[andromeduck]

Starlink was originally a google idea, originally a sister project to Loon, the founder quit and brought his team to SpaceX and then got fired by Elon. Everyone who repeats this story to me says it was because "Elon doesn't suffer fools" but YMMV.

[jpm_sd]

Global Bit didn't originate at Google X, it was an acqui-hire of O3B which later spun back out to become OneWeb.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutelsat_OneWeb

There was definitely some weird cross pollination with SpaceX happening.

[ex3ndr]

IIRC first version was very overengineered and team was replaced that built a simpler one.

[wilg]

Who was that? Can't find anything about it.

[akreal]

Maybe this: "top designer Mark Krebs, who worked in Google's satellite and aircraft division"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-spacex-starlink-insight-i...

[andromeduck]

I think that might be it - it was called "Project Air" circa 2011-2015.