Inside Rocket Lab w/ CEO Sir Peter Beck: Record Earnings, Neutron, Flatelittes

Sir Peter Beck founded Rocket Lab 20 years ago. Today, the company is scaling far beyond launching rockets. Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) just posted a record Q2 2026: • $234M revenue, +62% YoY • $2.36B record backlog, +137% YoY • $437M+ in new launch contracts • $581M+ in new Space Systems contracts • 90+ launches in backlog • Q3 revenue guidance of 250M–265M We sat down with Founder & CEO Sir Peter Beck after touring Rocket Lab’s Long Beach facility to break down what comes next. Peter explains Rocket Lab’s transformation from a launch company into an end-to-end space company spanning rockets, satellites, components, defense, and communications. We get into Neutron and why Peter believes investors should be asking about the 10th launch, not just the first, the strategy behind the Iridium acquisition, Rocket Lab’s growing national security business, Flatellite, its acquisition playbook, and why going public gave the company the firepower to pursue opportunities it never could have as a private company. We also discuss Neutron’s delays, Archimedes, reusability, Rocket Lab’s vertically integrated manufacturing strategy, building an entire space industry from scratch in New Zealand, and Peter’s long-term ambition to build a multi-generational company. Plus: aliens, getting knighted, why Archimedes engines are painted black, and Peter’s surprisingly simple philosophy on business. Peter Beck: https://x.com/Peter_J_Beck Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊 YouTube: ⁠⁠https://youtu.be/mpOy_UarJKg⁠⁠ https://youtu.be/mpOy_UarJKg 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 • Brex https://brex.com/sourcery—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Turing https://turing.com/sourcery—Turing delivers top-tier talent, data, and tools to help AI labs improve model performance—and enables enterprises to turn those models into powerful, production-ready systems. https://turing.com/sourcery • VCX https://fundrise.com/vcx—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com http://getvcx.com • Deel https://www.deel.com/sourcery—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery • Public http://public.com/sourcery–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets https://public.com/generated-asset, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery Follow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vc https://www.sourcery.vc/ Disclosure Paid Endorsement. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC-registered adviser. Crypto trading provided by Zero Hash LLC, licensed by the NYSDFS. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at public.com/disclosures/ga. Matched funds must remain in your account for at least 5 years. Match rate and other terms are subject to change at any time. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Sir Peter Beck, Founder & CEO at Rocket Lab (00:59) Rocket Lab's biggest quarter (02:53) The competitive edge in Space (04:10) Rocket Lab's Acquisition Strategy (05:04) Reason behind the Iridium Deal (06:13) Competing with Blue Origin & SpaceX (11:19) Building a Launch Monopoly in New Zealand (12:33) Is this why Peter got Knighted? (16:42) Beating SpaceX to the Public Markets (20:05) Why Neutron is still facing delays (27:38) Rocket Lab's latest contract wins (29:04) How defense became a prime mover for Rocket Lab (30:39) Ghost: Rocket Lab's portable launch pad (31:30) Has he seen Aliens?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Rocket Lab. Rocket Lab.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  You know, we rang up Sinclair into planetary at that stage and said, Doug, we need some reaction wheels. Doug said, that's great, Pete. That'll be nine months. And it's like, Doug, I haven't got nine months for anything. So the way to solve that problem is we just went and bought Doug. You know, now we make over 2,000 reaction wheels a year. Recently did the launch for the Space Force, the rapid call-up launch, and they gave us 24 hours to integrate a satellite into a rocket, push it out to the pad and launch. You know, we did it in 16 hours and 42 minutes. We go after those big prime contracts. Even if we lose, we still win. And when we win, we win twice. You know, we won an $800 million contract. There was two other primes that also won contracts, but actually that turned into over a billion dollar contract for us because the primes needed our stuff. The nose cone shape of Electron, it's not actually the optimum aerodynamic shape. The optimum aerodynamic shape looked inappropriate in my view.

• 0:46Molly O'Shea?

  Some people did the opposite of that and made it more appropriate.

• 1:00Molly O'Shea?

  All right, Sir Peter Beck. We are here yet again. We just completed a pretty comprehensive tour of your facility here in Long Beach, California.

• 1:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:12Molly O'Shea?

  Thank you for having us.

• 1:13Speaker 01

  Oh, super. Great pleasure. Awesome to be able to show you around.

• 1:16Molly O'Shea?

  And we're here just after a record earnings. So what happened this quarter?

