Silicon Valley Girl: AI, Tech and Career Growth - Blake Scholl: Started from Zero at 33 — Now He’s Building a $1B Airline

Episode Date: June 4, 2025

Blake Scholl is the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, the company revolutionising air travel with supersonic jets. Blake openly shares the mindset shifts that helped him overcome rejection and industry skepticism, transitioning from a software engineer at Amazon to leading an aerospace company valued at more than $1 billion. Links: Follow my Newsletter:⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠Companies & Products: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Marinamogilko.co⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@SiliconValleyGirl⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/in/marinamogilko⁠⁠⁠⁠X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/siliconvalleymm⁠⁠⁠⁠

Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal, everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 premium and a year of Xbox GamePass Ultimate

with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at Windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th, turns at AKA.m.m.S. college PC. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank.

So you worked at Amazon? It was just an absolutely incredible place. They were paying me very well. I was 33. Groupon had like Aqua hired my first company. I was running the world's largest spam operation. Do you have a family? Yes.

14-month-old daughter and like twins who had just been born. And you decide to quit your corporate job. and start something completely new. I guess there has not been a startup in aviation for a century. There is opportunity, and we have to take advantage of it quickly enough. We reached $150 million from like some of the most amazing investors, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Wicombinator, Bessemer, Michael Morris, Reed Hoffman, like all of those people put in at least $10 million.

The world is very open to Supersonic right now. Now we've got runway, and then we broke the sound barrier, and it was 24 hours from breaking the sound barrier to be in the West Wing of the White House. Can you give advice to someone who's stuck with their... idea of building a boom-sized company, but they just can't take the sleep of faith. They have a family. Oh, yeah. Like, thank you so much. I'm so excited about this conversation because you did something. A lot of people are dreaming of, but they don't have enough courage. And I wanted to focus this conversation on basically how you changed your mindset and went from a corporate job at Amazon

to building the next generation airline. So you worked at Amazon, right? you were a tech guy for 13 years? It was at Amazon for about five and then another startup and then a startup I found it and then that got aquired by Groupon. So yeah, I was bopping around tech for like 14 years. I started my first company in my parents' basement in high school and I always just wanted to go where the most interesting stuff was happening and like build something new. It was one of the things that was sort of a like mind fuck for me is I didn't see myself as

radically different. And the decision, I remember really struggling with the decision to start boom. And it was like, this is, like, by going and starting a supersonic jet company, I'm almost like telling the world that I'm different. Because if it succeeds, it will like by definition be historic. And I'm like, who am I to do this? I want to the resume for this. And then I, the way I kind of got my mind around, it was a couple of things. One was I was very inspired by that 1997. Apple ad campaign, where the tagline was that people who are crazy to think they can change the world are the ones who do. And it's really true. And then I thought of Bill Gates, you know, who had started Microsoft in the 70s and had set a goal of putting a computer in every home and on

every desk running Microsoft software. And it was the time he said that, that was like absurd. And yet he did it. And it's like, wow, okay. So people have to be willing to declare. are big things in order for the big things to actually happen. And the ones who try and succeed, we know who they are. History knows their names. You know, it's the right brothers who were bicycle entrepreneurs turned inventor of literally the airplane. You know, jobs, gates, like everyone else we know at that level. And there's probably also like a dark matter of entrepreneurs, the people who, the people who tried and they didn't succeed. Exactly. And we don't hear about We don't hear about them. And I was like, okay, really my choice is, like, do I want to be in that category if I fail? Or would I rather be in the category of people who didn't try? And once I saw it that way, like, I was like, I'd rather be in the dark matter of entrepreneurs than in the like, didn't try. Did you have an opportunity to work with Jeff Bezos directly? I did a little bit. Like, I was approximately engineer number 200. So it was after IPO, like the place was established. You know, I think I got in two weeks before the dot com hiring freeze.

So the bubble was like imploding as I was like rushing in the door. And yeah, it was something like engineer number 200. And the Amazon, I mean, I don't know what's like now, but like back then it was just an absolutely incredible place. And everyone worked hard. There was like more important stuff to be done than people to do it, which makes it very apolitical. There's like no one's like competing for what work and projects. So projects are like sitting on the floor. And if you want to do what, just like pick it up and just do it.

