How Bridgit Mendler Ended Up Becoming A Space Startup CEO
Former Disney stars are usually divided into two camps: those who capitalized on their fame and those who retreated from the limelight altogether. Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, and Selena Gomez all went on to become superstars in their own right, while a handful of Disney alums pivoted to regular jobs. Dylan Sprouse, for instance, traded the suite life for a mead brewing business, while Morgan York of "Hannah Montana" fame became a novelist. Ashlie Brillault, aka Lizzie McGuire's frenemy Kate Sanders, now battles it out in court as a criminal defense attorney. And Bridgit Mendler? She just happened to become a space startup CEO. No biggie.
If you're wondering how Mendler is doing now after "Good Luck Charlie" and a relatively successful music career, she's doing just fine, thank you very much. She's more than fine, actually, spearheading her own company and being a mom. In February 2024, she revealed that she had adopted a son, coinciding with her announcement that she had launched a satellite data startup with her husband, Griffin Cleverly, and colleague Shaurya Luthra. After racking up an impressive education resume that includes anthropology studies at USC, a master's from MIT, and pursuing a JD from Harvard (because why not?), Mendler is now boldly going where no former Disney actor has before — the stars. Well, kind of.
What's funny, though, is that working in space and tech was initially not on Mendler's bingo card. In fact, her leap from Disney star to space CEO started because of what she deems an "accident."
Bridgit didn't plan on her course of study at first
Bridgit Mendler's ascent to practically mogul status wasn't exactly by the book. While a traditional space and tech executive might have taken an engineering or computer science major, Mendler opted for anthropology, which, according to her, was completely unintentional. In an interview on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!," the former actor said the college application process confused her, leading to a happy little "accident" that landed her in anthropology. "I think I didn't really understand how it worked," she divulged. "I put down like five different things that I would potentially want to be in as a major, and I got my acceptance letter, and it's like, 'You're in anthropology.'"
Fortunately, it ended up working in her favor, allowing her to dabble in subjects she otherwise wouldn't have thought of exploring. "It's just been a really nice little educational stew," she told Vice, adding that she particularly enjoyed medieval history and architecture, which she thought was "interesting" and "changes the objective of a building."
This focused interest in creating is perhaps what led Mendler to innovate. In a post for the MIT Center for Constructive Communication, she revealed that she joined MIT Media Lab to make sense of the deluge of information circulating online, leading her to develop a tool that yields "robust patterns" from online chatter. It's well aligned with her transition into the space sector and precursor to something bigger and better. As she shared with CNBC, her startup aims to make "sending data to and from space" easier. Talk about a cosmic glow-up!
Mendler is still actively working on her PhD
Even the way Bridgit Mendler kickstarted her space venture was out of the ordinary, or should we say out of this world? In her interview with CNBC, she said that her lightbulb moment struck during the pandemic, and she and her team sprung into action ASAP. "While everybody else was making their sourdough starters, we were building antennas out of random crap we could find at Home Depot... and receiving data from [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] satellites," she shared. The result? A company that had managed to raise over $6 million in funding.
As if she doesn't already enough on her plate, Mendler also went on to reveal that she's working on completing her PhD and JD while simultaneously running a company and doting on her son. It hasn't been easy, though, and ultimately, she had to make tough choices. "I am 2 months away from a JD and I don't already have a PhD. The PhD is something I started working towards in 2020 and I pursued it jointly with my law degree but when I moved to California last summer and decided that for family reasons we would stay on the west coast, it had to go on pause," she explained in a post on X, formerly Twitter, adding that she'll still "fight" to reach the finish line.
Mendler may not have a PhD as of this writing, but trust that she's kicking serious ass in her space startup. And who knows? With her track record, she might just be cooking up her next big breakthrough!