The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 499: Ted Decker & Ian Cinnamon—Orbiting Home

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

What do a Home Depot employee and a satellite have in common? More than you might think. In this episode, Mike Rowe talks with two CEOs about the people and technology quietly building the future around us. First, Mike sits down with Ted Decker, CEO of The Home Depot, to talk about workforce development, the company's "inverted pyramid" philosophy—where frontline associates and customers sit at the top and management exists to support them—and why developing people from the ground up is central to the company's success. Decker also explains the story behind Home Depot's Kids Workshop program, which has introduced generations of young people to tools, building, and the satisfaction of making something with their own hands. Then Mike talks with Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree Ian Cinnamon, CEO and co-founder of Apex, a company tackling one of the space industry's biggest challenges: making satellites faster and at much greater scale. Cinnamon explains just how many aspects of everyday life depend on satellites—from communications and navigation to weather and national security—and why getting more capable spacecraft into orbit is becoming increasingly important. From the aisles of Home Depot to the edge of space, this is a conversation about building things, building people, and building what comes next. Shout out to our great sponsors K12.com/Rowe—Find a K12-powered school near you and see what's possible for your child with K12's Career and College Prep. ZipRecruiter.com/Rowe—The recruiting site that really is the smartest way to hire. Post a job for FREE and find a qualified candidate in 24 hours. GoodRanchers.com/ROWE—Sourcing 100% of their meat from American farms and ranches and delivering straight to your door. Get $50 off anything on their site and get DOUBLE the FREE meat with every order when you start a plan. CamelCityMill.com—The last work sock you'll ever need. 100% American made with a 10-year warranty.  Use code ROWE for 10% off Mike's favorite work sock.

Hey guys, I'm Mike Rowe. This is the way I heard it. And this episode is called Orbiting Home. Orbiting Home. Because I have two guests. And the first guests, Ted Decker, the CEO of the Home Depot. And the other guy is Ian Cinnamon. You might not know that name. But he's the CEO of a company called Apex that's mass-producing satellites. And both of these men are going to impact your life if they haven't already. I met them at the Reagan Library. I was there a couple weeks ago for the Reagan Economic Forum. Regular listeners, we'll recall, I went there to listen to Scott Bessent and then interview him.

And I'm so glad I did. His episode was very well received. I learned a lot, not just from him, but from lingering and crashing a few of those breakout sessions and listening to some other luminaries hold forth as to what was vital and critical about the future of our economy and our workforce. and some other issues that are interesting to me and relevant to my foundation. So since I had the cameras there, I invited them over for a chat. Chuck wasn't there, so I guess maybe that's the trade-off, right? Two guests, no producer.

I'll do my best without him. Ted Decker is up first, the CEO of the Home Depot. Why should you listen to this? Because Ted knows things you don't. He sees things coming, in fact, before a lot. of economic prognosticators anywhere, because he's got a front row seat to massive amounts of consumer behavior.

It's so interesting the way he looks at the world through the lens of this company, which by the way is bigger than many cities, they employ close to half a million associates. So he's uniquely positioned. He has a great take on the economy, but more importantly to me anyway, he's doing something to help reinvigorate

the skilled trades on a national level. Home Depot does a lot of great stuff in this way. And incidentally, the episode's not sponsored by them in any way, shape, or form. In fact, Lowe's is doing a lot of great stuff as well in this space. And I only point it out because we need the government to close the skills gap. We can't do it without them. But the government alone is not enough to make it happen either. We need companies like Home Depot with programs like Path to Pro. which you'll learn about in just a couple of minutes

with a whole bunch of other stuff as well. So strap in, it's a normal length episode, but it's two conversations. Ted Decker's first from Home Depot, and then you're going to love Ian Cinnamon. Very spicy he is. In an episode called Orbiting Home, right after this. When it comes to educating their kids in 2026,

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I really appreciate you doing this. Absolutely. Great to be with you, Mike. Great to be with you, Ted. I feel like sometimes my schedule is so bad no one could possibly understand it. And then I, you know, I meet guys like you and I can't even imagine on a day-to-day basis. How many employees now at Home Depot?

About $475,000. There are so many cities with so fewer people in them. Let's just start with, how do you manage you? Well, I mean, we're all about the stores. I mean, it's not about me. Our whole leadership principle is... Well, for the next half hour, it's pretty much about you. No, no, no.

The great thing about our company is we are truly all about the associates in the store. So we don't have a headquarters. We have a store support center. And our leadership principle is literally the inverted pyramid. So you think of most organizations, you have a pyramid with, you know, the ground troops, if you will, on the bottom and work your way up to the executive staff. Is that what I've seen on, like, the aprons? That's on the aprons. Yeah.

And our founders, you know, Bernie and Arthur and Ken, they literally inverted that pyramid. Yeah. And on top's the customer. Everything's for the customer. We're customer-backed. And then the frontline associates are underneath the customer, then staff. And then at the very, very bottom is the executive staff. And we exist to support the associates so they can take care of the customers.

So, I mean, it's not just lip service. As the guy who's running the entire operation, you see yourself at the very bottom of an upside-down pyramid. Yeah, that's truly how we operate. When you ask a question like, you know, how do you think about you or what do you do about you? I mean, that's not what we think about. We think about the associates and we think about the customer. Bernie Marcus always said, if you take care of the associates, the associates will take care of the customer and everything else will take care of itself. And that's what we focus on.

We focus on our associates so they can take care of the customer. Well, the reason I wanted to talk to you, honestly, is there's so many big brains here and there's so many people, nobody's got a crystal ball. But a lot of smart minds are taking a very long view, and they're trying to make sense of the issues of our time. And it just strikes me that because of the company you run and because of the products that by and large you're known for, you probably learn more from the consumer and consumer behavior. I'm guessing than most economists do in real time.

Am I close? Yeah, well, we see what people are doing. every day. You know, why are they coming to the store? They're coming to store for a reason. They're fixing something. They're improving something. They're dreaming how to improve their lives. I mean, this is truly home and hearth, the American home. And if you're coming to a Home Depot, you're generally coming for a purpose. Sure, some hobbyists are, you know, they're going to look for the new tool, but generally people are coming. Something's broken. Something needs to be fixed. Something needs to be repaired. Or I'm improving. I'm improving hearth and home. So we see

customer behavior. I mean, we're blessed. Our founders created one of the great business models of all time. One of the great brands of all time. One of the great brands of all time. When you think of the business model, when we started in retail in 1979, opened the first two stores in Atlanta, the whole model was we're going to put selection of product, amazing selection of product, we're going to put service, and we're going to put value all under one roof. Now even today, most retailers, you can get assortment, you can get a value, you can get a value, but you're not necessarily going to get service. Or you're going to get great product in service,

but you're going to pay for it. The beauty of Home Depot was they put amazing product assortment at everyday, low price, great value with that service from the orange apron, as we call them Orange Apron Associates. So they create this incredible business wine. And then they created it in an amazing space, U.S. housing.