And so I got to work on something that Jeff cared about just because I was excited about it and did it. And it was basically doing Amazon's first ad buy from Google. It was like 2003. So it wasn't obvious that web search was going to be important. It wasn't obvious that like surge engine marketing was going to be important. And we ended up building this thing that was the first automated ad management system on the internet. And at one time, I think it was responsible at the same time for 7% of Amazon's revenue. Wow.

And seven percent of Google's revenue. Wow. And it was just like, I managed to like strap my, you know, I sort of visualize it as I'm standing next to a rocket and my like jacket like gets caught on the rocket. And the rocket launches and I'm like up there with the rocket like kind of hanging on. Like, wow, can I, you know. So like Jeff cared. It got a lot of visibility in Amazon.

And I always felt like I was just like an inch from screwing it up enough that they would fire me and put somebody who actually knew what they were doing in charge of it. What was your key learning? You did this amazing project. Yeah. I mean, there was like a bunch of key learning. out of it. I mean, like one was sort of the experience, is it reflecting back on it many years later,

the experience of looking at a space, everyone's doing it one way. So back then, searching marketing, it was all done by hand. Like people would, people would choose their keywords, write their ads, and so they could only have a few keywords and only a few ads. And Amazon had millions of products. But like most of the competitors would like, they'd buy like the keyword like camera or like cell phone. And those would be like bid up a ton of.

of ads on them, but there were 300 million unique searches per month. Most of them had no ads. I was like, oh, we should just buy, like ignore the popular things. We'll buy all the rest of them would do with automation. And so at the meta level, it was this experience of like looking at a space. Everyone's doing it one way. There's actually a completely different way. Let's go do that. And then we actually made it work. And I hadn't really had this thought until right now, but probably that like, like, take something in me of like, okay, we can go look at a space, think differently about it than everyone else has ever done and make something successful. Do you remember that day when you woke up and you thought, like, I want to take the sleep

and build an airline? Oh, yeah. A couple threads that connected up to it. Like one was I'd seen a Concord in a museum in my 20s and I'd set a lifetime golf line supersonic and I put a Google Alert on it. That was like one thread. Like another thread was every time I would get on an airplane, I would ask, what would this be like if somebody like Johnny Ive had designed it, not like whoever actually did at Boeing. And so that

would like rattle around my head. And I sort of had in my head like, oh, I want to become an internet billionaire and then start an aviation company. And then the first part never happened and said this thing on my to do list that was like figure out how to start an aerospace company. And like nothing happened with it for 10 years. And eventually, you know, Groupon had like Aquac hired my first company. I was running, I was running like the world's largest like spam operation. And it was just just so demoralizing. And I'm like, they were paying me very well. And I was like saving up money.

In my head, I was saving up money to buy myself an airplane. And at some point, I'm like, it's not worth staying here longer for the airplane to be better. I'm just going to fire myself and like go do something else. How old were you? I was 33. 33. Do you have a family back then? Or?

I had just, yes. I think I had a 14-month-old daughter and like twins who had just been born. And you decide to quit your corporate job and start something completely new? I guess. Were you scared? Like for me, I have a three year old and a five year old for us with my husband to like change our lives completely. Just unimaginable right now. He didn't feel so crazy to me at the time.

My then wife was like, well, okay, honey, you've got a year to screw around with this jet thing. And then, you know, and then I expect you to get a job. Yeah. But I'd saved up enough money that I think this is actually important. I had saved up enough money in my head I had budgeted for two failed startups. I could I could like start one, seed it with a little bit of money, fail. Start another one, see it with a little money and fail before I'd actually have to get a job. But it's also about time, right?

It's not just about money because at a startup you work like, what, 20 hours a day? You know, maybe 28 some days. Yeah, but like how do you manage that with kids? Do you regret like missing that time when they were so young or you were here? able to. I mean, I struggled with it for sure. And in some ways, in some ways, I was a very reluctant father back then. And then, you know, along the way, you know, I got divorced and it actually made me a better father. It was like, I realized like when I, you know, I only have the kids half the time. And when I have them, I want to be really present. Yeah. And so I think it, you know,

it's not like the situation I ever would have designed, but it probably actually made me a better father and a better CEO. And it sort of forced just getting efficient. Like, okay, I'm not going to be the dad that spends the most time, but the time I spend better be good. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so you decided to start an airline company with no formal education in aerospace engineering whatsoever. Can you walk me through this mindset where you're like, yeah, I can just learn it by myself? Again, I think it mattered that I sort of given myself a year to wander around. And I sort of thought, okay, supersonic jets would obviously be great.

