Aether team and workspace
Since 2019

Designed with
Purpose

We started Aether because we were tired of products that looked beautiful but fell apart. We believed you shouldn't have to choose between form and function.

Read Our Story ↓
2019
Founded in Berlin
84
Team members worldwide
18
Countries shipped to
B Corp
Certified since 2022
Aether founders in the original studio

How It All Began

In 2019, two industrial designers — Maya Osei and Lars Henriksen — left their jobs at a consumer electronics giant because they were frustrated. Products were designed to look great in marketing photos, not to survive two years in a bag.

They rented a workshop in Berlin-Mitte, bought a CNC machine on credit, and spent eight months prototyping their first product: a laptop stand machined from a single block of recycled aluminium. It sold out in four hours.

Today, Aether is a team of 84 people across three continents, but the founding principle hasn't changed: every product we ship must be the best version of that product that exists in the world.

What Drives Us

◆
Radical Honesty

We publish our full bill of materials, factory audit results, and carbon footprint for every product. No greenwashing, no spin.

◆
Obsessive Craft

200+ engineering hours per product. We iterate until there's nothing left to remove — and then we iterate again.

◆
Long-term Thinking

We offer lifetime repair programmes and sell spare parts at cost. A product that lasts 10 years beats a sustainable product that lasts two.

The Team

All team members →
Maya Osei
Maya Osei
Co-founder & CEO
Lars Henriksen
Lars Henriksen
Co-founder & CPO
Priya Sharma
Priya Sharma
Head of Engineering
Carlos Mendez
Carlos Mendez
Head of Design
Speculation Rules Demo Inspector

Navigation Timing — Our Story (Prefetched)

This page is declared as a prefetch target — the HTML was downloaded early, but parsing and rendering still happen when you click. Compare the timing numbers with the prerendered pages above.

Navigation Timing — How did you arrive here?

With prefetch, deliveryType === "navigational-prefetch" (the MDN-canonical signal). The HTML came from cache (transferSize is 0), but domLoad and fullLoad still show real parse/render time — unlike prerender.

Loading timing data...

Prefetch vs Prerender — Side by Side

Prefetch (this page)

  • 1Rules parsed → browser fetches HTML
  • 2HTML stored in prefetch cache
  • 3You click the link
  • 4Browser serves HTML from cache (0 bytes transferred)
  • 5Normal parse + render still runs
  • 6Page becomes visible

Saves: 1 network round-trip

Prerender (Shop / Features)

  • 1Rules parsed → browser fetches HTML
  • 2Full parse + CSS + JS runs in hidden tab
  • 3Composited frame held in memory
  • 4You click the link
  • 5Browser activates the pre-rendered page
  • 6Page visible instantly

Saves: network + parse + render time