I mean, it is one of the biggest markets in the world. You said this morning on a panel, Tell me if I got it right, but the housing sector alone is probably the biggest chunk of our GDP. So housing alone is an asset class is $50 trillion. I think government debt is something like $38 trillion. So, I mean, I don't know, maybe global equities would be bigger. There are very few asset classes that are bigger than U.S. housing. That is a contribution to GDP every year, depending on how broadly define housing.

So if you include rents and utility payments, et cetera, associated with that house, it's 15 to 18% of GDP. It's an incredibly important part of the U.S. economy. And how important is it, I guess maybe the turnover is what I mean to talk about. I know you're concerned about an overall lack of housing in the country, and I want to talk about how that goes hand in glove with the current labor shortage. But the business of selling a house and buying. a house, it seems like so much of what you guys do is hand and glove with that. Because people are going to fix up the thing they sell and then they're going to mess with the thing they buy. It never stops. No, and so usually how, there's like 135 million housing units. And historically,

about four and a half percent of that turns every year. You know, it goes up and down, but like clockwork, you're turning about four and a half percent of the housing stock. And just like you said, when someone's going to sell their house, they're going to fix it up, all those nagging things So you've lived with for years. Your realtor says, hey, you got to fix that up. And you sell the house, and then the new owner buys it. They want to change the paint color. They want to change flooring.

They redo a bathroom. Maybe redo the kitchen. So it's an incredible multiplier of activity when there's housing turnover. Right now, housing turnover, unfortunately, is it a 40-year low. So that 4.5% average, we're at like 3%, just at 3% right now. So that's a million and a half, 2 million houses, not turnoff. every year and that suppresses GDP because you're just not getting all that activity. So as a single issue guy, not that I'm running for anything, but I always try and come back to

how is workforce impacting that? How is it impacting anything macroeconomic that you would want to talk about? But most importantly, what is Home Depot doing internally to try and close what feels like an ever-widening skills gap? So we understand that there is a skilled trades gap in the country. I mean, there are different figures out there that right today we're short, 300,000, maybe as much as 400,000 skilled trades. I think of plumbers and electricians and carpenters and HVAC technicians. So we're short and we see that.

And obviously in our industry, trades is vital for new home construction, but also repairing an HVAC unit, putting on a new roof. I mean, we distribute roofing material, we distribute drywall, you need tradesmen to put up the drywall, et cetera. So we're investing at Home Depot. Our foundation is principally committed to veterans' causes. We can talk about that. Bernie was very passionate about that. We committed seven, well, we first started off with $50 million commitment 12 odd years ago, and then we went to 100 and we went to $250 million commitment.

to support veteran causes, and we're 600 plus million on our way to satisfy that goal. What do you do, like, in terms of hiring? Well, most of it is homeless vets. So on any given night, there are 35,000 veterans without a roof over their head. And we just think that's, you know, we've got to take care of our veterans,

people that preserve... Let's just call it what it is, man. It's a scandal. It's not good. We stepped in, and we worked with loads of agencies when you think of Team Rubicon and Tunnel to Towers, so we partner with these people to provide housing

for catastrophic wounded vets so they can live independently. So that's our principal focus on veteran causes. But then a number of years ago, we said this trade shortage needs to be addressed as well. So we pledged an incremental $50 million that we were going to complete by 2028. We've already blown by the $50 million. And there were working with third parties like the Home Builder, Institute to train folks to get their certificates and licenses for, you know, again,

electricians, plumbers, et cetera. Do you think the licensure and the certification protocols that are currently in place are overwrought? Is it taking us too long to train an electrician or a plumber? And if so, are you guys doing something internally to fast track it? I'm not sure what the curriculum would be from the independent certification boards, but what we're doing internally, we have a whole program that's on our website. It's native to us. We call Path to Pro. And what we do is two things.

We work with candidates who want to become pros, and we help them get a resume together, you know, take a picture. They publish this on our website. We've had 170,000, I think, pros come through our website. they take preliminary. It's not a full certification, but they can take courses to get just the basics to see what might not be interested in. Where do the courses? That's all on our website. So you can go into Home Depot Path to Pro and you can be a high school graduate, someone trying to change career and you can start taking coursework, learning about the trades, put a resume together, get your profile loaded on Home Depot.com, path to preface. Pro and then our pro customers have access to that and they read the bios and then direct you know reach out to these candidates and hire them so that's what we're doing in turn You're building a pipe internally yeah internally so is it like a pre-apprenticeship thing?

Yeah it's kind of more a pre-apprenticeship thing and then you asked about the outside certifications mean again we've blown by 50 million dollars that we've already provided for the training we do that in number of ways again we give to outside um part who actually do the work. We're on a number of military bases. So I think we're up to like nine military bases where we work with the Home Builder Institute. And they actually set up active functioning classrooms on the military base. So servicemen are transitioning out of the military.

They can go take carpentry, plumbing, electrical work and get certification. So when they transition out of the military, they can go and have an enable job. enable job. It's so great. Have you seen or heard of workshop for warriors down in San Diego? I've not heard of that, but one of our biggest installments is in San Diego. This was a guy, H, right, Taylor? Yeah, he's a Navy guy and he came out and he was a medic and he just was so frustrated with the number of people he saw who were just falling through the cracks. He owns like three, not owns, but has rented out blocks.

down in San Diego and he's trained thousands of men and women, mostly men, in the welding trade. And his success ratio is extraordinary. And he's helping build, like I'd call him maybe a vet friendly on-ramp into companies like yours. And so my question, if there is one, I guess, is to say, do you think the feds can close this gap? Personally, I think we need them involved, but it feels to me like it's going to be Home Depot And pardon me, it's going to be Lowe's and it's going to be FedEx and UPS.

In Milwaukee tools and DeWalt Tools. Exactly. And Black and Becker, it just feels to me like we're this close to some stealthy memo going out to all the C-Sweets that says, look, guys, we need a rising tide. Yeah. And we all get to short. If it's 300,400,000 short today, it's going to be $3 million short in a few short years. And then it's going to grow even more as the current. pros age out and retire. I think one super important thing that the feds are doing is

Pell Grants and the one big beautiful bill, you know, Pell Grants was always for, you know, four-year college, two-year associate degree college. They've extended Pell Grants to short-term trade schools. It has to be administered through the state. So we've got to get the states on board with this federal money that you can get a Pell Grant to, you know, we're chatting the other day. about, you know, if it's $2,500, $5,000 to go and take a 12-13-week course to get certified. Not everyone has that, you know, much money up front. So you can get a Pell Grant now starting July 1st to pay for your trade school.