no one's doing it conventional wisdom says that means there's something wrong with the idea like you get told that in Silicon Valley all the time if your idea is any good there are three or four teams already working on it and by the way it's total bullshit it's terrible advice terrible advice

what that does is it creates a herd mentality on one hand it's like oh like there's a zillion people building chat GPT rappers back in the day there is a zillion people building photo sharing apps and then their entire things that have nobody working on them and nobody will work on them because they don't want to be alone or they figure if this were good, there would be another team. And it's just terrible advice. And so I thought, okay,

well, probably it will be a bad idea, but I want to know for myself why. And the internet was full of conventional wisdom about why supersonic jets couldn't exist. You're like, oh, people won't pay more for speed and it's inherently more expensive. And you can't have a big enough market unless you can solve supersonic flight over land, which is technical and regulatory. And so decades of R&D is going to be required to solve all these things. And observe, those are all qualitative claims about quantitative questions. Like supersonic flight costs more. Okay. Why? And how much more? People won't pay more for speed? Well, that doesn't seem right. People pay more for direct flights than connecting flights all the time. It's a question of how much. The market's not big enough

with that supersonic flight over land. Is it? How big is big enough? It's a measurable thing. And so I just started building spreadsheets. I like this approach. Quantify everything. Quantify everything.

And don't accept other people's conclusions about quantitative questions. I've seen that over and over again. There are these claims. And like sometimes I still make the mistake of accepted them. And then I go build the spreadsheet model and I find it's very surprising what the real truth is. So at any rate, I discovered that if you could build basically a single digit efficiency improvement, like just a few percent better than Concord designed in the 1960s, you could build a supersonic seat with the economics of a business class flatbed.

And then once you had those calculations, you're like, I need to hire the best people? Well, there was a little bit more. Like, that was a three-line spreadsheet. And it was like, okay, it doesn't, on the face of it, it seems plausible. At that point, I bought every textbook I could find. I started reading it. I did remedial calculus and physics because I hadn't had any since high school. And I started building a more detailed spreadsheet model of the airplane and a more detailed spreadsheet model of the market. And in the middle of 14, I kind of had it developed a bit, and I took it to a professor at Stanford because these things are sometimes like assumptions in, conclusions out, but the quality of the answer is only as good as quality of the assumption.

And there were assumptions in there about like lift-drag ratios, which is aerodynamic efficiency, specific fuel consumption, which is how efficient an engine is. And like, where could we get on a couple of those key parameters would impact whether the end product was practical or not? So I took it to a professor at Stanford who had done a bunch of Supersonics research. And I'm like, dude, I have not, you know, I've been at this for like two seconds. I don't know what I'm doing. Like, you know where R&D is out on these things now. Are any of these assumptions reasonable?

And he said, Blake, if you're going to do this, you need to push your team way harder because all of these are conservative. And I remember, like, leaving his office in this like, like, stupor in a way of like, wow. I don't know how it could be that I'm the human that, like, stumbled across the practical of supersonic passenger flight when nobody else did. But either I have no courage or I'm going to go find some people and like see how far we can get this. And that decision really did come down to just, it felt like a choice of courage. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination

for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature. Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamava Theater.com. Only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed sponsored jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach

people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. How was it hiring people from major airline companies without having the experience, right? So people think that like the engineering of building a super sunlight jet must be really hard. And it is in a way, but it's like the third hardest thing at boom. Like the third, The third hardest thing at Boom is engineering, the next hardest thing is financing, and the actual

hardest thing is team. And the reason team is so hard is that there has not been a startup in aviation for a century. Like literally the last new commercial airplane company was Douglas Aircraft founded 1921. So all the founders retired in the 1960s, which is a big part of why we don't have supersonic already. And then you know, so then you've got the founders, and then the founders retire, and then you've got the people who work with the founders, and then those people retire, and then God help us, the accountants take over. And that's very much the story of Boeing. But like the, you know,

there's PayPal mafia, right? There's like Amazon mafia. There is no Boeing mafia. Like there are no entrepreneurial-minded people who come out of these big companies. And so we had to like find people from bizarre other corners of the universe or find people who had like gone to Boeing and or were still earlier in their career and we could like rescue them before they were destroyed. Was it hard to persuade them? Well, yes and no. Like when I would tell people I'm building a supersonic passenger jet, the first question was always, are you crazy?