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, we, we, you know, pretty much put nearly a billion dollars of backlog, you know, in the, in the books, had record revenue and, you know, a whole bunch of growth everywhere and acquisitions. And yeah, so it's been, it's been a busy old quarter.

• 1:38Molly O'Shea?

  We're gonna get into all of that. But what I think was really interesting and amazing is you continue to make more acquisitions. You're strategically placing yourself far out of what people used to brand you as as a launch company, but into an entire space ecosystem company. So what is your plan there?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, when, when we, when we kind of started that, you know, the Space Systems team, the first thing we did was try and go and buy a reaction wheel. And, you know, we rang up Sinclair into planetary at that stage and said, Doug, we need some reaction wheels. Doug said, that's great, Pete. That'll be nine months. And it's like, Doug, I haven't got nine months for anything. Like, we need way, way faster than that. And so the way to solve that problem is we just went and bought Doug. And then, you know, now we make over 2,000 reaction wheels a year. And we just basically repeated that. If you took a satellite and you laid it out on the boardroom table, we just pointed all the things that were, were really painful and went out and acquired the very best companies, or in some

• 2:41Speaker 01

  cases, created the technology ourselves, and then just scaled it. And that puts us in a really unique position because yes, we can build, you know, platforms that scale for other people, but, you know, we can also do that for ourselves.

• 2:53Molly O'Shea?

  What do you think the moat is now?

• 2:55Speaker 01

  Well, launch is always a huge moat. So, you know, launch, launch is like probably the biggest moat. But I would say the second biggest moat is, is, is those components to go into those spacecraft because you can have infinite capital. It doesn't make any difference. You still need some Star Tractors and some reaction wheels, and they're just not available at scale.

• 3:14Molly O'Shea?

  What has it been like for you as you scale this company out, moving into this more manufacturing components era of Rocket Lab?

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Well, it doesn't feel like anything's changed because if you take our first real product being the Electron launch vehicle, everything in that launch vehicle, we design and we make. So every engine, every avionics box, every piece of software. So we kind of cut our teeth about how to be a, you know, a manufacturing company, you know, during that process. And then, you know, we hired our CEO, Frank Klein, who came from Mercedes and bought a whole bunch of that expertise as well. And now I'd say we're at a scale where, you know, we have all the ERP systems and the MRP systems and like, you know, the Rocket Lab system, where, you know, even if we go and acquire a new company, we literally just pick those, that system and people up and just plonk it in. And it's like, you know, scale at a button sort of a thing.

• 4:09Molly O'Shea?

  Well, there's the initial process for going and doing so many strategic acquisitions as a way to grow. What was your thinking behind that?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Well, it was, it was, as you say, they're strategic. You know, I've always viewed the large space companies are going to have the ability to build their own satellites and launch them. And if you're beholden to someone else providing you all the critical components, then your, your ability to scale is governed by their ability to scale. And that's not a place where you want to be. So, so for us, it was just, it was just sensible. And, you know, at the time, I remember a lot of folks were saying, well, why are you buying this, this company in Albuquerque and this company in, in like Toronto and that makes these little things, these little widgets? And then I think, you know, it's very obvious now that those are the widgets, are the things that truly enable, you know, sense of scale for some of this, some of the space infrastructure.

• 5:04Molly O'Shea?

  Let's talk about Iridium, because that was a big recent acquisition.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:07Molly O'Shea?

  Why did you make that acquisition? And how does that change the future state of the company?

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's funny because I thought everybody would have picked that well early, right? And I was, I was surprised that people were surprised that we would be doing that. Because if you just think about it logically and you stand back and you go, okay, what is the biggest TAM in the space industry? It's comms. Okay. If you ignore broadband, because, you know, two really well capitalized people are taking care of that. If you ignore broadband, what's the next logical thing to do in comms? And it's like, you know, safety critical, defense critical services, that is Iridium. And, you know, it's a super quintessential Rocket Lab deal. Like, we don't, we don't come with hopes and dreams and bore a big hole in the P and L. Like, Iridium, you know, adds profitability to the entity straight

• 5:55Speaker 01

  away. It also buys us time to put up a new constellation. So it's like, it's, it's literally the quintessential Rocket Lab deal. Like, we don't, we don't buy companies that are like startups that maybe they'll do something one day. It's like, you have to be proven and, and successful. And then you're the right kind of target for us.

• 6:13Molly O'Shea?

  What's really amazing is you're pretty much one of three companies now that is doing successful commercial launches. And you're expanding out into new territories. What does this mean for you against Blue Origin and SpaceX?

