tuned for more details on the event, and if you’re a founder who would like to attend, register here while space is still available.