And they didn't always say it out loud, but I could always tell it was the real first question. And I could persuade them that the answer was maybe no. Then the second question is, how do I get involved in help? And I'm thinking of like the person we hired as our first chief engineer. And we met Like we Sort of networked my way to him Like you know

Like the whole like six degrees to Kevin Bacon kind of a thing And And and And he and I like met in like the subway Outside SFO And I'm like hey dude I want to show you my spreadsheet Like like what I've figured out so far

And he's like man I'm used to seeing all these internet people who have crackpot airplane ideas And he's like this is not a crackpot airplane idea And I had no idea you'd be this far And he's like, this actually makes sense. And he's like, I want you to hire me as a consultant and I'll like consult with you. And I'm like, nope, that's not an option. It's full time or nothing.

Yeah. And he's like, oh, I don't want to do a full time job. This will burn me out. And I'm like, okay. But he couldn't stop himself because he was like in love with the idea. And he comes back like the next week. And he's like, I build a spreadsheet in order of magnitude like more sophisticated than what you built. And it gives the same answer.

Oh, that's awesome. And like it looks like this works. So you had the first like actual. industry confirmation. Yeah. Yeah. And then it just started from there, right? I remember I read something that the industry was still like criticizing you and saying

it's not viable. Oh, they still are. And they still are. Right. How do you navigate this? This is one thing, you know, general public says, oh, this is not possible. But when the industry experts are like, you know, we've been there, we've done that. Yeah.

Industry experts don't know what they're talking about. Like the quote unquote experts are often just repeating the same conventional wisdom. and haven't done any first principles analysis. And sometimes it gets fed by like the lore. Like the big jet engine companies tell everybody that only the big jet engine companies can build jet engines. Because of course they do. But then that gets repeated and like people accept it as if it's like physics.

But it's not physics. Like SpaceX started from nothing and they put stuff in orbit. And by the way, they built their own rocket engines. And I was very inspired by that. I was like, wow, Elon was an internet guy and he put stuff into orbit. And like, that seems way harder than a supersonic jet. Actually, it's not. I think the supersonic jet's actually harder, but I didn't know that back then.

Would you agree with the phrase that's kind of related to this? Ignorice as my superpower. Is it true or not then? I don't think it's, I don't think that's actually true. Ignorance is definitely not good. I think the superpower is coming into a new domain and seeking out first principles. It's about actually getting rid of ignorance quickly and not by hoovering up opinions. Like the wrong way to come into a new domain is to go around and ask a bunch of people what they think.

A much better way to do it is to go into a new domain and ask a bunch of people to teach you what they know. And so my favorite interview question at Boom was teach me something. It still is. By the way, I don't mind if everybody knows that because you can't fake your way through that interview question even if you know it's coming. Yeah. Like you can't teach something unless you actually understand it. Absolutely. And so on one hand, this is a great filter for people who really understand.

On the other hand, I learned a lot just interviewing people. And so my approach is not find out people's conclusions and like fit them all together into a picture, but rather like hoover up all that knowledge myself. So it's very much the opposite of ignorance is a superpower. I think like getting rid of ignorance quickly is a superpower. But also believing that you can crack a problem that a little people tried to crack and then gave up on it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I actually had that belief.

And like some days I still don't have that belief. I think I believe is it is impossible to know one's own limits except by picking some something incredibly motivating and going all in. Like, what can someone do or not do? How do you know one day one? Like, the SAT doesn't tell you. Your grades in college don't tell you. Your friends don't tell you.

The only way to find out is pick something you'll never give up on and see how far you can go. I love that. What if you're later in your life? Like, because some people will tell like, oh, if you're talented, you should have had some wins already, right? Yeah. I think it's a relative. My experience has been it's irrelevant.

Like, I had some really big early wins. You know, like, wow, I'm 24. I've got a P&L at Amazon. I got to work with Jeff. You know, and then, bam, two failed startups. And, you know, so I could have been like, oh, I guess I'm not so good. Like, I guess I shouldn't try anything. And I don't know.

Like, it could have been true. Hell, it could still be true. We could screw this boom thing up. But we've gotten, you know, we've gotten pretty far so far. What was your hardest day, building boom? It seems like we have like a near-death experience about once a year. You know, like I'm thinking of last. year. So last year we had, we got down to seven days of cash. And like the HR team and the legal

team had like a plan to like file for bankruptcy and like, you know, like, you know, that we'd been like on the verge of for like a long time. And like everyone was nervous, like a bunch of people would quit over it. Like I had board members quit over it. It was really obnoxious, actually. And it was like a filter for people who are really committed is what it turned out to be. But like that was incredibly tough. And then we had to do like a down round and a recap to like get the company back together. And that was like one of the most painful things I've ever gone through. Have you ever thought of giving up like it's not working?

