Co-founders still in the CEO, Chairman, and CTO seats. Together they control more than half the vote.
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✦ The bottom line
Steve Altemus (CEO), Kam Ghaffarian (Chairman), Tim Crain (CTO) — three co-founders, three NASA Johnson Space Center veterans, all still running the company 13 years in.
↓ the brief below
✦ Teach me
Skin in the game
When the people running a company own a lot of the company, they're rich (or poor) based on whether the stock goes up. Their incentives line up with yours. Especially valuable in long-cycle businesses like space — where decisions made today pay off (or don't) in 5+ years.
Look for: founders still around, big personal ownership, not selling on every spike.
Wall Street calls this
Insider ownership / founder alignment
For a company that won't be profitable for *years,* you need to trust the people steering it through that time. Founders who still own the company tend to make different decisions than hired-gun CEOs.
The founders, and what they bring
Steve Altemus
CEO. Former NASA Johnson Space Center Deputy Director. Led the Columbia disaster reconstruction in 2003. Embry-Riddle aeronautical engineering background.
Kam Ghaffarian
Chairman. Serial space entrepreneur — co-founded Axiom Space, X Energy, Quantum Space. 36+ year career bridging government and commercial space.
Tim Crain
CTO. PhD aerospace engineer. Former NASA JSC engineering lead — worked on Mars Science Lander navigation and Orion guidance & control.
From the 2026 proxy · how much the founders own
Stephen Altemus: 11.6% of total voting power. Dr. Kamal Ghaffarian: 33.5% of total voting power. Dr. Timothy Crain: 8.2%. All directors and executive officers as a group (10 individuals): 54.1% of total voting power.
↳ Three founders control >50% of the vote. This is unusual — most public companies have CEOs holding 1-3% at most. Maximum skin in the game.
Source · DEF 14A · Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management · as of April 10, 2026 · Filed Apr 24, 2026
✓
Strong
Three founders, still here, with majority voting control. Deep NASA technical bench. Decisions are theirs to live with.