That's huge. Funding is huge, but, yeah, companies have to be involved. Military transition is a huge avenue for these trades folks. We're doing our, you know, thing on our, you know, own digital properties to get involved. We're also very active now in high schools as shop is coming back. It's a thing. And these schools don't have the tools. So part of our program, that 50 million plus in giving that we now are doing, we will gift the school that's setting up a shop class all the tools they need to establish that shop class. What's the most important quality?

in a great employee. You can make a case, I guess, for work ethic or attitude or trustworthiness or promptness, any number of things, I guess. Personally, I'd go with initiative, like the lift driver who carries your luggage to the door, right? Or the grocery clerk who doesn't just tell you where the thing is but walks you down the aisle and hands you the product you're looking for. Or the doctor who calls you to explain your test results personally.

If you're hiring and you want to encourage that sort of initiative, ZipRecruiter has a pretty clever way to allow a candidate to tell you, in their own words, why they're interested in your job. Not just why they're qualified, but why they're actually interested. It's a great way to allow the best candidates to distinguish themselves from the competition and a great way for you to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were. Right now you can try it for free, ziprecruiter.com slash row. They're the number one hiring site on G2. In large part, because of this new feature that shows you the most interested, qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. Four out of five employers who post on zip recruiter, get a quality candidate within the first day. Try them for free, ziprecruiter.com slash row.

That's ziprecruiter.com slash row. Meet your match on zip recruiter. So how do you quantify success and what does it look like through the lens of this pathway to grow? Well, we need, like I said, we've had 170-odd thousand pros or future pros engage on the site. So we're looking at engagement levels and we're looking at people that go on and get full training in curriculum to get their certificates. Another group we're working with is both the Boy Scouts and the Boys and Girls Club. So we have programs similar like to the high school classes I told you about, where we are working with the Boy Scouts who are Camp Woodruff,

which is one of their biggest camps in Atlanta, greater Atlanta, where they're going to put together kind of a DIY badge program. It's great. We'll sponsor and again provide the tools to the camp. We have so much curriculum and know-how and do-it-yourself so that the Boy Scouts can work through a badge program. Now they won't be a certified pro when they come out. But again, so much more training from the badge, a path to pro.

And then the same thing with the boys and girls clubs, where we're working with them. Boys and Girls Clubs are based in Atlanta. We're working very closely with them to do a similar program to provide tools and curriculum so they can start training their kids who are interested in this. How important do you reckon organizations like the Boy Scouts are to the country? I think of Skills USA, I think of 4-H.

Yeah. I think of a lot of... Boys of Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts, It's the connected tissue. Absolutely. Do you have a past with the scouts yourself? Not. I mean, I went up to Weeblow.

That's as far as Taylor got. Not the Eagle Award for sure. But my wife was super active. Both my daughters did Girl Scouts, and she did each of their troops through 12th grade. So this group of girls, you know, 15 aught of them in each troop, stayed together through high school. I think she told me she did.

something like 75 different weekend trips with those two troops. So I was there supporting my wife in her pursuit. I was only a weeblow. Well, did I hallucinate this? I thought I saw you on the interwebs at some golden something award that the Boy Scouts had. Sponsored. That was their sort of annual luncheon and fundraiser in Atlanta. They called me for one of those ones.

The schedules hadn't worked out. They're terrific. The Boy Scouts saved my life. Yeah? So how far did you go? Oh, well, Tim, come on. I went all the way, dude. Yeah?

All right. I'm what you call a distinguished Eagle Scout. Distinguished Eagle Scout. What's that? Well, what happens is you get your eagle, and then you go about your life, and then you get super busy, and you kind of forget what you did as a teenager,

and then you wind up with this goofy show called Dirty Jobs, and then suddenly people are paying attention to you, and then you start getting letters from parents of kids kids who are going to get their Eagle Award asking you to send a congratulatory letter, which is kind of customary, right? What you do to be a distinguished Eagle Scout is you send out 50,000 of those. Oh my God. Which I did. And then I just couldn't do it anymore. It's 50,000. But, you know, the reason I did it is because I really do believe that our skilled workforce is in the eighth grade right now. And if we don't make a more persuasive case to them for the

opportunities that exist, we're going to be chasing our tail. I think Home Depot does that, whether by design or by accident, the mere presence of a giant depot filled with stuff that is waiting to be fashioned into something useful. Yeah. It's so American. Well, think of our kids workshop. We started a kid's workshop, I think, 25-odd years ago, for Saturday of every month, Every store in the country has a kids' workshop. We have stores that will have up to a thousand kids every Saturday, and we get a kit that they build every month. Why don't I know this?

You've never seen this? Go to a Home Depot. No, no. Why don't I turn on the TV and see footage of kids in your work? Great idea. We post some of this, obviously not enough. Who's in charge your media? Who's in charge at Ted Decker's media over there?

Social media. We do post with FIFA. We're big sponsors of FIFA. for the first Saturday in June, the kit is going to be a goal. Yeah. In a FIFA goal in a little mascot. So everyone on the country, hundreds of thousands of FIFA goal kits will be the project for the first Saturday in June. I think it's terrific.

And I'm fascinated by what the Fortune 500 are doing, again, individually to try and address this. my hope is that somehow all that can get triangulated and articulated because it's a really hopeful message. Absolutely. Incomes people can make, the independence of lifestyle, and incomes you can make is a skilled trade. I mean, I think we clearly over indexed to the only path to the middle class, the United States, was a four-year degree. Like the most expensive path is the only, that's the best path for the most people, right? I mean, how can that even be? But, I mean, you know, we've talked about data centers and the amount of wage people can make in HVAC and electrical right now in particular with the data center build out. It's just absolutely incredible.

People don't believe it. I tell them, and they kind of believe it because they still sort of like me. But until they hear it from the horse's mouth, like we really have to show them. That's why I just, I'm convinced of that. The evidence demands a verdict, and the evidence is on our side. Yeah. And I think the country is like they just really truly need need to see the good work that you guys are doing and so many others Well, it's growing we're making tractions others are getting involved

Trade interest is growing and as we said whether it's a kid workshop The Boy Scouts boys and girls clubs getting shop back in school I did shop I grew up in northwest Pennsylvania I love shop I mean do like an Erie Erie PA yeah right on the lake Northwest PA and I mean everyone did shop and We did home-back, you know, econ, you know, household economics. Yeah. You know, all these great things that, you know, maybe learning how to balance a checkbook

and understanding what an APR is on a mortgage or a car loan. Financial literacy? Yeah, financial literacy is important as, you know, bio 101. There's a great factory in Erie that makes like 80% of the drains in every bathroom in the country. Oh, yeah, ZERN. ZERN. Yeah, ZERN industries. I spent every valve and drain in virtually every bath.

bathroom. Right here at the Reagan Library. Yes, I just saw it. See, that's why I like you. There are not a lot of guys here who would use the can and then look around and go, you know what, that's a zern drain right there. You're EPA, absolutely. Look, I'm encouraged to talk to you just a couple more more questions. How much?