I mean, there are all kinds of days where I'm like, I look at a problem and I feel like I'm staring down the barrel of a gun. And it's like that could be the thing that kills us. And then the answer has always been like don't give up. Like I remember when we got down to like three weeks of cash and I called I called Paul Graham. And I was like, dude, I need your advice. we've got three weeks of cash. I'm trying to find a bridge her way to the next milestone. And he's like, aren't you shutting the company down?

Usually when people call me and they say they've got three weeks of cash, they're telling me they're shutting the company down. And I said, no, I'm not giving up. We're finding our way through this. I don't know the way right now, but I'm absolutely not shutting the company down. I don't care if I have to take it through bankruptcy and restart it. I'm not giving up. That's amazing.

I think this is what really defines success for entrepreneurs. Some people say companies fail when they're out of money. and at a certain sense it's true, but I think they actually fail when the founder gives up. And so the whole, like, I'm just, you know, I will put myself through whatever quantity of hell it takes to succeed is really powerful. Yeah. I guess I could spend the rest of my life like foolishly failing, but I don't think that's what's going to happen. That's awesome. And let's talk about what's going on right now.

You just had your supersonic flight. Congratulations. The test flight, right? So what's going on? How far are you from actually launching? About four years from carrying passengers. Our goal is first passenger on board by the end of 29. So it's not that far away. And to just concretize where we are right now, we've built and flown the first ever supersonic jet outside of a government or military. Like I think I asked Chat Chapt GPT a few weeks ago, which governments have made supersonic jets? And ChatGPT is like, here are the seven governments have done it. But there's an eighth that's not a government. It's called, boom.

And I was like, I love you, chat GPT. But yeah, so it's the first supersonic jet outside of a government or military. It is the first civil supersonic jet made in America. It's the first one since Concord. And it's the first one made out of airliner technology. So we basically took 20-year-old proven 787 Boeing 787 level technology. And we said, let's go build a supersonic jet that is safe enough to put a person. on that it can break the sound barrier and learn 100% of what it takes to actually do that,

technically, team, management-wise. And then we can take it and scale up. And so that's where we are now. We've broken the sound barrier. We've done it on two flights. We've broken the sound barrier six times. We did it all six times without any audible sonic boom. And now it's time to take all those lessons, scale it up and build the airplane that you

and I can fly on. And also the legal ban, right? Yeah, yeah, we have, so we actually started the company with the assumption no new technology and no change in regulations. Because otherwise it would just be like way too much for a startup to take on. And so our assumption was that we would not solve the sonic boom problem. We wouldn't solve it technically and we wouldn't solve it politically, at least not for version one. But it turned as we got down path, there was a technical solution. And it wasn't even that hard.

Like the problem was described as way more difficult than it actually. is. And now when I look at the administration we have today and how the political climate has shifted in the last 12 months, I'm very confident that the supersonic ban over the continental U.S. is going to be lifted. But then you will have to work with other governments as well because you've- What's actually worse in the U.S. than it is elsewhere, U.S. and Canada have an outright supersonic ban. It doesn't exist everywhere. The rules are a little bit different in the rest of the world. And I think the reason is that Concord was a European project. And there was an American competitor, which got canceled. And only after the American competitor was canceled, it was like,

oh, we can't have this sonic stuff. So I think the actual, you know, many times regulations have like a moral cover story. Like, oh, we have to do this because sonic booms are bad or this is to protect children or whatever. But the real reality is it's to protect Boeing. But nobody wants to say that out loud. So they like invent that, you know, they just tell everybody booms are bad. And that's why we have to have their regulation. But it was a speed limit. Like literally 14 CFR 91.817 says, thou shalt not exceed Mach 1. And that's, can you explain?

The speed of sound. Mach 1 is the speed of sound. It's a speed limit in the sky. And what it should say is thou shalt not make bad noises. It's really, I mean, it's a really, really stupid regulation. My suspicion is that the reason it's a speed limit, not a noise limit, because if it was a reasonable noise limit, a whole bunch of things would have passed. Yeah. And so I think we'll get that changed. And then we can fly coast to coast. What are you hoping? How soon?

