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Meditations: A Requiem for Descartes Labs | by Mark Johnson | Medium

philosophygeek.medium.com · 5,225 words · saved by 1 readers

Before a board meeting early in the history of Descartes Labs, I sat looking at my deck, realizing that it lacked a narrative. I sat down and penned my first board memo and produced one every quarter thereafter. I named it “Meditations” after Descartes’ most famous book, in which he secured reason in the eyes of God, providing the philosophical foundation for the scientific revolution. Today calls for a different kind of Meditation, a song of lamentation. Descartes Labs was on a mission to better understand our planet through satellite imagery. To enable such a lofty mission, we built a data refinery, a petabyte scale repository of satellite and other geospatial data combined with petaflop scale supercomputing power. Because of our platform, we attracted some of the best scientists from around the world, often fleeing universities and government institutions, looking for an intellectual island to do impactful science. Our Cartesians built some of the most remarkable demonstrations of t

Press enter or click to view image in full size Descartes Labs posing as the Traitorous Eight Meditations: A Requiem for Descartes Labs Mark Johnson 21 min read · Aug 4, 2022 -- 18 Listen Share Before a board meeting early in the history of Descartes Labs, I sat looking at my deck, realizing that it lacked a narrative. I sat down and penned my first board memo and produced one every quarter thereafter. I named it “Meditations” after Descartes’ most famous book, in which he secured reason in the eyes of God, providing the philosophical foundation for the scientific revolution. Today calls for a

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