Ten minutes, perfect. Okay. You mentioned do it yourself. Yeah. What do you think has happened to the do-it-yourself mentality in our country? because I feel like part of what your industry is saying, hey, don't put that fan up yourself. Get an expert.

We've got the pros. And the other aspirational message is you can do this. Let's do it. And again, that was the whole founding business model. We taught the baby boomer generation. The founders taught the baby boomer generation how to do it yourself. And there's this concern every generation we look at and say, you know, is this going to be a do it for me or do it yourself?

Yeah. What's interesting is, you know, remember 10, 15 years ago, everyone was going to rent everything. You know, it was going to be the rental. I think the millennials were going to rent. They weren't going to own a house. It was a zip car. They weren't going to own cars. There was even tools.

They weren't going to, they weren't going to own anything. Well, that passed. You know, I mean, I think people were just delayed going into that, forming, you know, a household, you know, going into a home. And I think it's the same sort of hysteria that every generation, oh, they're not going to be interested in do it yourself. But we find people are very interested. I mean, the millennials, you know, the whole maker movement, they're huge incredibly interested. So I just think we had a delay with the great financial crisis.

People were delayed getting that job they wanted, living in the city they wanted to live in, and then forming a household. Once they got off the, you know, the couch and the basement of their parents' house. Yeah. And got their home in, you know, early days, you don't have a lot of money, and you do it yourself. You do your lawn, you paint, and that's what we're trying to do is build confidence. You know, you do that first project. You do a painting. You hang a ceiling fan.

You know, you change an electrical outlet. You learn how to, you know, throw the breaker off and work a little bit with, you know, electricity. And you just build that confidence. And you go to the store, you know, every Saturday, three, four times every Saturday. When you're working on a project, we have knowledge. That's one of the things we're known for is know-how imparting that knowledge to the customer and taking them through the project and giving them confidence to do it yourself in this generation. I mean, Z, I mean, we don't see any indication that Gen Z won't be the same.

Well, look, this is anecdotal, but in my little world, you know, Gen Z appears to have gotten the memo. They've done the math. They don't like being part of the $1.7 trillion in outstanding student debt. They are, whether it's TikTok or Reels, they're seeing people build things with their hands and getting paid for it. It's turning a tanker around. These are perceptions that we're talking about, which brings me back to the first question. I should have followed up more on, but what have you learned from the consumer that surprised you? Their habits that would have maybe preempted some other economic prognostication.

So the consumer fundamentally has been incredibly resilient. I mean, they've had so much thrown at them, you know, and you just think of inflation and in oil and COVID obviously. There's just been so much student loans, et cetera. But they have literally just powered through that. I mean, personal consumption expenditure is up. GDP is growing. There's great wealth effect from housing.

The value of housing has gone up 50% since the end of 2019. Stock market's doing incredibly well. There's been a lot of wealth generated in the stock market. So people are spending. People are resilient. Engagement in home improvement is strong. I mean, people are in the store of shopping. What we find is the large projects still haven't come back.

So people repair something. People will do a light touch-up. When you get into something like demo and really doing a major project, you know, I'm going to do the master bath, I'm going to do a kitchen. I'm going to finally, you know, remodel that basement that, you know, get the wood paneling off from the 70s. That type of big project, there's enough uncertainty out there. It's fine to spend on a week-long weekend. It's fine to spend on a nice dinner.

It's fine to go. I mean, it's unbelievable. People will, you know, buy, we were in a store yesterday, and top-selling live good was a pre-potted $199, you know, patio container. So you think of that, I mean, I'd always plant my own containers every spring, but that was the number one seller in the whole garden department was, yeah, I'll spend $199 to get her two for either side of the front door. Because it's done for me, it looks beautiful. I'm never going to make it look like that myself. That's very different than saying, okay, I've got a ton of equity in my house. I think we're up to something like $11 trillion of tapable equity, that I'm going to go tap 25, $50.

thousand dollars and do a major project. Start swinging a sledge-in. That's still the one thing and we ask our customers, why is that? And it's just this general uncertainty. Yes, there's costs, yes, there's inflation, yes, there's some skilled trade, you know, labor availability. But that's actually diminished. Labor availability isn't that big of a deal right now.

The biggest issue is just do I feel comfortable right now to take on a big project like that? Or, hey, we'll wait another year. Right. All right, last question. The aliens come. They're here. They're curious. They walk into Home Depot.

Which aisle do you show them? Oh, power tools. For sure. Really? Oh, unbelievable. You want to put power tools in the hands of aliens? I just want to show them, hey, we're pretty sophisticated, too. I mean, you now can get a cordless power tool on a battery with the same power in runtime to do an entire, you know,

pro can do a total day's job on a job site. Don't need the electrical cord, don't need the compressor. That's incredible, really. It's really incredible. I mean, we're now seeing, you know, breakers. We're seeing, you know, asphalt, you know, work crews at night, you know, cutting up the concrete to patch. Those now are cordless, you know, those giant concrete saws. So batteries, man. I mean, batteries, batteries, batteries, batteries. Batteries. Yeah. Well, I could talk for you all day, but I know I can't. I've been to a bunch of presidential libraries. I think this is the best one.

It's unbelievable. Look at this setting. It's shocking and just the brainpower walking around here. The present company included, obviously. Thanks for making the time. Thank you. Nice to see you again. Ted Decker runs a little mom-paw shop called the Home Depot.

They're doing okay. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike. All right, that's Ted Decker. Big thanks to him and my apologies to his people who were pacing with increasing agitation. probably 15 minutes before we wrapped it up. He had to be someplace else important, and I think I made him late, and I'm sorry for that.

But I should to appreciate his time. Ian Cinnamon is up next. He's the co-founder and the CEO of Apex. And this company is going places, and his take on the world is super interesting. In short, he's upended the aerospace industry by doing something super simple. He's treating satellites like their cars, and he's building them. like the way Henry Ford built cars. This used to be a super bespoke, painfully slow science project,

which is why we don't have nearly as many satellites in space as we could, or arguably, as we should. Ian looked at that bottleneck and just said, let's mass produce him instead. He's an MIT grad. He built a brilliant AI weapon detection startup, sold that to Palantir, made a bunch of money. But instead of retiring to the beach, he took on the hardest manufacturing problem in space. And today his company commands a two, two and a half billion dollar valuation.

