Prof G Markets - The Space Boom Is Just Beginning

Episode Date: June 7, 2026

Ed Elson sits down with Sir Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, to discuss why space is having a moment right now, what he makes of soaring valuations across the industry, and why space has become a geopolitical race. He also shares whether he believes humans will make it to Mars in our lifetime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odu for free at Odu.com. That's ODOO.com. Welcome to the Profi Markets Founder Series. I'm Ed Elson. The global space economy is projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035.

What was once an industry dominated by governments is rapidly becoming one of the most important commercial markets in the world, shaping everything from national security and communications to scientific discovery and defense. My next guest has built one of the leading companies at the center of that transformation. What began as a company focused on lowering the cost and increasing the frequency of small satellite launches has evolved into a full-scale space systems business. Today, the company designs satellites, builds spacecraft components, and provides launch services that are helping shape the future of the commercial space industry, with more than $200 million in revenue last quarter and a backlog that has grown to roughly 2.2. billion dollars. The company has emerged as one of the biggest players in the future of space. This is my conversation with Sir Peter Beck, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab.

Peter, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I think what would be helpful to get started here is an explanation of what Rocket Lab actually does. Clearly you're in the business of space, but there are lots of different things that are involved in the space. industry. So what is Rocket Lab doing? What services are you providing? Well, thanks very much, Ed. I think you did a fantastic introduction, by the way. There's not much more to be said, but cut it there. Done. Interview over. Yeah, yeah, done. We're good to go. No, I mean, so what we're really trying to build here is an end-to-end space company. So what that means is that, you know, providing services directly from space and everything below that. You mentioned launch. Obviously,

is the keys to space and the ride to space. And then satellites are obviously the systems that provide the services. And then ultimately if you go up one level higher, it's actually the services from space. And our thesis here is that if you can build the satellites and vertically integrate all your own components and then vertically integrate your own launch, then your ability to provide services from space is obviously an advantage to somebody who has to go and buy all that. stuff either from you or others. So, you know, that's kind of the end goal for the company and we're sort of methodically, you know, step after step pushing towards that. And, you know, as you mentioned,

you know, now we are one of the largest component suppliers in the space industry, I think, something like 30% of everything that went to space last year had a rocket lab logo on it somewhere. And, you know, we build the satellites and the spacecraft and the rockets and everything, everything in between. Just some more context for the space virgins listening to this podcast. What kinds of companies are buying your products? Like what kind of company would buy a rocket component or a satellite? Who are those clients? They range from the full end of the spectrum. So on the launch side, we have launched a little CubeSat for a bunch of Californian high schools. And then we also with the same product launch the most important national security missions where lives are

dependent on it. So, you know, that's kind of the beauty of the business is that, you know, and of the space industry is that it really does cover a tremendous swath of different applications. But I would say that, you know, more generally, 50% of our business is commercial and 50% of our business is government. And, you know, on the commercial side, it's Earth observation and communications. and then on the government side, it's national security missions and then also civil stuff. So, you know, we built a couple of spacecraft and just recently, and they're on their way to Mars for NASA. So all sorts of interesting things. It's helpful, I think, to sort of separate the different categories in this business.

We usually just think of space as space, but it seems that there are so many different applications and so many different businesses that are accomplishing very different things. I'd love if you could just sort of lay out what some of those businesses are. I mean, on the one hand, we've discussed satellites, and of course satellites are essential for telecommunications, and also government work. We want to go explore planets, and you need someone to go lift that stuff into space and get that stuff out there.

What are some of the most important businesses in the space industry right now? Maybe we start a little bit higher up in the fact that space is just, infrastructure really. And it's a, it's, it's slightly unusual infrastructure in the fact that it's, it's completely hidden. And, you know, you often talk to folks and, you know, they'll say, wow, this space stuff, you know, it's all sci-fi, it doesn't affect me. And, and then, you know, they'll go home and order a pizza and the pizza turns up at their house magically. And, you know, they don't realize that in ordering that pizza, they, they may have interfaced with, you know, with space to make their communication.

