Founders Fund partner Delian Asparouhov spoke Wednesday about his plans to produce drugs in space and urged real estate agents to lean toward the tech sector.
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When Delian Asparouhov was a boy, his parents moved to the United States from Bulgaria after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Asparukhov said on stage at Inman Connect in Las Vegas on Wednesday that the experience convinced him of the importance of capitalism and business enterprise.
Asparukhov, who grew up in the United States and is now a partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund, also became a fan of science fiction and aerospace, so much so that as an adult he began looking for ways to work in the industry . Asparukhov specifically wanted to find ways to make money in space, but, he recalled to the packed Connection Ballroom, the technology to make commerce viable miles above the Earth’s surface didn’t yet exist.
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Then things changed. Asparukhov said that in 2018 and 2019, Musk’s Space X began to deploy reusable rockets. He compared this development to the advent of railroads, which once enabled industrialists such as the Rockefellers to transport oil with new efficiencies.
“Today in 2024, these types of rockets are launching and landing every 36 hours,” Asparukhov said of Space X’s technology. “Obviously someone built a railroad to space; someone had to figure out what oil would be.
Delian Asparouhov on stage at Inman Connect on Wednesday. Photo Credit: AJ Canaria Creative Services
Over the next few years, Asparukhov focused on how to exploit new technologies and identify the “oil” to be won through space work. He eventually stumbled upon the pharmaceutical industry. The idea, he explains, is that without gravity, drug companies can perform more precise chemical reactions, such that at least one popular drug could be converted from an intravenous injection to a home syringe system.
The idea may be revolutionary, but it also sounds ridiculous. Making drugs in space?
But it turns out that Asparukhov has clearly done it. On stage, he showed the audience a photo of an object that looked like a Starlink satellite. However, he added that it was actually a capsule that made the drug in orbit and returned last February.
“The worst environment they see,” he joked of the drug’s incredible journey, “is the UPS truck in Houston.”
Although Asparukhov’s efforts to create an orbital drug manufacturing business had nothing to do with real estate, he has invested in real estate startups and said similar principles apply across industries. In other words, the focus of his speech was the ability of new technologies to revolutionize industries.
In space, this new technology is reusable rockets. A century ago, it was railroads. Today, Asparukhov thinks, it might be artificial intelligence.
“It’s as important as the steam engine,” Asparukhov said.
He therefore urged real estate professionals to learn and understand the new technology and prepare for the changes it may bring.
“Ten years from now, there will be fewer agents than there are now,” he said, “but those agents will almost certainly be able to handle much higher customer volumes.”
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