He's scaling up America's industrial footprint to ensure we don't lose the new space race because it is a race and we're in it and the stakes are high. You'll be amazed at what your life would look like without satellites. And you'll be gobsmacked by what it's going to look like. if Ian Cinnamon does what he is in the midst of doing. Here he is right after this. Do do do do do do do do do. A couple weeks ago on the podcast,

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don't take a chance on a foreign ranch, get good ranchers now. Hey-ha! Hi, Ian Cinnamon. Hello. How are you? I'm doing well. It's great to be here. It's beautiful, beautiful day to be here.

It's so ridiculous. I mean, we should just turn around, gawk at it for a second, but that's... Is this your first time at the Reagan Library? No, so we've been coming to the Reagan National Defense Forum for many years. Yeah. And then the Economic Forum, this is the second year. I've been here both. But I grew up in the area, so I grew up coming to this museum and getting to enjoy the view, and it's lovely.

You know, I mean, for people who have never been, how would you, like, how do you describe walking through a place like this? Does it hit you primarily as a, like, from a historical perspective or from a cultural perspective or, because you were very young when Reagan was in office? For me, the highlight was seeing Air Force One in the middle of a building. I mean, that to me is, that's like the thing, the view I never forgot. That's the perfect answer. I mean, it's the same for me, too, because it's bringing in your industry. I mean, it's bringing aerospace indoors and making arguably the most iconic, famous airplane since flyer. Exactly.

Right? And it's right there. You can touch it. You can look at it. It's terrific when history is tactile like that, you know, and accessible. I couldn't agree more. I would love one day to come back here and see a satellite, you know, of a satellite in that era sitting here somewhere?

Well, obviously. The Reagan Star Wars days, you know, something like that. Okay, I hate to ask, how old were you when Star Wars was the thing? I don't know. I'm, how old do you think I am? Let's start there. I'm going to put you around 34. You're pretty good, 33.

Oh, there you go. Wow. I'm impressed. Google. No, no. You know, AI sometimes got some things right, so not too bad. Look, this is all kind of last minute, but. For me, I'm a single issue guy. It's workforce. I want to talk about blue collar in space.

I want to talk about the jobs that exist at Apex. I want to get to all of that. But mostly, I'm super interested in people in their 30s who are taking big bets, big swings, as something that's really consequential and creating jobs and opportunities that are just cool. Because I think, you know, the business of reinvigorating the trades, I think it might be more important now that it's ever been. And I thought you might have a perspective on that that would be out of this world or up in the air. I love it. I love it.

Sky high, whatever we want to call it. First of all, what the heck happened with the origin rocket yesterday? I know. That was unfortunate. But I think my takeaway is we need to move away from aerospace and space being something where everything must be perfect and work well. faster iteration, moving quick, we make mistakes, things go wrong, nobody got hurt. That's the most important thing. Everybody is safe.

What do we learn? Let's get back on the pad. Let's do it again. I tell you what we learned, man. That amount of fuel makes a big, big explosion. I was reading, it is the, backcheck me, but I thought it was the largest man-made explosion outside of a weapon. Yeah. Yes.

Enormous. Well, I'll tell you how, I mean, this is how weird our world is today. I became aware of that explosion, not just on the internet, but because somebody had taken Elton John's Rocket Man and put it behind it and ran the whole thing in slow motion. And so, like, our news today is coming at us with like... I see Jeff Bezos' face, watching that clip. I mean, look, I guess we can sort of kind of laugh because nobody got hurt,

but it really, there were satellites on that thing. Yes. It was not an ideal situation, but again, I was, I really think that moving to the mindset of, hey, if things don't go wrong, we're not pushing the limits. And we should be. Like, we need to push innovation forward. Yeah. So I actually look at it and like, look, it's unfortunate.

It sets things back a few months. But it's a reminder that anything worthwhile comes with that. The only four-letter word worth a damn other than debt maybe is risk. Exactly. There's risk. One hundred percent. And if you don't take the risk, then we're going too slowly. And we're not moving fast enough.

Make me care. about satellites and make me understand why this is your life's work. Almost every single thing that happens on Earth, touch a space one way or another. Your day today, I guarantee you you interacted with probably at least a dozen different satellites. Okay. And you don't even know it. How did you get here?

GPS in the car telling you where to go? Yes, I left the hotel, which is 25 minutes away, and I wanted to be sure, so, yeah. Yep, you got directions to get here. Internet connectivity, how do you think that worked? That's probably getting routed through one or two satellites. Sure. The communications of even once all we have live broadcasters here, broadcasting clips in real time, how are those getting out there? That'd be satellites.

That's all satellite connectivity. Understanding even when they built this amazing and they added on and they're putting tents out here and they're creating this great podcasting studio, all of that, how do they plot all this out? Satellite imagery. Satellites touch us in ways that we don't even imagine. And to give you a sense as well, if our satellite infrastructure were to go down. Yeah. Some people go, who cares, GPS doesn't work, I know where to go. Plains would not be able to take off.

Airplanes could no longer take off. Our ability to get telemetry off airplanes connects through satellites. Our ability to even know that an airplane is safe to fly, which depends heavily on weather conditions, which are monitored through. Satellites. Hospitals. Everything. Halfway through, you're halfway through an operation.

Is the satellite being used somehow by the doctor to put the new kidney in? I guarantee some of the telemetry that's coming off that medical device is, going through a satellite. Okay. Guaranteed. All right. So established. You can't see it so people don't recognize it, but it's there.

That's the point. Your handy work is invisible. Yes. You're out of sight. See, you would have been a great dirty jobs feature. Normally we go underground. Would it love to have you. Well, look, out of sight, out of mind.

Right. It's the thing. And is it essential? Is it really moving things forward? Yes. Obviously, that's the big one. How crowded is it up there? People talk a lot about it being really crowded,

but you drove here on some freeway. I guarantee you the number of cars that are between your hotel and where we are right now at the Reagan Library is greater than the number of satellites in all of space. So what we have a lot of room up there. Now, that being said, if two satellites collide, they create debris, they might hit other satellites. It's called Kessler syndrome. You do not want that to happen. Who was Kessler? That's a good question. I should know this. You really should. It's just your life's work.

You know, I honestly think somebody should just replace me now. What am I doing? I'm letting you down. You're only 33. I'm sorry. You're only 33. Maybe at the time I'm 34. I'll know. We'll find out. Well, I mean, are you, how...

So these things are programmed to stay on some sort of orbit, I assume. Programmed by Earth's gravity. So here's what's so interesting about it. You have a rocket, like the Blue Origin one unfortunately that blew up. That, New Glen, rockets from other, you know, Falcon 9, SpaceX, all these different launch providers. They shoot the rocket up. Satellites, they're going fast, but relative. So they gently fly off the rocket.

Yeah. And they are now going, and they're going really fast, think 22,000 kilometers an hour. Just so I'm visualizing it, right, the rocket goes up, and the satellites are attached to the outer perimeter of it, or the very top of the rock? The very top, inside. So there's a nose cone.