But certainly they've kind of interface with space because the guy delivering their pizza is used GPS to get there. And so there's a whole bunch of infrastructure in orbit, or orbit, whether it be GPS or communications or observations that everybody uses in their everyday lives, but just sort of doesn't realize it. And I think if you want to break it down into the most simplest forms, you have Earth observation,

and that can cover all different spectrums, whether it's visible light or non-visible light or RF. And those are, you know, for my mom and dad at home, that's like weather. So how do I get, you know, satellite weather? It's, you know, it's an obvious one. And then communications, you know, GPS falls under that. And then, you know, probably, you know,

I'm sitting down here in New Zealand now, you're somewhere else around the world. And there's probably probably, probably some of that link is done through space. So, you know, communications is obviously a huge element. But what I would say is that, you know, the biggest thing to be thought of and done in space, I believe, is hasn't even been thought of yet.

And if you just roll the clock back a couple of years and someone said that you're going to put data centers in orbit, I think most people would say, well, that doesn't sound feasible. But yet, you know, there's a huge push there. And then you go back a few more years and you would say, while, you know, internet from space in the form of like a Starlink or an Amazon, Leo, would be, you know, fictitious. And then now it's like everybody's using that. Same with direct-to-mobile devices from space. So, you know, it's constantly redefining itself and as more use cases

arrived, then, you know, that's one of the reasons why the space industry is just growing so rapidly. Yeah, the pace of the growth in recent years especially is really striking. And we just look at the stock price of your company, Rocket Lab, it's up 400% in the past year. Other space stocks are going crazy, ASD SpaceMobile up more than 200%, Viassat up 600%. I mean, this is like Space's moment. It's a little confusing, though, because, you know, you point out, when you order a pizza, you're interacting with space equipment and companies such as yours are the companies that were responsible for getting that kind of equipment out there. But people have been ordering pizzas from a mobile phone for a very long time, which leads me to my question, which is like, why is it now? Why

now are these companies so exciting? What has happened in the past one or two years, where suddenly everyone is realizing and waking up that there is this massive commercial opportunity in the space industry. Well, I think the answer to that is that space has been dominated by governments and government sectors. And what you've witnessed in the last sort of decade, I would say, is the complete democratization of space. So let's just use the GPS example. So, you know, all those GPS satellites currently up in orbit are government assets, right? I mean, they were originally designed as defense assets. Now, I think if you were to, if you were to, you were to, you were, take all of those assets out of the sky and start afresh, it wouldn't be governments putting them

back up. It would 100% be commercial entities putting them back up. And I'll just give you another example, you know, of our escapade mission to Mars for NASA. So, you know, those are spacecraft. NASA gave us a spec and said, look, we want to do this at Mars. We went away and designed and built, you know, not one, but two spacecraft that are currently on the way to I'm asked for, you know, to complete NASA's mission. Prior to that, that would have been a NASA internal project and, you know, it wouldn't have been a commercial thing. So even stuff like, you know, deep space interplanetary missions are now, you know, being outsourced commercially. And, you know, some of that is that, you know, the commercial market is established itself, but also,

you know, the skills and expertise have been distributed and capital has been allocated so that commercial companies can actually go and do those sorts of things. Well, I think this kind of gets to the heart of why we want to talk to you, and it's a lot about your story. I mean, you started this company in 2006, for those who haven't recognized it yet, you are from New Zealand. And, I mean, you essentially decided to build a company where there didn't seem to be much commercial opportunity at all, and yet here we are.

and you're generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and you're a publicly traded company. So why did you start this company and why did you believe that this would actually be a real commercially viable business? Well, I mean, firstly, NASA wouldn't employ me, so I didn't really have too many options. So the only viable option open to me

was to start my own company, and I just happened to live in New Zealand. Now, Rocket Lab these days is a global company. In fact, the vast majority of the company is not in New Zealand. There's still an element here for sure, but, you know, the vast majority is everywhere else. But, I mean, in simple forms, you know, I started building rockets when I was a kid, right? So it was always something I wanted to go and do. And, you know, I went on a bit of a rocket pilgrimage one year to the United States.

