前OpenAI高管Kevin Weil加入Stoke Space董事会

Kevin Weil是一位资深科技高管，曾任职于Twitter、Meta、Planet Labs和OpenAI，现已加入Stoke Space的董事会。Stoke Space是西雅图一家资金雄厚的初创公司，正在建造可重复使用火箭，以与SpaceX竞争。

Stoke公司CEO Andy Lapsa对TechCrunch说起2020年他联合创立Stoke并随后加入Y Combinator冬季批次时见到Weil的情形：“这对我来说很简单。我是工程出身，创办了公司，对融资一无所知。我不知道硅谷如何运作，也没有人脉。Kevin（他和妻子Elizabeth通过他们的基金Scribble Ventures成为公司的早期投资者）带来了所有这些背景，能帮我思考融资和让公司起步。”

两人在Lapsa筹得13.4亿美元（包括2025年一笔5.1亿美元的D轮融资）的过程中持续交流，以建造一型有望今年飞行的快速可重复使用火箭。现在，时机显然已成熟，Weil作为董事加入董事会，帮助继续扩展公司规模。Stoke婉拒让Weil接受采访，他也没有回应TechCrunch的联络。

Weil过往的工作集中在数字产品与平台，这些与Stoke的路线图并无明显关联。他最近负责OpenAI加速科学研究的项目，在该项目的工作于4月被更广泛地分配到前沿实验室各部门后离开了公司。此前，他从2024年6月到2025年10月担任OpenAI的首席产品官。

Weil的上一份工作引出一个明显的问题：报道称OpenAI的Sam Altman去年曾考察Stoke，考虑投资打造自己的SpaceX竞争对手。Weil是否就是这家前沿AI实验室与太空领域潜在合作伙伴之间的纽带？Lapsa拒绝对关于OpenAI的“八卦和传言”置评，称Weil的角色是关注Stoke本身。

Stoke正在建造名为Nova的火箭，目标是实现完全可重复使用，能够一次又一次地飞行。此前从未有人做到这一点，SpaceX凭借其巨大的Starship火箭最为接近。重复使用火箭的技术挑战——尤其是其承受从太空重返地球大气层极端高温的能力——甚至让资金最雄厚的太空投资者也望而却步。Jeff Bezos的Blue Origin（Lapsa曾在此工作）曾浅尝这一路径，但并未将其作为优先事项。

不过，如今SpaceX轰动性的股市首秀——其大部分价值依赖于Elon Musk的承诺，即Starship今年将执行运营任务——证明了Lapsa的先见之明。尽管有数十亿美元投入新的运载火箭，但火箭仍然供不应求，下一家能让价格合理的火箭常态化飞行的公司，有望赚得盆满钵满。

Lapsa说：“世界正在意识到发射问题仍未解决。那时，完全、快速重复使用的想法还有点天方夜谭……而现在这已变得相当平常，人们看到了必然性。”

值得注意的是，在太空建设分布式数据中心以利用太阳能并摆脱地球政治限制的想法，已激起一些风险投资人的想象。关键障碍是将所有计算机芯片送入轨道的成本。Lapsa表示，太空数据中心“只有在完全快速重复使用的情况下才有意义”，这可能成为Stoke火箭开始飞行时的关键差异化因素。

军事合同也将对公司成功至关重要，而Weil在弥合硅谷与国防部之间的鸿沟方面拥有经验；他是四位科技界风云人物之一，曾加入美国陆军预备役，旨在改善征兵以及陆军与产业界的合作。这也不是他首次涉足航天业务。Weil曾担任卫星对地观测公司Planet Labs的总裁，历时三年，直至该公司于2021年上市。

不过，无论Weil在公司临近交付可运营运载火箭时能为战略增添什么，公司最终必须切实执行。

Lapsa表示：“我们已经把相当一部分风险甩在了身后，但还有更多路要走。我们会尽最大努力，一旦准备就绪，我们就发射。”

Kevin Weil, a veteran tech executive known for stints at Twitter, Meta, Planet Labs, and OpenAI, has joined the board of Stoke Space, a well-funded Seattle startup building reusable rockets to compete with SpaceX.

“It’s real simple for me,” Stoke CEO Andy Lapsa told TechCrunch of meeting Weil when he co-founded Stoke in 2020 and soon after joined Y Combinator’s winter batch. “I came out of engineering, started a company, had no idea how to fundraise. I had no idea how Silicon Valley worked. I had no network. Kevin [an early investor in the company with his wife Elizabeth, through their fund Scribble Ventures] comes with all of that background and was able to help me think about fundraising and getting the company off the ground.

The two kept talking while Lapsa raised $1.34 billion — including a $510 million Series D funding round in 2025 — to build a rapidly reusable rocket that could fly this year. Now, the time is apparently right for Weil to join the board as a director to help continue scaling the company. Stoke declined to make Weil available for an interview, and he didn’t respond to TechCrunch’s outreach.

Weil’s past work has focused on digital products and platforms, which aren’t obviously on Stoke’s roadmap. He was most recently the head of OpenAI’s efforts to accelerate scientific research, leaving the company after that program’s work was spread more widely across the frontier lab in April. He had previously served as OpenAI’s chief product officer from June 2024 until October 2025.

Weil’s last job raises one obvious question: OpenAI’s Sam Altman was reportedly kicking the tires on Stoke last year, contemplating an investment in his own SpaceX competitor. Could Weil be the link between the frontier AI lab and a possible partner in space? Lapsa declined to comment on “gossip and rumors” about OpenAI, saying Weil’s role was to focus on Stoke itself.

Stoke is building a rocket, Nova, that is intended to be completely reusable and can be flown again and again. No one has ever done that, with SpaceX coming the closest with its enormous Starship rocket. The technological challenges of reusing a rocket — particularly its ability to survive the extreme heat of reentering the Earth’s atmosphere from space — deterred even space investors with the deepest pockets. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, where Lapsa once worked, has flirted with the approach, but hasn’t prioritized it.

Now, though, SpaceX’s blockbuster stock market debut — with much of its value resting on Elon Musk’s promises that Starship will be flying operational missions this year — has proven Lapsa’s foresight. Despite many billions of dollars invested in new launch vehicles, there aren’t enough rockets to go around, and the next company to get a reasonably priced rocket flying regularly promises to make a killing.

“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.”

Notably, the idea of building distributed data centers in space to leverage solar power and escape political restrictions on Earth has captured the imagination of some venture capitalists. The key obstacle there is the cost of getting all those computer chips into orbit. Space data centers “really only make sense with full rapid reuse,” Lapsa said, which could be a key differentiator for Stoke as its rocket starts flying.

Military contracts will also be key to the company’s success, and Weil has experience bridging the gap between Silicon Valley and the Department of Defense; he was one of four tech movers and shakers who joined the U.S. Army Reserve in a bid to improve recruitment and cooperation between the Army and industry. And this isn’t his first time in the space business. Weil served as the president of Planet Labs, a satellite earth observation company, for three years as it went public 2021.

Whatever Weil can add to the company’s strategy as it closes in on delivering an operational launch vehicle, though, the company has to execute.

“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.”