Yeah. The nose cone will open up, and inside that nose cone might be 100 satellites, might be 20 satellites. Depends on how big they are. How big are they? Huge variation. So there are satellites as small as a shoebox.

There are satellites as big as a school bus. The satellites are satellites, we make are kind of right in the middle. I think the smallest one is about the size of a refrigerator, and then the largest one is a size of maybe two, like, pretty big dining room tables, like side by side. Okay. And what's their primary utility?

So different sizes lend themselves to different types of utility. So small one, really good at taking photos. Think of Earth, of other satellites, looking out at the stars and the cosmos for astronomy purposes, whatever it may be. We have satellites that are using that smaller form factor going off to NASA, satellites going off to Earth observation companies, satellites going off to companies that are actually taking photos of farmland and using that to map out, hey, this crop needs underwater.

You could tell that from space using satellites. That's a small one. So Ukraine, Iran, all the war stuff, bad guys, convoy, bullside, boom, all that. That's basically how they work. No, but in all seriousness, you're taking photos. You're seeing where troops are moving and all of that. We have our medium-sized satellite that's really good for things like think missile tracking.

That requires more power. You're looking at the horizon. You're looking for the heat signature of a missile. That's exactly where satellites are being used in Ukraine and Iran all over the world right now, where we need to be able to prevent that from hitting the U.S. Our allies. No one wants to be hit by a missile.

Satellites are the ones that are tracking those and able to prevent that. So, like, they're good guys and they're bad. guys, there's conflict, there's whatever, everybody's got satellites. How do you keep them straight? Who belongs to who and like, how close do they get? And I think you're going to make the point that once they're deployed, they're in a fixed orbit. Mostly. Mostly. Mostly. But you just asked the question of, well, who's this who's and what are they doing up there. So most of the satellites, say, 99% of the ones that are up there. They're in a fixed orbit. They're going around Earth. They slowly get

closer and closer to Earth. And then they burn up in the atmosphere. They disintegrate. They go away. They never hit Earth. They just disintegrate. And you launch more. So you have to constantly replenish them. Some satellites... Wait, do they have a shelf life?

Like, do you know how long it's going to take before they just do their snow? Not only that. In order to prevent too much orbital debris or bad things from happening, you actually have to guarantee and model out, this will burn up after eight years in orbit,

and I'm in, like, it's intentional. So you know what's going away. You don't want it to be up there forever because you want to make more room for others. Some of the satellites, though, are able to maneuver. And that's what we're currently seeing happening with peer adversaries. So the countries like China and Russia, there was a report recently that, you know, there's

Russian satellites that are currently maneuvering towards a commercial satellite that is being used in Ukraine. And they think those Russian satellites, they have propulsion systems on them, are moving closer and closer out of their normal orbit to this commercial satellite. They don't know what they're doing with it, but they think. I think there's an article about this yesterday. We think that Russia might be trying to disable that satellite because it's being used to help Ukraine.

A brief history of satellites. The first one, was it Sputnik? Sputniks, but 70, a little over 70 years ago. It's been a long time. Satellites are not new. Right. Is there one person who's credited with their implementation, invention? There's not one that at least we look at and we say,

that's the person that did it. We look at it more as the biggest shift in the industry was actually less the satellite itself and more how do you get that satellite up into space? Exactly. That was the hard part. Yeah? Because the satellite itself, you could think of it as,

you know, you have a piece of electronics. Space is a pretty rough environment to be in, right? You're in a vacuum. There's no oxygen. You have radiation and UV. It's tough. No one can hear you scream. Nobody can hear it.

Scary enough, but true. But getting up there really has been the challenge, I would argue, for the last 70 years. Yeah. And it still has a challenge. Look, Blue Origins rocket just blew up. SpaceX Starship, it's been in development for many years. Now, Falcon 9 is reliable, but it's hard to get satellites up to space.

And really, the big shift in the industry was about 2021, SpaceX started really reliably flying their Falcon 9 rocket. They started to reuse it. And we all looked at each other in the industry and said, you know what? We can actually get to space in a reliable way. And that is something that we have not been able to say for the prior 65. years. Do do do do do do do.

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Go there, check them out, pick up a bundle, save an extra 10% with promo code row. Real socks, real good socks made in these United States. CamelCitymill.com, code row. Do you think humankind fully appreciated the significance of seeing that rocket return and that arm grab it? Not even remotely. I mean, it's super cool, but what does it really portend? If, it's not if, it's when. When SpaceX is successful with that and that flies.

If you just measure it by how many pounds or kilograms of satellites are going to space, we are already on an exponential curve that's about to get a lot more exponential. And when you think about more satellites in space, why does that matter? But the result is it's almost like you could argue with compute and AI, right? More compute, it just things start to get exponentially better. Imagine if we were able to look at any spot on Earth and we had 24-7 live video of any spot on Earth, right? Being able to monitor changes to agriculture, to crops, natural disasters. There was recently the fire right near here.

We could have been monitoring that in real time knowing where to deploy firefighters, preventing terrible missile attacks, wars, things like that. Climers on Everest. In real time monitoring them, right? That is where we could eventually get to with systems like that. Do we want to?

I think we definitely want to. I think it makes the world a safer place. I think that it's not just a defense play, it's a science and exploration play. If you think about understanding the galaxy being able to inspire humankind, for me, growing up here in the L.A. area, my favorite memories as a kid,

we're driving out with my dad to the middle of the Mohavi Desert, launching model rockets that we built ourselves, that inspired me. And if you think about the space race and what brought people together, it is truly inspirational. You're such a geek, dude. I know. I know. But it's good.

It led to starting apex, so I'll take it. Thank you for the compliment. You're welcome. Star Trek or Star Wars? Star Wars, I've got to say. Really? Not a big Star Trek guy. I know, I know.

No judgments. I'm just so, I always ask the question. No matter what I answer, it's controversial. Of course. There's no win. That's like one of those questions where no matter why I say it's a lose-lose. That's why you're a good host. Oh, and I got to add, I mean, cinnamon as a surname.

Well, we invented cinnamon. Cinnamon's man-made, so, you know, my family invented it. Terrific. Good for you. Yeah, thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it. After you perfect one of the most beloved spices in the history of the species, you know, why not change spaces, we understand? That's right.

Got to start with a hard one first, right? It's spice. What is Apex doing to get satellite manufacturing to whatever's next. We manufacture satellites. And I say that somewhat facetiously. For the last 70 years, satellites have been handmade. Think of cars before the Model T.

Bespoke. Truly bespoke. Like, I'm going to go sit down and I have my little shop and I'm going to go bend metal and connect these things and make you a wheel. Right, right, right. Enjoy it.