And I learned a couple of really important things. one NASA wouldn't employ me. Why is that, sorry, if I could just ask, why wouldn't they employ you? Because you weren't a citizen or you applied and they didn't accept the application? What happened? I'm a foreign national with no university degree. Like, it's hardly the top of the list, is it? So, you know, but the other thing I learned is I went around and looked at a, you know, visited

a bunch of the little startup companies in the Mojave Desert and whatnot and looked at what they were doing and what they were doing was absolutely no different to what I was doing here at home. So I'm like, oh, hang on a minute. So there's not a massive golf between what I'm doing and what everybody else is doing. So maybe I should just do it. I think the question we're all asking is how did a young man end up deciding to build rockets and how to even do that if we could hear more about how that ended up happening? Some of my youngest memories are standing outside with my father. and, you know, he was an avid kind of an enthusiast in astronomy as well. And I remember him pointing out to me that, you know, all those stars in the sky that you can see,

most of them have planets around them, and on one of those planets, there could be somebody standing there and looking back at you. And that moment for me was like, right, this space thing is bigger than anything. So this is what I want to do. And, you know, I had a natural propensity to engineering. So you mix those two things together and, you know, what else are you going to build? But rockets, I mean, that's the obvious outcome. And what age did you start actually building rockets?

So I was at school when it sort of got a little bit more serious. So because the metalwork teacher would let me use the metalwork room at lunchtime in the weekends. So, you know, that would have been probably 15, 14. And so you're working at school, at lunch breaks, the guys letting you use the metalworks. And then at what point do you start to really operationalize this? At what point does this go from a kid using the DT workshop at lunchtime to actually building a company? There's a little bit of a story in between there. So, you know, I left school and pursued a tool-and-dye-making apprenticeship.

And, you know, the plane was to go to university, but I, you know, in New Zealand there's no aerospace courses or anything like that. And I always felt that, you know, I can learn a tremendous amount by building things and having those hand skills to build the things that I wanted to build is really important. So I did an apprenticeship in tool and dime making, and it was at a company called Fisher and Pichael, which is an appliance whiteware manufacturer. And then, you know, no sooner I finished my apprenticeship. I went into the design office and did production machinery design and designed, you know, machines and robots and then into product design and then into product design. and then into analysis. And then I went and worked at a super yacht company where I was a project engineer responsible for a 123-foot super yacht.

And that was really, you know, formative part of my career because in the morning, you know, you have to, had to work and communicate effectively with, you know, some guys on the shop floor who were in some cases illiterate. And then in the afternoon, you know, the owner of the yacht would fly in a lot. in his helicopter and you know you have to have to be able to communicate effectively with with him as well and so that that was super informative and then then I went to a New

Zealand national lab so it's kind of you know a government research lab where I did advanced materials and superconductors and that's where I learned a lot about composites and we did a lot of composites work for America's Cupboats and all those sorts of things and it was during my time there at this research institute that I went over the States and did my rocket pilgrimage and came back and quit my job and put a sign up on the door and that was the beginning of Rocket Lab. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Monarch.

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Like what does the recruitment process look like? What does the fundraising process look like? Like how do you convince an investor that they're going to get their money back by giving you money to build rockets into space? That's less trivial. So, look, we started with a small amount of investment and really bootstrapped the company. And we've launched our first rocket to space, not to all, but just a little rocket to space in 2009.

And then following that, I went and visited, you know, a lot of folks in the United States who were very enamored with what we had done on such a short time frame. And we ended up sort of bootstrapping the company a little bit longer. and we, you know, we work for Lockheed Martin and DARPA defense agencies and did lots of kind of really advanced technology kind of work. And it wasn't until 2013 where I really felt that I had the credibility and the capability to go and build an orbital class vehicle. So, you know, I got on a plane and went to Silicon Valley and gave myself three weeks to come home with a check or be run out of town.

