Pierre-Damien Vaujour (Loft Orbital): “If you have international ambitions, you need to have international experience”

Leaders League: You moved to Silicon Valley after studying aerospace science at the University of Michigan. Tell us a bit about Loft Orbital and how you came to become its cofounder and CEO.
Pierre-Damien Vaujour: Loft Orbital was set up in San Francisco eight years ago. I was already based there, having previously worked at Nasa [in Mountain View]. Silicon Valley is one of the few places where you can meet investors to raise several million dollars in order to create a deeptech company in the space sector. For reasons of local expertise and cost, our production center is located in Colorado.
The aim from day one was to create an international company, present not just in the US, but in Europe, the Middle East and Asia too. In the space industry, budgets are domestic, and governments work with companies based within their own territory. It is a highly sovereign and heavily regulated industry. In 2024, we signed a joint venture with the UAE government to scale satellite production in the Middle East.

Why did you choose Toulouse for your European base?
It was, for us, the ideal location in Europe. That said, none of our products are 100% made in one location, so team members can just as easily be based in Toulouse as San Francisco. In Toulouse, it is easy to find space engineers, but in Silicon Valley you find engineers that have worked in hyper-growth companies capable of managing the instability inherent in startups.

When a company has an international culture, especially an American one, you think big

As an ‘outsider’ in California, how do you view cultural differences?
We tend to assume that cultural differences are linked to nationality. This isn’t true. For us, the real ‘cultural’ issue is managing engineers who come from the world of software and those who come from the aerospace industry, regardless of where they are from. An aerospace engineer who worked at Lockheed Martin does not speak the same language as a software engineer from Microsoft or Google.

In the space industry, we don’t focus on software – it’s not a particularly modern sector in that regard. Projects are developed over very long timeframes. I’m thinking, for example, of a project launched in the 1970s that will only come to fruition in 2040. On the other hand, in the software business, code is updated every day. These disciplines don’t traditionally work together. Getting them to integrate each other’s best practices is challenging, but worth it because that’s where innovation is born.  

How do you get them to work together?
By encouraging them to understand each other. For example, to test a satellite, space engineers want a stable environment. However, software engineers are constantly modifying the code. They need to put themselves in the other’s shoes and understand why, technically, it’s a good idea to proceed in a particular way. Cultivating camaraderie, empathy and collaboration is essential to achieving this.  

Loft Orbital is present in the US, France, UAE and Singapore. What are the challenges when managing teams located in different parts of the world?
One potential issue is salary difference. The cost of living, compensation levels, labor laws, retirement benefits and healthcare systems vary from one country to another. In a team of five spread between San Francisco, Colorado and Toulouse, feelings of inequality can be strong. If an employee decides to relocate from San Francisco to Toulouse, there’s a good chance they will be shocked to see their salary divided by two – or four even!

Silicon Valley is one of the few places where you can meet investors to raise several million dollars to create a deeptech company

If you are serious about attracting the top talent, you need to know how to tackle such subjects. Money aside, it is always interesting to note that people tend to value the systems they grew up with more highly. This is particularly evident when it comes to healthcare issues. Americans prefer to be treated in the United States, and French people in France. 

Does Loft Orbital’s commercial approach vary depending on the country?
We are developing a full range of services so that our clients can carry out their missions within a ready-to-use space infrastructure. For each country or client, we focus on what matters most to them. For example, in a Canadian government project that will last five years, speed of execution is not a priority – we won’t be coding on-site with them. In contrast, Loft’s start-up clients can work directly with our engineers and value agility.  

What does the phrase “Expat CEO” mean to you?
If you have international ambitions, you need to have international experience. If you’re based in Toulouse, you can go and sell in Bordeaux, or Paris even. But it’s naturally difficult to imagine how you would go about selling to Argentina. The ability to think long term and have a cohesive global vision comes with experience. You’ve got to understand that the world is a village.

Another crucial point is that, in France, we have a fear of failure, so we tend to be risk averse. When a company has an international culture, especially an American one, you think big. And if, at the end of the day, you only achieve half of what you set out to do, that’s already a win. Besides, if it doesn’t work, you just move on to something else.

Starting a space company, raising millions, hiring quickly – it's a big risk at the outset, and we continue to take risks every day. The risk of not doing so? Dying, because our competitors won't hesitate to take them.