It's a project. We are actually manufacturing that. I would argue for 70 years, satellites have not been manufactured until Apex. You mean like Henry Ford manufactured? manufacturing. Correct. Like assembly lines. That is exactly what we have. The only other company I've seen actually do this is SpaceX, and they've done a phenomenal job with Starlink, but that's just communications. We, our platforms supply everything else we talked about,

Earth observation, missile tracking, all those other applications. We actually manufacture them at scale. We have a, and this is not a assembly line with robot arms and automation. I don't believe that that's the right answer for this. We have a software-enabled manufacturing line. We employ real humans. We train them on how to do it. We're able to grow the workforce and actually bring these people together to build something that's truly meaningful and impactful. Your factory is in L.A. It's in L.A. How many do you employ? We're at about 350 people. A year ago, we were about 100 people. That's a year before that, we were about 40 people. A year before that, it was you. It was no, we weren't even a company.

You and your dad The desert. Wow. Okay. So what's the inciting moment where Ian Cinnamon goes? Yeah, Dad, the rockets were awesome, but I think I'm going to go all in on this thing.

Like, did you have to raise your own money? Did you go out looking for, you know, venture capital? What are you doing at 33, dude? Jesus. So when I first came up with the idea for Apex, I was actually working at a company called Palantir, big software company. Not a space company.

company, software, right? Yeah. I had sold my prior company to them. What was that go? It was called Synapse. We were doing actually AI. Well, too early for the AI trend, but, you know. Early adapter.

Early, yeah, maybe too early, but, you know, didn't quite make out with the big bucks that all these crazy fundraisers today. For Rosette Pallantir, I saw the shift happening in the space industry. I saw governments, commercial companies, having the strong desire to say, I just don't need one bespoke satellite. I want 10 or 100 or 1,000. And I saw the struggle with all these companies who had built it in a bespoke way, grasping for straws, asking for help. And my thought was, I don't want to go compete with these companies who are currently supplying.

Let me enable them. Let me supply them with the key parts of the satellite, the platform. And let them bring their secret sauce and come together as a team and go meet this need. We raise some venture money for it. You're making the chassis. That's exactly right. That's exactly how I would describe it. Huh. Okay. The implications of this are, I mean, vast, obviously. Is the gold ultimately

drive down the cost of what the satellites can deliver and just make it more accessible to more people? It's manufacturer a lot more of them, make it way more affordable, and bring the quality up. One of the problems of space right now is if you look at rockets are not the only thing that fail. When rockets fail, big explosion. Satellites in space, it's tough to build them. And the failure rate's pretty high. And the best way to reduce failure rate is not to over-engineer it to be perfect. It's to build a lot of the same thing and know exactly where those problems happen via data instead of saying, hey, I'm going to spend 10 years and make it perfect.

Right. Back to the rocket launch. Back to if you wait for the thing to be foolproof. you'll never get off the ground. That's exactly right. It's like it's paralysis, right? It's like to say, oh, it must be perfect. It's like, no, just let it not work perfectly. Do you reckon that kind of paralysis or some version of it? Is it work in our country?

Like across the board and a broad way? Do you feel like we're being stifled in some ways? I think it depends on the industry, right? You see some industries where, you know, I mean, look at Facebook. Now meta's like tagline was Move Fast. break things. Right. They would say, go do that. Yeah. I think there's other industries where it's a risk on mindset, and there's some where it's not. I'm a believer that the most innovation happens when you have that higher risk posture, and you tell your employees and you tell your team,

you can't have it all. It can't be risk-free and move fast and be super cheap. Yeah. Let's pick two. Let's say, let's have it be a high-quality product we could deliver really quickly. There might be, you know, there's going to be risk there. There's going to be problems. But you have to just acknowledge that. And if you go in and you're up front with your customers and they choose where they go on that spectrum, I think you could end up in a really strong position. Well, you know, the car thing really is a great analogy in all those spaces, right? I mean, it's a hunk of steel and it's traveling at a speed that would be catastrophic where to collide head on with another chunk of metal experiencing similar velocity.

be, but we're going to put in everything from ABS breaks to airbags to restraints. We're going to do so many different things, but in the end, not to be too dark about it, but there is a human calculus. We know tens of thousands of people, actually, are going to make the ultimate sacrifice for the privilege of getting from here to there. Right. And we made that decision. That's okay.

And it's so baked in to the transaction. We don't even think about it. It's a price we collectively pay as a society. Why then doesn't that acquiescence apply when we see other forms of, to your earlier point, I mean, no one died in this thing. Right. But people are still clutching their pearls.

Nobody even got injured to my understanding. Right. But they could have. They couldn't. And if they would have. And now we should talk about that. And it's like, it's just such an obvious. disconnect our willingness to assume risk here, but not here?

I read an article the other day. My understanding is the Hoover Dam when it was built. I think it was over 90 people perished in building it. Yes. Imagine a project today. Right. Would that be greenlit? No. Or maybe without that risk tolerance, right? It would cost 100 times as much. And it's weird to see, but what is the trade off there? I don't know what the answer is.

I mean, listen, not to get political about it, but if Newsom were here, I would ask him about that high-speed rail. What really killed it? Was it money? Right. Was it the desert tortoise? Was it, I mean, like, there's going to be a long list of reasons why that couldn't happen. Yes. Right?

I would love to hear what the number one reason is. Oh, boy. So then what are the reasons in your industry? Like, why haven't satellites been manufactured before? Why are you the first one to do it? So it comes down to. really incentives and business model. And because satellites are notoriously difficult to build, the way that most people purchase them is what they call cost plus. So I'll go to you and I'll say,

Mike, I want a satellite. They'll say, okay. And we negotiate. And what the negotiation is, is I'm going to pay you for your time plus 20%. Sure. So the more hours you spend, the more you reinvent the wheel, the more bespoke you make it, the more money you make. And that, It's been how this industry has worked for decades. What we go in and we say is, if you want a satellite, there is no negotiation. The prices are on our website. We take Apple Pay. Truly.

You can Venmo me for my satellite. I have had a customer come to her office, take a credit card, and literally put a $5,000 deposit on a $3.5 million satellite on the website. It's the scene in clear and present danger when Harrison Ford basically buys the helicopter. Right. Yeah. Which is... With this gold card. Yep. That's exactly right.

So bananas, dude. Yeah. All right. So what does success look like? Like, what are you shooting for? So we want to be, and I think we're on a track to do it. I really do. The largest supplier of these satellite platforms, the chassis is you call them, for any application.

As more satellites launch, I want to be the platform that everybody uses. It's not, do we need a satellite? It's which model do we need. And to pull that off, it's going to be a matter of how do we scale our manufacturing. The demand is there. The customers are there. We right now have to keep up with that crazy demand that we're seeing. And that's all about how we employ and train the workforce to work in conjunction with the software-enabled systems that we built to have it's humans.