And at the end of those three weeks, we had our first Series A round in the bag from Cozla Ventures. When you make that pitch to these Silicon Valley investors, I mean, obviously they're trying to figure out how this becomes profitable. What does that pitch look like? Are you kind of describing the need for space equipment today, or is it more of a pitch about something, you know, hundreds of years in the future? like what does that pitch at that point actually look like? You know, nobody's interested in anything 100 years in the future, especially if you're a venture capitalist. But no, I mean, I think where I was able to communicate effectively

the opportunity and the scale of that. And also, you know, it was at this time where, you know, small investments were being made into space companies. So, you know, Vinod at Coase Ventures had invested in a company called Skybox, which, you know, later Google bought for half a billion dollars. So, you know, the Cozaventures guys knew the pain of launch because they had to buy an old ICBM out of Russia and, you know, it was very, very painful to launch. And, you know, it's funny, though, because I look at today and then I look back then, and, you know, our Series A round was $5 million. And that was

considered, you know, a lot of money back then for a rocket company. And then, you know, I saw a rocket company just the other day, raise $200 million on a $2.2 billion valuation, and they're built nothing. And it's like, wow, this is how times it changed. But anyway, so we raised that Series A, and I've always run a company, and I'm pretty straightforward and just do what you say you're going to do, and everything's fine. And we did that, and we were able to quickly raise a B round and the C round and and you know before you knew it we had a rocket on the pad and and um you know we're in orbit and flying customers in a way we went you mentioned some of these insane valuations and these series a rounds 2.2 billion dollar valuation for a company that hasn't actually built anything

yeah it's crazy just crazy but then also you look at the the valuations and the pricing on the companies that actually are building things and the valuations are pretty stunning the multiples are pretty stunning including on your company sure and And one thing that is, I think, notable about the space industry is we haven't really seen it be proven as a profitable business yet. So your company isn't profitable. It's expected to, I don't know I say it'll be profitable in 2028. But I'm interested to know what the prize is from a business perspective for a lot of these investors. Because clearly there's something out there.

There's some prize that's going to be so great that will warrant these unbelievable valuations. that we are seeing, what is that prize and what would this business look like, say, 10 or 20 years down the line? Yeah, well, I think it's a little bit mean to say that space businesses aren't really profitable. I mean, I think you can look back through history and ensure that there's been plenty of bankruptcies as well, but there's also, you know, been plenty of profitability in a number of space businesses, you know, to address the valuation kind of element.

And, look, I completely agree. there's some valuations that are completely untethered to reality. But I think, you know, with respect to us, right now there are two companies on this planet that have successfully scaled launch to any level of frequency and reliability. And, you know, that SpaceX and us. So, you know, access to orbit on a regular and reliable basis is rare. It's like extremely, extremely rare. So, you know, it's, it's, and, you know, when I started Rocket Lab and, you know, when it started

developing the electron class vehicle, at one point, we were tracking 142 companies trying to do exactly the same thing, 142 companies. And where are the 142 companies? That kind of gives you a sense of just how ridiculously difficult it is. I wish it was way easier. That would make my life way easier, but it is, it is insanely difficult. And when we were raising capital for Electron, there was, you know, the big, you know, show in town was Virgin Orbit. And, you know, Richard Branson had funded that business to the tune of $1.2 billion to do exactly the same thing that, you know, Electron does today.

And it wasn't successful. It's not even like if you just pay enough money, you'll be successful. It is like there are so many elements that have to be absolutely perfect and lined up to make a successful, you know, launch business in particular that is just incredibly rare. And, you know, anything that's rare, you know, attracts a certain value. But, you know, as we think about going forward, yes, the, you know, that the space industry is seeing tremendous excitement and tremendous growth right now. And, you know, is all of it justified? probably not, but nevertheless, there is a huge, huge commercial opportunity. And my belief is that there's going to be a small handful of companies,

and these companies are going to be end-to-end companies, meaning that they have their own rocket, they have their own spacecraft, and they're providing services from space, and they'll take out the majority of the price. Just to go back to the profitability point, and just so we're clear, I mean, I am a huge fan of space. I'm like, I read about science fiction all the time.

I'm so excited about it. I want these companies to build these rockets, and I want us to go to Mars, and I want us to explore space. I'm like pro. So I didn't mean for it to sound mean on the profitability point. No, not at all. My understanding,

which I'd like to understand more about, is that so far it is a business that doesn't make money. So far. So I guess I'd love some clarity on that. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you can go back and look at a bunch of businesses like, you know, Digital Globe is an example. You know, they're probably the dominating Earth Observation Company in the industry right now. And so, I mean, you know, historically there's, yes, there's been a number of businesses that have failed. But I think, you know, there's a tremendous number of them have been successful as.