• 6:30Speaker 01

  Well, I think they've, they've both, both got their own ambitions and some further along than others. I think it would be very difficult to go and play in the broadband market. I think, you know, you, you see the amount of capital that's required to be successful there. And so, you know, like I said before, where, where is a good, a good place to play? And, and, you know, in that L-band spectrum that, you know, penetrating through rain and weather and buildings, you can just do stuff. It's physics. Like, you can just do stuff that like the more broadband spectrum can't do. So, you know, acquiring that spectrum's super important. Acquiring their business is super important. And it really gives us a great platform to go and scale and, and really provide, you know, a lot of applications.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  But I think Rocket Lab is not the L-band safety critical comms company. Like, that is number one. And there'll be many, many more after that.

• 7:22Molly O'Shea?

  You've, I mean, I think like, not to hammer on this too much, but you've made several, what is it, seven acquisitions at this point?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 7:29Molly O'Shea?

  That have well integrated into the company and been successful. So what is your process with that? How do you create such like a seamless motion?

• 7:39Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, I'm glad it looks like that. It's like the duck on the pond, you know, with the little feet flat out. It feels a little bit like that. No, no acquisition and integration is easy. Like, there's no small one. But it does help in the fact that we're extremely picky. And we like to, we like to acquire companies that we've worked with. You know, all of the, the component companies, we've basically used them in the past in our own systems. And, you know, so those relationships and the understanding of those teams. If you look across all of those component acquisitions, there's one thing that is like all written on the top of their boards, and that is 100% mission success. There's no like, you know, let's be fast and near enough. It's always 100%

• 8:22Speaker 01

  mission success. Like, you know, Solero sold and never had a solar panel fail in orbit in 40 years. Doug Sinclair and reaction wheels, same again. PSC never had a failure, separation system failure. So you, you have to be of that mindset to, to be able to integrate with Rocket Lab. From a diligence perspective, I guess generally we know the team. There's been a couple of times we knew that, know them less well. But typically, it's like we've selected them for a program or we've worked with them for many years. So in that respect, like, The diligence doesn't take a huge amount of time. Um, we know, we know sort of a little bit what we're getting. Um, and then, um, the integration playbook, I would say, has evolved over time. Uh, you know, uh, at the very beginning, we, um, we were very, very light touch.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  And I would say now I think we have a much, much more well-oiled machine where day one, like there is a literal a day one in the playbook and day one, the walls are black, the snack machines are in. Rocket Lab t-shirts, shirts are on and we go, you know, throttle's wide open.

• 9:20Molly O'Shea?

  I mean, we, we were, we've been kind of, we've been touring the building. We've been driving around in the golf cart. Everybody's wearing your merch. Is this required?

• 9:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 9:30Molly O'Shea?

  No?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  You have to, like, you get a set of merch when you come, but, um, most of the, most of the team buy it, yeah.

• 9:36Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that's a great, uh, a great kind of metric for the, for a company. It's like, how proud are your employees to work here? Um, I think, um, all the successful companies, uh, in my opinion, at least their, their, their, their employees feel like, you know, they're, they're really part of it and they're really, really proud of it.

• 9:56Molly O'Shea?

  We talked about this in the tour, but this is one piece of many pieces.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Many pieces.

• 10:01Molly O'Shea?

  Of Rocket Lab globally.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:04Molly O'Shea?

  You're an international rocket sensation.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:07Molly O'Shea?

  And galactic.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, the lawyers hate me saying it, but global domination is definitely part of the plan.

• 10:12Molly O'Shea?

  We love global domination.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Yep, underrated. So we start off in New Zealand. Um, so there's the, there's the, um, Electron Factory in New Zealand. There's the Launchpad in New Zealand, well, the launch site where there's two Launchpads. Uh, and then we have a small, small team in Australia, um, and mainly in business development. Uh, and then we start off here in California. Um, we have these two facilities in, in California. Then we have, uh, Rocket Lab Optical Systems in, uh, in, in Tucson. Um, and then, uh, Albuquerque, we have our solar plant. Um, and then, uh, Toronto, we have our reaction wheel. Stennis, we have our, um, engine test facility. Middle River, we have, uh, Neutron, uh, facility. Maryland, uh, we have separation systems. Virginia, we have Launchpad.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Uh, Germany, we have, um, uh, optical terminal business. Um, and I'm sure I've forgotten one or two, but yes.

• 11:05Molly O'Shea?

  Were these through acquisitions or like?

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Some, somewhere, yeah, and some, yeah, mo- some, yeah, most of those were acquisitions. It's like Stennis, obviously not, um, uh, and Middle River, obviously not, but, um, but somewhere, yeah.