I don't know how to predict this, but the things are moving. Less than four years or more than four years? Because you have. Oh, I mean, it could be four weeks. Oh, okay. Yeah. We'll see, but it could happen very quickly. Fingers crossed. Fingers, toes, and eyes are crossed. Awesome. I had another question. question about carbon emissions because when I posted a story of your talk from that party, people were like, but this is like 3x more carbon emissions than like a business class seat. Yeah. So it's, it's supersonic is more energy intensive. And we're designing around next generation sustainable aviation fuel so that when enough of that is available, actually the

carbon could potentially go all the way down to zero on synthetic fuel. But a, it is more, it is more energy intensive. And I think there's a big mindset question around this. Like, you know, the, and it's one of the reasons why we haven't had supersonic already is in the 70s, humanity shifted from an abundance mindset to a conservation mindset. And there's this amazing chart. Like up until about 1970, there was an exponential increase, like a Moore's law of energy. Like energy per human is going up rapidly. Standard of living is going up rapidly. All kinds of new technologies are possible because we have energy abundance, including, by the way, things that make climate livable, like air conditioners and heaters.

And then the mindset shifted and it got into a conservation mindset. The exponential curve flattened and became a linear, like a small slope linear growth curve. And I think it's very, very important that we like plan for and create an energy abundance future. And then find a way to do it that works out writ large for humanity and for the planet. And we can do that. But if you look back at the history of energy, it shows it over and over again. At some point, somebody invented fire or discovered it.

And then like, oh, but fire has, you know, it has the obvious pro. We don't freeze. And it has these cons. Like, it's actually not super healthy to bring in this, breed the smoke, right? Oh, okay. So now we event the log cabin and the pot-bellied stove. We put the fire in the stove and there's a smokestack. You know, and like, okay, that's much, much better.

It's much healthier. It's much better for our environment. My point is every generation of technology. has pros and cons. And as you go from generation to generation, you can increase the pros and decrease the cons. And that's the story of why we're not in the cave anymore. And so I think that's where we have to go with energy and supersonic jets.

And it's okay to use more energy. It's a good thing to use more energy. Let's figure out have more abundant, reliable, cheap energy. And let's minimize the downsides. And let's, you know, if there's like too much carbon, great. Let's figure how to synthesize jet fuel. Let's try to synthesize it more affordably than you can pump it out of the ground. And there is, there's good work happening on that.

It's difficult to do, but it's progressing. Yeah. So that gives me hope. What do you think would be the cost for the average person? Yeah. So our ultimate goal is to make supersonic flight attainable for anybody. But there's a question of where do we start. And Concord, marvelous technical accomplishment, but like we talk in the Valley about product

market fit. And this is a great example of something that never had product market fit. There are 100 seats in the airplane. They're really uncomfortable. Like, if we have some Concord seats in our office, you might think they came out of, like, the back of a Ryanair or Southwest jet. It was a really small. And yet it's $20,000 a ticket. And so Concord was for like rock stars and royalty.

And especially with 70s, 80s, back in the day, $20,000 back in the day, that was... Well, that's suggested for inflation. But still a lot, right? Like, who wants to pay $20,000 to go somewhere really fast? Well, it's not nobody, but it's rock stars and royalty. And it only kind of works on a couple of routes because you can't fill up. hundred seats. Yeah. And so with, that was kind of no man's land. And then overture one is like the Model S of supersonic jets. It's not for everybody, but it's for a whole lot of people.

And so the fairs will be like business class. So I think like $5,000 round trip would be a typical fair. It's going to be a nice seat. Be a nice seat. Light flat. Well, not lie flat. That was the whole you don't need, you don't need a live flat bed for a three or four hour flight. So it's going to be three to four hours from New York to London, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, but also not just New York, London, Miami, Madrid, and Seattle to Tokyo, and D.C. to Paris. That's in four years, right? Or this is like a... Like, it could, they will all be possible in about four years.

And now, no, we won't have enough of the jets yet because we'll be like starting production. Yeah. You know, the whole boom skeptic thing is going to be like, oh, they can't build a supersonic jet. Oops, they did. Then it's going to be they can't build a jet engine. And then it'll be like, oops, they did. Maybe they can't certify an airliner. I've been like, oops, they did.