well. Space is a geopolitical topic in a lot of ways. And I mean, this is how space really ramped up. It became a fight or a race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the extent to which that is still a dynamic in the space industry. I mean, now it seems to be kind of like a race against China. China is, of course, ramping up their space program. What are your thoughts on the U.S. versus China versus any nation? To what extent is this kind of a geopolitical race? Well, I mean, space is the ultimate high ground. So from a national security and defense standpoint, it is the ultimate high ground. So space superiority means land, sea and, you know, air superiority. So, you know, that is always true. So, you know, I think what

you're referring to there is, is like the Apollo program where, you know, that, that is a, you know, an example of, of kind of, I think everybody thinks it was, you know, a wonderful, you know, philanthropic mission, but it was, it was, it was a Cold War mission to demonstrate to Russia that the US had absolute supremacy and was very successful in doing that. And, you know, I think, could we be up for another moon race? With China, I think that's, that's, that's, highly possible too. But I think, you know, make no mistake that space is the ultimate high ground for national security. Could you explain more how it is the high ground? I mean, one thing that I've been starting to hear more about is, you know, whoever gets to the moon and establishes a base on

the moon or on Mars, they can sort of claim it, and now we're hearing more about sort of space wars. I mean, it seems that this is like really the next frontier in terms of power, conflict, I'm not so sure about that. I think at the end of the day, you know, everybody wants to be first and everybody wants to show supremacy. So, you know, the US has already been to the moon, so job done. And the next logical step for the US is to put, you know, some sustaining prison to moon base on there. And, you know, that has to be either economically viable or geopolitically, you know, a requirement. one of those two things has to be true.

So, you know, whichever way that shapes out, but I don't, and I'm not sure that there's, you know, there's a whole bunch of, you know, flag planting and property, you know, gaining there to be done. Why do you think that wouldn't happen? Why is that something that we shouldn't worry too much about? It's kind of like nuclear war in the sense that if you mess it all up, then it's no good for anybody.

So, you know, if you're in low Earth orbit and start blowing satellites up, then you just create, you know, large debris fields. And then your own satellites get kind of, you know, consumed by that debris field. And all of your own industries suffers. So, you know, it's, I very much see it in that sense. And so I think, you know, everybody is likely to be pretty responsible there. So something you mentioned earlier, Peter, is the idea of data centers in space. And this is something that a lot of people have been talking about.

Elon Musk has been talking about it. a lot. Are you excited about this as an industry? Do you think this is something that'll work? Do you think that this is the next step in terms of the space industry? Yeah, I think absolutely space data centers will exist. Probably not necessarily for the reasons that everybody else thinks, but for me, you know, from a strategic and national security and defense rationale that makes tremendous sense to air gap, something like that, and have have that as an important asset. So I think they absolutely will exist.

Now, will all compute leave the Earth? I guess I'm slightly less optimistic about that. But nevertheless, I think some of those strategic assets will absolutely go to orbit. Why are they better in orbit than on Earth on the ground? Well, from a national security standpoint, it's about the best air gap you can get. It's pretty hard to tickle with a data center in orbit. that's for sure, rather than in a corn paddock. What are you most excited about in the space industry right now?

I mean, we talked about data centers, but what's the thing that makes you most excited when you're working every day at this point? Well, for us, it's just executing on our vision and kind of growing the company step by step, and, you know, as we said we were going to do. So, you know, I think, you know, said earlier that the most exciting thing to be done in space yet to even be thought of, and let's hope we think of it. But, you know, right now for us, it's just making sure that we have all of those pieces and those elements in place,

you know, to ultimately scale and provide services from, you know, from all with ourselves. Is space exploration one of those things that motivates you? I mean, this is the thing that motivates me as an observer and as a stander by. I just want us to get to Mars. I want us to achieve interstellar travel, I want us to do all of these things. Is that a big motivator for you? Totally. I mean, and we generally always have an interplanetary mission or a deep space mission in the clean room somewhere. You know, we did the capstone mission to the moon and the escapade missions to Mars. You know, we have a lot of our components on the surface of Mars right now and exploring the solar system. So it's super exciting. And, you know, for me personally, you know, I

I really love the interplanetary stuff as well. And, you know, we have our own, you know, private mission to Venus that I'm helping fund within the company. Wow. And, you know, that mission is, you know, unashamably going to try and search for life in the clouds of Venus. So, yeah, no, I mean, I'm with you. I mean, I think if you have the capability to, you know, explore the universe and try and

unlock some of the secrets of it, it's almost your duty to do so. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from LinkedIn. It's a shame when the best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong audience. Like, imagine running an ad for cataract surgery on Saturday morning cartoons or running a promo for this show on a video about Roblox or something. No offense to our Gen Alpha listeners, but that would be a waste of anyone's ad budget. So, when you want to reach the right professionals, you can use LinkedIn ads.