It's not robots building these things. All right. Let's talk about the humans. How do you recruit them? Where do you find them? How do you inspire? I mean, it's pretty badass. You're working on some cool stuff.

But who are you really looking for, and what are there requisite skills, and how do you skill them up? How do you train them if they don't have those skills? So we have two major groups with it. We have a lot of different types of employees at the company, but two major groups. One is engineering.

And on the engineering team, they're designing the satellites, and then we have a production team that's going to go build. The engineering team, we really spend a lot of time honing in the right culture of the company. And we say we want three types of skills. One, people who come from the traditional aerospace industry. They've been building satellites for 10 years. They've worked at the big defense primes. They know what they're doing.

You combine that with people who come from what we call new space. Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, SpaceX, where they come in and they say, we want to move really fast, we have a high-risk tolerance. And you bring those two types of people into a room. they do not agree. Right. But we have one more special thing we bring in. Frankly, that's folks like myself who do not come from a space background.

First principles thinkers who come in and say, why are we even talking? Why is this even on the table? And when you put those three types of people in a room together, they do not agree. They yell. But the outcome out of that is magically. So what I like to tell people is a lot of people say, well, I can only go work for Apex if I got an aerospace engineering degree. I'm like, that is the opposite of the truth.

We have people who are working, helping on the engineering team, who come from finance backgrounds, who come from all different shapes inside. It's amazing. And then on the production team, we started out by saying we need people who just know how to build satellite. That means aerospace production technicians who are going to come in and do it right. But as we build our software tools that make it so that we have the traceability, the kind of manufacturing prowess to really scale up, Yeah. We're able to employ folks who come from maybe a automotive production background or an automotive

tech background. And then folks who haven't even been trained on that, and we could go help train them up. And my favorite thing is every Monday, I talk to our new hires. Sometimes it's a few people, sometimes it's 15, 20 people. And I ask every single one of them, why did you join? And they all have slightly different versions, but the answer is really all coalesced the same thing. And they said they are inspired by how quickly we move and the types of things.

that we do. Yep. And that to me is like the secret sauce of the types of employees that we bring in. They love the pace. They love the innovation. They might have come from a background. They were literally repairing cars. And now they're building satellites that are going up and protecting America, protecting our allies, imaging Earth, helping farmers. Like there's something and it's not like, oh, I worked on this and maybe in 10 years it'll go to space. It's I worked on this and, oh, it's launching in a month. Yeah. It's off to Japan next week. It's off to wherever. Like, Well, that's why I asked earlier, like this, so much of industry feels- We're hiring.

Well, that's where I'm going, ultimately. But, I mean, this, people are frustrated because they're in compliance, and they're not getting rewarded for being compliant. There's no incentive for plotting along. Like, back to our other analogy, if we lowered the speed limit to 30 instead of 55. Save lives. And let's say that. Let's say that saved 10,000 lives. Well, are we going to have a celebration at the end of the year?

Right. Or are we going to be like, it's really not pleasant driving 30 miles an hour? And so I'm just not going to do that. Right. Homeostatic risk, that's what it is. It's compensatory risk. We are all, like you and I have a different risk equilibrium. Yeah. And it's fascinating why we do that, but it's doubly fascinating as to why safety protocols

for instance, will have an unintended consequence and encourage us to assume more, like the safer we are, the riskier we want to be. Right. It makes us almost say, well, now I want to break the speed limit. I want to go drive faster. You made me wear the helmet. I think I'll corner a little tighter. Yes, because I got the helmet on.

Right. So, like, I just think your, I think aerospace in general is the epitome, like the best example of where that payoff comes. And I'm glad you're doing what you're doing. but I'm really glad that it's inspiring people because if the work isn't meaningful. Then there's no point. Right? Like we, what I tell everybody is we're building a generational company.

I want to be running Apex until I might only be 33 until I'm too old and they wheel me out of here and the next generation takes over. So you don't want Elon to buy the thing? Oh God, no. No. You're not selling. No. I've been through that before.

We're absolutely not selling. We're going to go build a hundred billion dollar plus company with think of public along the way will keep growing. You'll let me know prior. Of course, I appreciate that. You know, gave you a little stop. It'll be great. Teamwork here, teamwork.

Making the dream work. Of course. So what then, if you can flash forward and imagine in five years, are you, are you doubling, tripling, 10xing the number of satellites? Yes. So I'll give you a stat. All right. Last year, the US government, so not Starlinked, not that, but US government launched

about 200 satellites. U.S. government satellites. Okay. In Los Angeles at our factory in L.A., which you're always welcome to come visit. Thank you. We are capable of building over 200 satellites per year. We can build more satellites

than the entire U.S. government launched last year. What do they cost? You ready to buy one right now? Do you have a checkbook? I do. I do. Jay, had one. Well, I'm just asking because the Secretary of State

is on his way. Perfect. So he's got access to... U.S. government's bought quite a few of these. So let's just say, you know, they've already bought many. They start at $3.5 million, and the most expenses is about $13.5 million. So on average, then, you're making $200 satellites a year at roughly $7 million. Yeah, man, I would like a...

We want to make a lot more than $200. But here's why. The Chinese government announced plans to launch over 12,000 satellites in the coming years. 12,000 government Chinese satellites. U.S. government launched 200. Think of how many we need to go make to catch up. And that doesn't include Allied nations, commercial companies. Defense is one thing, but there's so much more than just that.

Well, defense is the very point of this as well. It touches everything. It does. Like, that's a good place to land the plane is where we started it. I mean, that stat is so alarming with China. But my first thought was, you know, what else happened? They made a thousand ships last year. We made three.

It's not, it's every domain. And that is why inspiring people to say, I want to come build these, I want to manufacture these, it's meaningful work, it's exciting work. Apex.com? Apexpace.com. Apexpace.com. You're hiring now. Come for a tour, come buy a satellite. We'll put you in the clean room. You could go build it. Hey, look, I'm going to get these guys and these cameras and I want to come and I want to...

We're going to make it happen. I want to see it. I want to touch it. I want to rub myself all over. And then I could blame you if it doesn't work. Sure you can. This pesky guy came in. Not my fault. You can do that anyway.

What a pleasure, man. I so appreciate your time. I know there's a lot of big brain people walking around. So are you doing a panel later today or did you already do your thing? I'm not. I'm, uh... You just not. I'm right here just for you.

You came here for me? This is the only reason I'm here, just to be here with you. He's got the coolest name of the whole assemblage. And what a story, what a company. Pleasure to meet you, man. Thanks for you know what you're doing. Thank you. And he's 33.

Ooh, he's 33. It's good for him. Thanks, Matt. That was really fun. Really, really fun. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile,

then share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go on. And leave us a review. I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge. But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review. Not four.

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Five star, especially if you hate it. Vio! Thank you.