• 11:19Molly O'Shea?

  I want to go back to the beginning of how you built this all out because the top three countries for launch are the US, China and New Zealand. And you created a monopoly on launch in New Zealand. So what was that process like for you? How did you? I'll say, write the laws there.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Um, well, I mean, at the end of the day, it was, um, if you have a small launch vehicle, um, and you turn up to a large Launchpad, um, the reality is that, um, you know, the fees don't change. And when you're trying to sell a rocket for like eight million dollars, you can't have a million and a half dollars worth of launch fees. On a fifty million dollar rocket, it doesn't make any difference, right? So, um, we were really like, we were very early on, it's like, in order for this to be financially viable, we need our own launch site. And, um, you know, building your own launch site in the States was, was non-trivial. Um, it was non-trivial in New Zealand as well. But, um, but, you know, ultimately we, we felt it was, you know, easier to do that in, in, in New Zealand.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  And to your point, um, New Zealand had no space industry. So sometimes it's easy to start something from scratch and formulate it in a way that best makes sense than to try and integrate with a whole bunch of rules that don't, don't fit.

• 12:33Molly O'Shea?

  Is this why you got knighted?

• 12:35Speaker 01

  Um, one of the, one of the reasons, yeah, creating a space industry and.

• 12:40Molly O'Shea?

  What was that like?

• 12:42Speaker 01

  It's very weird.

• 12:43Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  Yep, super weird.

• 12:45Molly O'Shea?

  Why?

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I'm, look, I, I'm just, I just like to build rockets and, um, uh, it's, it's great for your mum and stuff like that, but, um, uh, you know, a lot of people do a lot of amazing things and, and, you know, it's, it's, it's like, it's, it's an amazing thing. I, the way I look at it, it's like really for the whole team and, and entrepreneurs in New Zealand. Um, but, um, you know, great for restaurant, um, reservations. But, um, but yeah, but no, I think, yeah, it's a very humbling experience.

• 13:18Molly O'Shea?

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• 14:02Molly O'Shea?

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• 14:44Molly O'Shea?

  Why is New Zealand geographically advantageous for launch?

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Uh, so, I mean, the launch, LC1 is a very unique position that we can launch sun synchronous and also sort of out to mid-inclination out of the one site. So here in the States, if you want to go sun synchronous, you generally have to go out of the west coast. And if you want to go mid-inclination, you have to go out of the east coast. So we get a huge swath of, um, you know, of azimuth. And there's one plane, uh, one, one plane every three days that we have to worry about.

• 15:17Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 15:17Speaker 01

  And that's it. Whereas in the US here, of course, you're shutting down the tremendous airspace and it's a big deal and everyone, you know, it's like, it's a real thing. So, uh, in New Zealand, there's just nothing there. So it's very easy to, you know, to launch. And we're able to do things like, you know, we recently did that, um, that launch for the Space Force, the rapid call-up launch. And they gave us twenty-four hours to call, you know, integrate a satellite into a rocket, push it out to the pad and launch. Um, you know, and we did it in sixteen hours and forty-two minutes.

• 15:45Molly O'Shea?

  That's insane. And there's nothing below you but Antarctica.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  No. No, there's, there's nothing at all. Like Chile is the, when we're out mid-inclination, it's unsynchronous, like it's Antarctic or a Chile. So, yeah.

• 15:59Molly O'Shea?

  Is Chile actually that close?

• 16:00Speaker 01

  No, it's miles away, like it's halfway around the planet. So yes, there is nothing, there's absolutely nothing, which is great, but also, you know, we had to build an entire industry from, from scratch in New Zealand. Like there was no suppliers, no infrastructure, nothing. We had to build absolutely everything.

• 16:16Molly O'Shea?

  Is it more expensive there because of that?

• 16:18Speaker 01

  No, I would say we control our own destiny very, very well, so, um, no.

• 16:24Molly O'Shea?

  No? Did you find the pyramids in Antarctica yet?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  No, I've, I haven't been, I haven't had a good look, to be fair.

• 16:29Molly O'Shea?

  Okay.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  So it might be under the snow, I don't know.

• 16:32Molly O'Shea?

  Amazing, because you had such a big earnings, you had record earnings this quarter, if you didn't know that.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, but we had the record last, last earnings as well and probably the one before that, so.

• 16:42Molly O'Shea?

  Well, I guess before we get there, you went public before other space companies. One of them that recently went public, I don't know if you know SpaceX.

• 16:51Speaker 01

  I heard of them.

• 16:53Molly O'Shea?