And then maybe they can't make enough of them. Like, oops, they did. It gives me so much energy just hearing you say that and I see how excited you are. That's awesome because we fly so much and that would be a game changer for the travel industry. Awesome. But actually, I'd love to riff on that with you. It's not just about making it faster. The thing a lot of people don't appreciate about speed, speed is not just like, oh, how efficient are we with our time?

Speed is often the difference between doing something and not doing something. We're doing something happening and not happening. So, for example, before the speed of the jet, basically nobody went to Hawaii. Took too darn long. Like literally tourism to Hawaii pre-jets was like tens of thousands of people per year. Yeah, because it was like a 10-hour flight or something. It was like 16 from... Oh, 16.

Yeah, 16 from San Francisco on a flying boat, you know, and then just kind of cut that in half. Or like Nike got their start when Phil Knight fell in love with Japanese-style running shoes on a chance trip to Japan after business school. in the 1960s. Couldn't have done it 10 years earlier. Japan was way too difficult to get to. And you wouldn't take like a random vacation to Japan without a jet. And so like the shoes that we wear are a result of the speed of the jet. And and I think that is, and it's whether we're talking travel speeds or like speed of iteration and development or like speed of a supply chain. Like speed is very, very important. And like latency is fundamentally evil. And it's not just efficiency. It's

binary thing of do you do something or not. Yeah. And so I think speeding up travel, imagine a future in which our kids have friends that they actually know and have met from other continents. And they can visit them for a weekend. And they can visit them for a weekend, right? Like they know each other in person, not just like, you know, I watched a video about them. Yeah.

Like that is a very different future for humanity. And we can create that future if flights are faster and they're affordable and they're convenient and they're safe. Yeah. That's fascinating. talk about your day today. How many kids do you have? Four. Four. Four. And you're still able to take them on flights. I saw your pictures. You know, you're flying together. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, I live a very full life. How do you balance that? Like with great effort. Yeah.

You know, I try to really be present when I'm with the kids. And like, whenever I can find a way to kind of check two boxes at the same time, like as an example, I took my older three on a vacation a couple years ago that was like a like a road trip in the sky and because I love flying little airplanes it's like my one hobby you fly yourself yeah and so we like did four cities in seven days and it was like guys we can't do that on united you know and now they're like dad when do we get to go and like air dad nice how so how many hours a week do you work I have no idea oh do you have days off or I haven't I haven't had a day off since like I don't know four months or something How do you feel?

A little tired. Fashion keeps you going. Passion keeps me going. Yeah. I mean like 2024 for me was like terrible busy because it was like survival mode for the company. And like 2025 we got out of that. We received $150 million from like some of the most amazing investors, Paul Graham, Sam, Altman, Y Combinator, Bessemer, Michael Morris, Reed Hoffman, like all of those people put

in at least $10 million in our like late 2024 financing. And so now we've got runway and then we broke the sound barrier and then we broke it again. And then we like did it boomless. And then it feels like we broke the internet. People got really excited. Yeah. And it was 24 hours from breaking the sound barrier to be in the west wing of the White House. And now it's like, holy crap, the world feels like it just cracked open for us.

And there is opportunity and we have to take advantage of it quickly enough. And it goes back to the same point I was making about speed at the difference when things happening or not happening. The world is very open to supersonic right now. And, you know, I think that like regulation change, it's either going to happen quickly or it's not going to happen. And so I feel we got to move fast. Yeah. I have a question, by the way, speaking of the White House. Yes.

Can you talk about this photo? How it happened? Yeah. So I like to say no lobbyists were harmed in the creation of that photo. So it was Monday, geez, two weeks ago? Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago Monday. We broke the sound barrier.

We did it boomless. We announced boomless. And I was like in the Mojave Desert and I'm like tweeting about we've got to repeal this silly regulation. And like Elon responds like, yes, this administration will fix it. I was on a flight, a terrible, terrible flight, a pink eye flight to D.C. that night, which we should totally speed up. And we're planning to go like lobby the next day. And by the time I landed in D.C. I had an invitation to visit the White House. Wow.

And so we had that first meeting and it was starting to build support in the White House floor. It wasn't with the president. And then the next time I'm on the hill and we're sort of rapidly discovering, there's bipartisan support for repealing the speed limit. Like everybody agrees that we shouldn't have a speed limit, that we should have a noise limit instead. Yeah. And then Thursday, I had coffee with the secretary of. of Energy, who I met because, so our landlord at Boom is friends with him. And so it was like me to our landlord, to the secretary of energy. Landlord, meaning owns the building that Boom is in.