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You won't know why? Yes. Please? Yeah, it's just zero. I thought SpaceX. next, going to go to Mars? I have an unorthodox view on this, so you don't have to believe me. But my read of history tells me that we only do big expensive things if there's a geopolitical

reason for it, either an economic reason or a defense reason, not just because it's the next thing to do. What do you think? Do you think that we'll eventually get to tomorrow or not eventually? Do you think we'll be able to get to Mars in our lifetime and your lifetime? Do you think that that is possible? Well, it's possible. I mean, technologically, there's no reason it's not possible.

Now, you know, economically or commercially, is it feasible? That's a whole different question. And I think we're in just like a crazy great time in human history. It's like the two richest people on the planet are plowing all of their resources into space exploration. And, you know, I think that's, I think that's, that's, that's absolutely incredible. And we are, we are incrementing forward within space exploration at a rate that, that, that, we haven't seen since their polo missions. So, and it's, and it's not, it's not by governments. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

I think, you know, they're choosing to spend their winnings in a very noble way in that sense. So I think, I think, yeah, it's a super exciting time. But, yeah, I mean, my view on kind of interstellar travel for humans is probably differs from most in the fact that, you know, these fleshy, watery bodies of ours are pretty useless for space travel. So, you know, my view is that I think if you want to to actually explore the solar system, then, you know, a human on a piece of silicon is probably the best way to do it. Say more about that. What does that mean? Are we sending AIs into space? Well, no, I mean, I think, you know, man, this is going to set the internet off. But, I mean,

I think the, you know, the ultimate kind of reduction of the human soul will down to you know, solid state is what will allow us to travel through the solar system because, unfortunately, everything in the solar system is measured in millions of years. A human lifespan is measured, you know, in, like, years. So those two things just don't work. And even if you could accelerate to something like the speed of light, you know, and, you know, your body has to sit there and absorb multiple Gs for many, many years, which is not fun, and then when you get there or the reverse,

you know, everything about it is just not conducive to, you know, moving sacks of flesher and water around. So if you could somehow divulge that or, you know, down to a piece of silicon, then, you know, a piece of silicon can float into space for a few thousand, 100,000 years and everything's fine. And, you know, the whole time scale just matches the universe's time scale much, much better.

So in other words, if we could basically download our brains onto a chip and then send those chips out there, that's going to be the future of interstellar travel. That's how we will potentially discover life on new planets. Am I understanding that correctly? That's one way to think about it for sure. And, you know, I'm just being practical about it. I'm not, you know, it's like if you need a few thousand years to get somewhere, then, you know, maybe it's best to do it in a different form. and as AI becomes, you know, more and more prolific, then I think it, you know, you can stand in front of a, you know,

an AI generated, you know, computer person in a screen, and it's almost indistinguishable from, is that a real person, or is that not a real person? So, you know, I guess at some point the question has to be asked is, you know, do we just, you know, are we just a meat computer and can we just turn that meat computer into some other form? But this is getting way off topic. Way off topic.

That's what we're here to do. Because I actually agree with you that that is the way, I mean, that's the only way that it would make sense if we were to achieve internet cell travel. But I'm sure there are also a lot of people who are listening. I think this feels very dystopian, sci-fi, scary. I don't like this idea. why are we turning ourselves into robots?

Do you ever think about that at the same time? I don't really think about that too much, no, to be honest with you. Like I say, I'm just being very practical about it. And I'm just an engineer solving engineering problems. And the way to solve that problem is just not have the ball of water. I get the sense that this is something that really drives you, that we need to get out there and we need to understand what is actually happening in the universe. Like, it's just crazy how little we know about it.