  Well, what was it like and why did you make the decision?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  It's nice to do something before Elon for once, that's for sure.

• 16:58Molly O'Shea?

  Well, what was the process and why did you choose to go public when you did?

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, um, for a number of reasons. One, um, you know, if you can reach a certain level of maturity and go public, um, the capital, capital markets enable you to do things you couldn't do in private markets. Buying Iridium, like we could have never yet have ever done that as a private company. So, um, you know, it was, it was the right time for us to become a public company. And then the other part of it, which is a little bit selfish, is I didn't want to build a space company that just lives for the lifetime that I'm running it. It needed to be multi-generational and go on and on and on and on. And being a public company really enforces that discipline of profitability and profitability is survival. You know, the, the rockets and satellites and it's all cool, but either day, it's all for nothing

• 17:46Speaker 01

  if your economics aren't there and you're not profitable.

• 17:49Molly O'Shea?

  So for future founders that are thinking about going public and trying to time the markets, which I've learned from our partnership with the New York Stock Exchange, is not something you can really do.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  You can't do, no.

• 18:01Molly O'Shea?

  Do you have any advice for founders?

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, do it for the right reasons. Like, um, the worst thing you can do is, is go public because you can't raise capital privately. Like, we never had an issue raising capital privately. I mean, we can probably, we couldn't have raised the quantum of capital privately, so there needs to be an inflection point. But I think a lot of public, a lot of companies went public during that SPAC time because they, they, they were just crap companies and they couldn't raise capital privately, so their only option was to be a public company. That's never a good reason to be a public company. And, um, you, like, being a public company is, is, like, it's a lot of work and there's a lot of constraints come on you and it's, it's like, probably way less fun. But, um, it gives you a set, a set of resources you didn't have before.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  So make sure you need those resources. If you don't need those resources, then don't do it. Um, so yeah, that'd be my advice is do it for the right reasons and make sure you're ready to do it.

• 18:56Molly O'Shea?

  How do you handle the ride and the swings of the public markets, especially when you do so well and they punish you for it?

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Just go home and cry a little bit, yeah. No, I mean, look, um.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  I'm focused on the longer term. And like, you know, neutron delays are always, you know, a question that that always and rightly so. People should be should be riding us hard for that. But at the end of the day, I'm not gonna say it doesn't matter, but you know, how how late was Electron to the market?

• 19:26Molly O'Shea?

  I don't know.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Nobody knows because it doesn't matter. It was late too, but the the point being is like, the most important thing here is is like, what happens in the next five to 10 years? Because that that is that is like, that is where we we go from where we are today to being really, really big. And, you know, making sure all of the pieces of the puzzle are lined up, all the pieces of chess and the chessboard are in the right place is super important. And that's why, you know, as we started acquiring these component companies for satellites, it's like each piece of, you know, each chess piece on the board to make sure that when it came time to do something like Iridium or or more, we're ready to go.

• 20:05Molly O'Shea?

  On the tour, you did walk us through the engines, you walked us through Electron, we saw the machines. This is the number one question a lot of people have been asking me, and I'm sure you're probably tired of getting asked it. But why is neutron still facing delays?

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, it's a rocket program and I think every rocket CEO is is probably inflicted with the same,

• 20:31Speaker 01

  you know, optimism than than reality. But I would say that I'm being really strategic about how we bring neutron to market. So it's one thing to put a rocket on the pad and just fly it once. I mean, that that's super important, don't get me wrong. But I guess the question that that investors and analysts should be asking me is like, Pete, when's the 10th rocket gonna be on the pad? How quick can we get the 10th rocket on the pad? Because by the time you get to rocket 10, your reusability is sorted, all your production is sorted, you're banging out whole stages and, you know, all of the all the the launch infrastructure is just is just, you know, cranking and all the rest of it. And like, your first rocket on the pad is hard, but making sure you can scale quickly after that first rocket is the most important thing.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Because it would really be bad if like, we put the first rocket on the pad and then it was like, two years before we went and put the, you know, the next one on the pad, which happens more often than not. I just don't wanna be there, so I wanna make sure that we, you know, after flight one, we can really scale and ramp quickly because, you know, launch is constrained for everybody else, launch is constrained for our, you know, our government customers. I'm now my own user of launch for Iridium, I need launch too, so I'm like my harshest customer. So, you know, making sure we can get through that scaling quickly is really, really important.

• 21:51Molly O'Shea?

  And so with Archimedes, which is gonna be powering neutron, you're using a different design for this one versus your competitors. Why did you make that decision?