And so he and I had a great conversation. He's like, I love this. I think the president will love it. He's like, you should make a model of the airplane. And I was like, well, I actually have one in my hotel room. Convenient. I'm like, do you have five minutes? I'll sprint and get it and bring it back. But the question is how do we get it to the president? And he's like, well, I'm seeing him later today. I'll give it to him. I was like, okay, how did this happen so quickly? But now I'm incredibly, that whole just getting people, like the magic of boom is everybody

wants supersonic flight to exist. And if we can show them that we're not crazy, then they want to help. And so like a lot of people, a lot of people have helped. Can you give advice to someone who's stuck with their idea of building a boom-sized company but they just can't take the sleep of faith. They have a family. They're like, I haven't had proven success yet. Yeah.

My experience has been, failure is never as bad as I think it's going to be. And there's a little bit, like, when I could get comfortable with the idea of failing, it was much easier to try. So, like, my first company, we were building a barcode scanning game, which is like the least inspiring thing anybody could ever choose to do. And I was doing it because I thought I knew e-commerce from Amazon and mobile from this other startup. So I thought I should work on mobile e-commerce because it's been qualified to do. So I ended building this mobile e-commerce thing that I don't care about at all. And yet it's hard because every startup is hard. Every startup could fail.

And I would get up in the morning and think like, ugh, I'm going to screw this up. I'm going to lose all the investors money. No one's ever going to want to hire me again. And then effectively the company did fail. Like we hired it to Groupon and they shut the product down and put us on other stuff. And yet, like, failure in that case was the best paying job I'd ever had, a lot less stress than I'd had as a startup founder, a couple years where I could, like, reflect on what I'd learned and think about what I wanted to do next. And, you know, there were, and mostly people respected me for trying. And so this notion I'd had in my head of failure would be like the end of my career, it really wasn't true.

And so I think I learned to be a little bit less afraid of failure. Yeah, so basically visualize the failure, what it looks like. And just accept it. And then move on from it. And you know, like I think I tell boom, the boom team is, look, there is no guarantee we're going to succeed. We could totally fail. If we fail, just make sure we fail honestly.

Don't fail like Theranos. Don't fail by like being a jerk or being bad. Like fail by giving it everything we have and then somehow it didn't work. But also, don't give up. Don't fail. You know, when XB1 broke the sound barrier, I said that with a team. And I was like, look at the airplane. Why is this here?

It's here because all of us didn't give up when it would have been very reasonable to give up. Like, in fact, some people gave up along the way. But those of us standing here today didn't give up. And that's why it's here. Don't give up. Yeah. What would you say to this small guy right here? Any advice for him?

You know. Words of encouragement. Like, talk to your grandpa more. Yeah. Like, he didn't live to get to know his great grandkids, really. And he'd fought in the Pacific theater in World War II. He'd actually repaired propellers. And I think back about, like, all the conversations I could have had with him that I didn't have.

And now that I can't have. You've heard of that, right? The love for aviation. Yeah, I didn't even realize I got it from him. I don't know if I did get it from him. I wish I'd talk to him way more. That's a great thing to say. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Blake. You're amazing. A lot of inspiration. There's so many takeaways for everyone who's watching. Thank you for the fun conversation and the chance to just like, I don't know, tell the real story. Yeah. Thank you. And hopefully in four years, we're all flying supersonic.

Fingertos and eyes are crossed. Relax and let Ralph's delivery handle your grocery shopping this week. We start with only the freshest items. Then review your list and carefully choose each. one. Then we pack it all up and deliver it in as little as 30 minutes so you can feel confident it's what you ordered. Fresh groceries, your way with Ralph's delivery and pickup. And right now, enjoy free delivery on orders over $50. Ralph's, fresh for everyone. I knew about investing, but I really didn't know how to go about it. Meet Corey, a Walthfront client. With Walthfront,

it could put money in and it would automatically distribute it into a diversified port. portfolio. Then it starts to compound. The compounding compounds on the compounding. Just let it wrong. And it's great. Over one million clients trust wealthfront. Get started at wealthfront.com. Client was paid $1,000 for their testimonial, creating a conflict of interest. Outcomes vary. Investment management and advisory services provided by Wealthfront Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. Investing involves risk to principle regardless of the strategy used. Task performance does not guarantee future results.