And I could also imagine that from your position, it's probably kind of frustrating. I mean, it's certainly frustrating for me, that it feels as though we're moving, not slowly, but we're never going to know the answers to these questions. Oh, my God. You need to cheer up a bit, Ed. This is a bit grim.

No, I'm super excited. I mean, so I have Venus Mission, for example. you know, if we could, like within the clouds of Venus, there's a, you know, predicted as a phosphine gas, and phosphine gas, we only know, currently we only know it's, you know, it's created by some, you know, symbiosis of life. So our Venus mission is to go to the clouds of Venus and basically we've got a nephilometer in the spacecraft, and think of it as a green light, red light for life. Now, imagine if we could go there and get a green light for life in the clouds of Venus. Then I think, you know, that is such a massive question to answer for, you know, for us as a species

in the universe. It's like, okay, we're not the only life in the universe. Because right now, I mean, we have no scientific evidence to prove that we are not the only life in the entire universe. And now I think that's unlikely, but nevertheless, that is the scientific fact. So imagine in our lifetime, I think we will prove, whether it's Rocket Lab or somebody else, will prove that there is life outside Earth. And whether there has been in the past or there is now. And I think that is like one of the largest and most important questions we can ask and answer is a human species.

It's like, are we unique or are we not? And if we're unique, then I think we better pull our resources and think about it a little a little bit harder. And, you know, if we're not unique, then, then that's equally as fascinating. So, you know, I think, I think, I think these, these are super exciting and super important questions to answer. And I honestly believe that will be answered in my lifetime, for sure. Really? You think that we'll, we'll know the answer to aliens in our lifetime? Well, I mean, aliens, but, you know, life, are we the only, is life unique? I mean, right now, sitting on the surface of Mars, are a whole bunch of drilled samples,

from the rovers that are highly likely to contain, you know, examples of ancient life. We just need to go and get them and bring them back. So, no, I think this is going to happen in our lifetime. What is the rate of progress that we're seeing right now? Because, I mean, if it's exponential, then it seems that there's higher and higher probability that will know the answers to these questions. As someone who's sort of building on the frontier, like how fast is the people, pace of progress that we're seeing in the space industry right now?

Crazy fast. Crazy fast. Yeah, no, it is, you know, the flywheel is spinning. And is that because of the amount of money that is being invested into the industry? Like what sort of changed for the industry? It's kind of a combination of so many things, right? It's, yes, like, capital allocation is super important to do anything. But also, you know, you can't, capital allocation doesn't come if there isn't results, as you

pointed out before, and it doesn't come if there is an execution. And, you know, there's at least a few of us in the industry that are driving those two metrics well. And, you know, I think as long as those two things, you know, continue to continue to occur, then everything will snowball. And let's not forget, like, you know, the access to compute. And all of those things that, you know, that were typically a nation state, you know, had access to, now commercial companies or even people at home have access to. So, you know, I think there's been a democratization of the tools as well as the industry. Something that also seemed like a big moment for the space industry was the Autumacy Mission,

which splashed down successfully April 10th. To what extent does, like, popular understanding of space drive, progress. Like, to what extent did that matter for a company like yours, the fact that everyone was seemingly watching this space-related event at the same time? Does that matter for you guys? Of course, of course. I mean, you know, if people are excited and interested in space, then now they can own a piece of it. So, of course, it's important. And I think, look, it's a natural human thing to want to explore. I mean, we are explorers as a species, right?

Like the first thing we did is, you know, get on design, develop and build boats and went off. And we're doing the same with spacecraft. So, and I think people have a natural curiosity and it's just so cool as well. Like, I mean, going and orbiting the moon and, you know, the challenges and the, the the resources that takes, it's just super impressive and super cool. And that's the one thing about, you know, the space industry is, is, um, although it might be companies or countries doing stuff, like as, as humans, we can all share in the success. I mean, you can go to anywhere in the world and, you know, ask everybody and they'll say, we went and we landed on the moon.