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the neutron vehicle is composite. And so it's it's like, everything is a giant engineering compromise in the rocket world. And if you fill a room up with engineers from every discipline, if one of those engineers from one of those disciplines is happy, you have failed. Like, everybody needs to be equally as miserable. Then you know you've got the right design because it's just this giant compromise. And one of the compromises we made is like, you know, we want the Archimedes engine to be incredibly reliable and we don't wanna have to service that engine, you know, from multiple flights. So we make super lightweight structures and and like, super low-stressed engines.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Now, if you make heavy structures, then you have to make super high-performance engines. So you'd be lazy on your structures and like, really difficult on your engine. Or you can be really lazy on your engine and really difficult on your structures. So, you know, we we build everything out of carbon, so naturally, our propensity is to be super high-performance structures. And, you know, we have a lot of experience with the material. So it was sort of the natural choice to to make neutron out of composite.

• 23:11Molly O'Shea?

  You stressed this a bunch on the tour when we were looking at the engines and what kind of factors you had to lay into the reusability and how you're gonna design that differently because you have to use it again. It doesn't just burn up for five seconds and then go away.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:25Molly O'Shea?

  So what kind of decisions did you make there?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I made a constraint at the very early part of the program where I think I lost a lot of credibility with the engineers and I and I said, look, guys, we need to be able to turn this vehicle in 24 hours. Which is, I'll admit, is a stupid constraint. But what that constraint did is it it drove a whole bunch of really, really important design decisions like, you know, propellants, engine lights, you know, you know, structures. The hungry hippo faring came out of that. Because it's like, guys, we don't have, you've got 24 hours to fish a faring out of the ocean, recondition it, blow all the salt water out of it and get it back on a rocket. It's like, that's not gonna work. So, you know, that one, that one, you know, requirement drove the design for the hungry here, hungry hippo faring. So we never throw away a faring.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  So sometimes you've got to be cruel to be nice and that was that was an example where we put this unrealistic constraint on the team. But it drove a whole lot of goodness everywhere out, you know, throughout the vehicle.

• 24:24Molly O'Shea?

  This is a very difficult business you found yourself in. How do you handle all the challenges?

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Well, I think if you want an easy life, you do not become a rocket CEO. That is, it's a far easier pathway to a a low-stress life than that. But but no, it's it's it's super fun, super meaningful. I mean, it's like every founder, you know, they they do it because they believe in the outcome of of the business. And I think one of the cool things about space is that you get to touch so many people. And, you know, people don't realize that how much they rely on space infrastructure. And, you know, if you if you order a pizza, the GPS got it there. Like, your Tinder date knows where to turn up because your GPS got them there. So there's a tremendous amount of space infrastructure in our everyday lives that everybody uses and just doesn't realize, you know, that they're using it.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  So it's kind of ridiculous that you can put a little box of electronics up in the sky and and really have so much impact to everybody down on earth. And at the end of the day, you know, that's probably what gets me out of bed the most is like, the only thing my parents said growing up is you can do whatever you want, but have the most amount of impact with your life possible. So, you know, that's that's how I feel like I can deliver on that.

• 25:33Molly O'Shea?

  You've talked about building this as a multi-generational company. Do you envision your kids taking over?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Absolutely not.

• 25:39Molly O'Shea?

  No?

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely not.

• 25:40Molly O'Shea?

  Why?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  No nepotism in the Beck family whatsoever, no. They have to go on path, chart their own paths, there's absolutely not.

• 25:47Molly O'Shea?

  What are they gonna do?

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Well, we'll see. I mean, my son's very much into into motor racing and, you know, my daughter into into performance. So, you know, none of them have taken have chosen boring paths themselves, so we'll see how they go.

• 25:59Molly O'Shea?

  What if they get interested and they turn around, they're like, oh, wait, I wanna take over the rocket company, this is pretty cool, dad.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Well, it's just way too tough, this is not happening. Absolutely not.

• 26:08Molly O'Shea?

  That's great.

• 26:09Molly O'Shea?

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• 26:54Molly O'Shea?

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• 27:38Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, so to go back to the earnings, you had huge announcements, you closed very large contracts. I'll list them out for you. You're probably tired of talking about them. But, okay, so you have 580 million in space contracts, space system contracts, 437 million in launch contracts. But of those contracts, one of them is for flatolites.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:01Molly O'Shea?

  Can you speak through flatolites and explain to the crowd what that is?