It's not, you know, Buzz and Neil went to the moon. It's, it's a collective human we went to moon. Aren't we amazing? So, and I think, I think that's the thing that space can do is, is, is, is, when you do these amazing feats, it's, it's, you know, it's a whole human, uh, engagement. What would you say is the biggest misconception about the space industry right now, something everyone believes, but that you believe isn't quite right or quite accurate? Well, I mean, so the great thing and the bad thing about the space industry, the great thing about the space industry is someone can stand up and make the most absurd claims. And because it's so difficult to understand and so difficult to kind of cross-reference and check, everybody just applauds,

and this is great. That has a great outcome and also, you know, a negative outcome. The great outcome is, of course, is you have huge excitement and ambition and all the rest of it. And the downside is that, you know, you have seen a lot of capital allocated to projects that just made no sense. And, you know, maybe, you know, they learned something along the way, but, you know, that's the one thing that frustrates me sometimes is, as you'll see, you know, companies, you know, promote the most absurd thing, raise a whole bunch of money and then die. And, you know, maybe, maybe that's national revolution of something new. But that is both the exciting and great thing about the space industry, but also, you know, the challenges that it's so difficult to understand and really, really, you know, diligence that a lot of folks have got away of saying some pretty dumb stuff and not been able to execute against it.

What would you say is the most important problem that needs to be solved now for the space industry if we want to continue progress and continue to understand the universe, which problem is maybe the most difficult, but the most important that we need to solve? The kind of cop-out answer to that is launch, because, you know, Launcher is the access to space. If you don't have Launch, everything else is irrelevant. But, you know, honestly, you know, between us and others, launch is becoming well kind of under control.

But I would say more generally, it's scale. So, you know, when we started and, When we went to go and build our first satellite, we thought, okay, we'll go and we'll go and buy some reaction wheels. And we went and bought some, try to buy some reaction wheels. And it was like nine months wait. I'm like, I haven't got nine months to wait for a reaction wheel. It's nuts. And, you know, we look around and there's just nobody makes any reaction wheels at scale.

So, you know, that started really our vertical integration strategy. and we ended up buying the best reaction wheel company and they used to make 150 reaction wheels a year. We make thousands a quarter now. So, you know, the space industry is really defined by, you know, a bunch of man-pass shops who build the most exquisite and amazing hardware, but all at subscale. And when you turn up and say, I want a hundred of these,

you just watch their heads explode in real time. So, you know, that's the one thing that we've really focused on is trying to bring scale to the industry. And, you know, we're the largest space-grade solar cell manufacturers in the world now. And, you know, same with small launch and a bunch of components where the largest, if not one of the largest, you know, scaled providers in the world. And, you know, that's what's required because, you know, if someone turns up and wants to build a constellation of a few thousand spacecraft, then unless you have those scaled kind of industries behind it, then nobody can get it done. I'm sure there are people who are listening to this podcast who are interested in space and certainly a lot of young people who might want to work in the

space industry, start a career, maybe even start a company in the space industry. What would be your advice to those people who are interested in this industry, but probably don't really know way to stop. Congratulations, because you're in the most exciting time in the space industry right now. I mean, when I was growing up, I just used to think it totally sucked that I wasn't born in the Apollo era, because I believed that the Apollo era was like the heyday of all space. And it certainly is a great time, but I would argue that right now is way more exciting. I mean, look, you're talking to a guy who was born at the very bottom of the South Island of New Zealand in the middle of nowhere, running a, you know, a giant space company.

So, you know, if that's possible, anything's possible. And, you know, if you want to work in the space industry, rocketlab careers.com, please. But, you know, there's infinite opportunities for you. And likewise to do a startup. And if you're going to do a startup, my advice there is don't get wound up in building cool tech. so many space companies get enamored with the technology and then try and find a market for it.

It's like, no, go and find a big problem within the space industry that everybody's struggling around and go and solve that problem. Peter Beck is the founder, president and chief executive officer of Rocket Labs since founding the company in 2006. He has transformed it into a global leader in developing and launching advanced rockets, satellites and spacecraft. He has served on Rocket Labs Board of Directors and as its president and CEO since July 23. and was appointed chairman of the board in May 2021. Peter, really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ed.

Great chatting. This episode was produced by Alison Weiss and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our research associates are Dan Chalon and Kristen O'Donoghue, and our senior producer is Claire Miller. Thank you for listening to the Profiting Markets Founders series. We'll see you next month with another founder story.