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the flatolite is actually a really important platform for us because that will be the platform that we scale future, our own future constellations off. So it's a, you know, I mean, if you ever come to New Zealand, you'll drive down the road and you'll see creeks named Creek One, and then the next creek will be Creek Two. So, you know, it's maybe it's a little bit of a New Zealand thing, we're not very imaginative in our names. But, you know, it was a satellite, it was flat and it was like, flatolite, that's gotta be the name. But, I mean, it is a flat format and it's, you know, it's a it's a high-density format that's specifically tailored for for the neutron vehicle. But, you know, I think what the big deal about that is, is yes, it was our first kind of, you know, scaled flatolite deal.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  But it was, it's not for some janky mission, it's like, for, you know, a defense, a really important national security defense mission. So I think that says a lot about, you know, the government customers and, you know, where they where they kind of ranks, rank Rocket Labs' ability to deliver new stuff.

• 29:04Molly O'Shea?

  Defense has become a prime mover for you internally. How do you think about the different categories that you service?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we we play in areas where we think that that we can be disruptive and and can add real value over over others. National security is is one of those areas that I think has been typically pretty well underserved. And, you know, the the the typical national security contract would go to your typical primes, cost plus, you know, blowout in times and blowout in money and all the rest of it. And we're just not built like that. And, you know, when we when we go out into into the national security world, you know, it's firm fixed price and, you know, we we deliver and and, you know, that that's that's a different paradigm to some of these customers.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  And I would say that even when we go after those big prime contracts, I mean, we're prime on two national security programs right now. Even when we go after being a prime, even if we lose, we still win. And when we win, we win twice because we'll go head to head with a prime for a contract. And if we lose, then the next day, there's a whole bunch of purchase orders for reaction orders of solar and and a whole bunch of stuff. And then when we win, and there's there's there's us and other primes win, you know, we win twice. You know, our our S D A contract was a great example where, you know, we won an $800 million contract. There was two other primes that also won contracts, but actually that turned into over a billion-dollar contract for us because the primes needed our stuff.

• 30:36Molly O'Shea?

  Damn. That worked pretty well.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 30:39Molly O'Shea?

  One of the other announcements that you had during this earnings was for Ghost.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:43Molly O'Shea?

  Can you explain what Ghost is? I found this completely fascinating.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so essentially, you know, obviously, we've got three launch sites for the Electron vehicle. And, you know, our government customers, mainly around the HAST missions, were really keen to see, you know, us go into very discreet locations to do some of that testing. So it was driven from a requirement from the customer that can you build this mobile launch site? And, you know, now that we're doing Neutron, where like even the smallest thing needs a crane, you look at an Electron launch pad and it's tiny now. So it's like moving stuff around is not a big deal for us anymore. So it's pretty, pretty elementary for us to build these mobile launch sites and flunk them down.

• 31:30Molly O'Shea?

  As a rocket space company CEO, I have to ask you, have you seen aliens?

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I have not seen aliens.

• 31:38Molly O'Shea?

  No?

• 31:38Speaker 01

  No, no. I mean, I think, I think statistically speaking, it would be, it would be naive to think that there aren't other, you know, life forms out in the universe. And obviously, we've got our Venus life finding mission to have a, have a look in the clouds of Venus for some, some signs of life. But I don't know, I've got a slightly different take on what life may be in the universe. Because I think we, we look at, we look at life through a very narrow lens. If you look at the human time scale, it's ridiculously short compared to everything around us. Like this concrete floor is going to outlive us by like a hundred times. Like this concrete floor, maybe in a thousand years, would still be there. Whereas the human time scale measures it in like 80 years.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Nothing in the universe is measured in 80 year increments. It's measured in like million year increments. So the way I think about looking for life in the universe, I don't think there'll be like little, you know, watery sack kind of people floating through the universe. I think it's, you know, most likely, you know, evolved into some kind of, you know, either hardware silicon or maybe even just signal. Because if you want to, if you want to travel the universe, you know, this is not happening. Like this is totally useless. And then, okay, maybe a piece of silicon is better, but that's still one, while you're moving hardware, why not just do consciousness with signal? So I think, you know, if you think about stuff in the time span of the universe,

• 33:03Speaker 01

  you know, the signals aren't going to be in hertz, they could be one cycle in a million years. So I think we're probably looking at everything in the wrong time scale.

• 33:11Molly O'Shea?

  What is?

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Probably a bigger answer than you expected.

• 33:14Molly O'Shea?

  That's a huge, that's a great answer. That's a huge answer. As we close out, I have two last questions. But bringing it back to today and a smaller time scale.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:26Molly O'Shea?

  What are you most looking forward to in the next six to 12 months? I don't know what kind of increments you work by. Some of these AI companies work in weeks.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:34Molly O'Shea?

  Some work in years. I don't know the difference.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  No, I mean, it's, it's very well understood here, like a Rocket Lab is a dog year. So, you know, people will start in this company, they'll work three months and they'll say, oh, I've been here for like a year. They haven't, they just haven't. So it's a lot, it's a very long timeframe. Look, I know all focus is on Neutron and as it should be. And, you know, I'm looking forward to getting that thing to the pad and scaling it. But Neutron is one element of the big, the big piece. It's an important element. But I think, you know, what I'm looking forward to in the next six to 12 months, you know, getting that Iridium deal all tucked in and on to the next. And, you know, we, there'd be a series of like transformational things that I, that I've got my eyes on that I think is really important to do over the next few years.

• 34:19Molly O'Shea?

  Amazing. Well, you've made it 20 years.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Feels, remember my comment about dog years? Can you imagine that? It feels like a long time, but yes.

• 34:28Molly O'Shea?

  It's a long time.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:30Molly O'Shea?

  As you've made it this far, I'm really curious, because you have a very distinctive background versus other space CEOs. You've really worked to get this company up and running. I like to ask this question. It's a partner question. So one of our partners is Brex, they're all about performance, spending smarter, moving faster. And I do think a core component of performance is who you surround yourself by. Some people say it's your closest five friends. It could be a mentor. It could be some figure that you've had growing up that you look up to. I'm curious, who are those people for you?

• 35:04Speaker 01

  That's a great question.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  It's funny because I have a, I don't have a very wide friend group. And I never, ever bring Rocket, like bring work home. Because if you're like, I've always thought if you have a rubbish day at work, like the last thing you want to do is bring that to somebody and ruin someone else's day. But I think I draw inspiration from not like singular people, but from a wide variety of sources all the time. I mean, I think the, the people that I find most inspirational are the people who just work. And, you know, and that, that doesn't need to be some highfalutin person. Like somebody is doing, working three jobs out there to put food on their table. That's an inspiration to me, you know, someone who's really, really grinding it to try and get ahead.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  That's an inspiration to me. So, you know, I don't really have any mentors or any people that I just sit there and idolize and look up to. I think I just, I just draw the, the stuff out of, out of, you know, all the amazing people that you see around us all the time. So I know it's a bit of a cop out of a, an answer, but it's the honest, the honest truth. I mean, you know, so many people have so many amazing qualities.

• 36:11Molly O'Shea?

  I mean, I did hear you've never read a business book before.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 36:16Molly O'Shea?

  So what are your operating principles?

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Just do logical things. Like at the end of the day, I think business is like a game of chess. It's, it's just, it's fairly logical. And there's, there's some parts of it that are illogical, like, you know, government is nonlinear. So you can put an input into a government and you just never know what you're going to get out. But for the most part, business is pretty basic. I mean, they're, they're pretty logical, like make money. And, you know, that's, that's pretty straightforward, sort of concept.

• 36:47Molly O'Shea?

  Some people forget that that is the purpose of a business, especially when they're overfunded.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, and in the space industry, it's all, it's very easy to get wrapped up into the cool stuff. And we do get to do cool stuff. And there's plenty of examples of things that, you know, probably don't make a lot of sense. Like, you know, the, the Archimedes engine is black.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  I make them paint them black because it looks cool. There's no, there's no logical, I mean, I can come up with an emissivity reason why they should be black. But, you know, there's some, sometimes there is those little elements, but, and that's fine on the small scale. But I think, you know, it's really important to, to end of the day, remember that like, in order to do this cool stuff, you have to make money.

• 37:31Molly O'Shea?

  Is there anything else that you've done, like painting the engine black?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Uh, yep. So the hungry, the, the nose cone shape of Electron is that shape. It's not actually the optimum aerodynamic shape.

• 37:45Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 37:45Speaker 01

  No, the optimum aerodynamic shape looked inappropriate in my view.

• 37:50Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 37:50Speaker 01

  So I changed the shape to a more of an extended OJive, just to make it look a little bit nicer.

• 37:55Molly O'Shea?

  Some people did the opposite of that and made it more appropriate.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:01Molly O'Shea?

  Sir Peter Beck, thank you very much, Pete.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 38:04Molly O'Shea?

  For showing us around and taking us on tour and letting us spend the day here at Rocket Lab.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  My pleasure. Thanks very much for coming.

• 38:11Molly O'Shea?

  Amazing. Cool. Awesome.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 38:14Molly O'Shea?

  Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email, and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.