Blake Scholl: Started from Zero at 33 — Now He’s Building a $1B Airline

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

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot, designed to keep you connected, powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month, or get the premium Visible Plus Pro plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code HACK. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.

• 0:59Marina Mogilko?

  So you worked at Amazon?

• 1:01Speaker 03

  It was just an absolutely incredible place. They were paying me very well. I was 33. Groupon had like Aqua hired my first company. I was running the world's largest spam operation.

• 1:10Marina Mogilko?

  Do you have a family?

• 1:11Speaker 03

  Yes, 14 month old daughter and like twins who had just been born.

• 1:14Marina Mogilko?

  And you decide to quit your corporate job and start something completely new?

• 1:19Speaker 03

  I guess. There has not been a startup in aviation for a century. There is opportunity and we have to take advantage of it quickly enough. We raised $150 million from like some of the most amazing investors, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Y Combinator, Bessemer, Michael Morris, Reid Hoffman. Like all of those people put in at least $10 million. The world is very open to supersonic right now. Now we've got runway. And then we broke the sound barrier. And it was 24 hours from breaking the sound barrier to be in the West Wing of the White House.

• 1:43Marina Mogilko?

  Can you give advice to someone who's stuck with their idea of building a boom sized company, but they just can't take the leap of faith? They have a family?

• 1:52Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:53Marina Mogilko?

  Blake, thank you so much. I'm so excited about this conversation because you did something a lot of people are dreaming of, but they don't have enough courage. And I wanted to focus this conversation on basically how you changed your mindset and went from a corporate job at Amazon to building the next generation airline. So you worked at Amazon, right? You were a tech guy for 13 years?

• 2:20Speaker 03

  I was at Amazon for about five and then another startup and then a startup I founded and then that got acquired by Groupon. But so yeah, I was bopping around tech for like 14 years. I started my first company in my parents' basement in high school and I always just wanted to go where the most interesting stuff was happening and like build something new. It was one of the things that was sort of like mindfuck for me is like I didn't see myself as radically different. And the decision, I remember really struggling with the decision to start Boom. And it was like, this is like if by going and starting a supersonic jet company, I'm almost like telling the world that I'm different. Because if it succeeds,

• 3:02Speaker 03

  it will like by definition be historic. And I'm like, who am I to do this? I don't have the resume for this. Like, and then I, the way I kind of got my mind around it was a couple of things. One was I was very inspired by that 1997 Apple ad campaign where the tagline was the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do. And it's, it's really true. And then I thought of Bill Gates, you know, who had started Microsoft in the 70s and had set a goal of putting a computer in every home and on every desk, running Microsoft software. And, and it was like the time he said that, that was like absurd. And yet he did it. And I was like, wow, okay. So

• 3:43Speaker 03

  people have to be willing to declare big things in order for the big things to actually happen. And the ones, the ones who try and succeed, you know, we know who they are. History knows their names. You know, it's the Wright brothers who were bicycle entrepreneurs turned inventor of literally the airplane.

• 4:00Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  You know, Jobs, Gates, like everyone else we know at that level. And, and there's probably also like a dark matter of entrepreneurs, the people who, the people who tried and they didn't succeed.

• 4:13Marina Mogilko?

  Exactly. And we don't hear about those.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  We don't hear about them. And I was like, okay, really, my choice is like, Do I want to be in that category if I fail? Or would I rather be in the category of people who didn't try? And once I saw it that way, I was like, I'd rather be in the dark matter of entrepreneurs than in the like, didn't try.

• 4:30Marina Mogilko?

  Did you have an opportunity to work with Jeff Bezos directly?

• 4:33Speaker 03

  I did a little bit, like, I was approximately engineer number 200. So it was after IPO, like, the place was established. You know, I think I got in two weeks before the dot com hiring freeze. So the bubble, the bubble was like imploding as I was like rushing in the door.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  And yeah, it was something like engineer number 200. And the, like, Amazon, I mean, I don't know what it's like now, but like, back then, it was just an absolutely incredible place. And everyone worked hard. There was like more important stuff to be done than people to do it, which makes it very apolitical. It was like, no one's like competing for what work and projects. Like, projects are like sitting on the floor, and if you want to do one, just like pick it up and just do it. And so I got to work on something that Jeff cared about, just because I was excited about it and did it. And it was basically doing Amazon's first ad buy from Google. It was like 2003. So it wasn't obvious that web search was going to be important. It wasn't obvious that like search engine marketing was going to be important.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  And, and we ended up building this thing that was the first automated ad management system on the internet. And at one time, I think it was responsible at the same time for 7% of Amazon's revenue.

• 5:43Marina Mogilko?

  Wow.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  And 7% of Google's revenue.

• 5:44Marina Mogilko?

  Wow.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  And, and it was just like, like, I managed to extrapolate, you know? I sort of visualize it as I'm standing next to a rocket and my like jacket like gets caught on the rocket. And the rocket launches and I'm like up there with the rocket, like kind of hanging on like, wow, could I, you know? And I like, you know, so like Jeff cared, it got a lot of visibility in Amazon. And I always felt like I was just like an inch from screwing it up enough that they would fire me and put somebody who actually knew what they were doing in charge of it.

• 6:08Marina Mogilko?

  What was your key learning? You did this amazing project with Jeff.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  I mean, there's like a bunch of key learnings out of it. I mean, like, one was sort of the, the experience, reflecting back on it many years later. The, the experience of looking at a space, everyone's doing it one way. So back, back then, search and marketing, it was all done by hand. Like, people would, people would choose their keywords, write their ads. And so they could only have a few keywords and only a few ads. And Amazon had millions of products. But like, most of the competitors would like, they'd buy like the keyword like camera or like cellphone. And those, those would be like bid up with tons of ads on them, but there were 300 million unique searches per month. Most of them had no ads. I was like, oh, we should just buy, like, ignore the popular things. We'll buy, we'll buy all the rest of them. We'll do with automation.

• 6:53Speaker 03

  And so at the meta level, it was this experience of like, looking at a space, everyone's doing it one way. There's actually a completely different way. Let's go do that. And then we actually made it work. And I hadn't really had this thought until right now, but probably that like takes something in me of like, okay, we can go look at a space, think differently about it than everyone else has ever done.

• 7:11Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 7:12Speaker 03

  And like, make something successful.

• 7:13Marina Mogilko?

  Do you remember that day when you woke up and you thought like, I want to take the sleep and build an airline?

• 7:19Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. A couple of threads that connected up to it. Like, one was, I'd seen a Concord in a museum in my twenties, and I'd set a lifetime goal of flying supersonic, and I put a Google alert on it. That was like one thread. Like, another thread was, uh, every time I would get on an airplane, I would ask, what would this be like if somebody like Johnny Ive had designed it? Not like whoever actually did it Boeing. And so that would like rattle around my head. And I, I sort of had in my head like, oh, I want to become an internet billionaire and start an aviation company. And then the first part never happened. And so I had this thing on my to-do list that was like, figure out how to start an aerospace company. And like, nothing happened with it for 10 years. Uh, and eventually, you know, Groupon had like acqui-hired my first company. Uh, I was running, I was running like the world's largest like spam operation.

• 8:04Speaker 03

  And it was just so demoralizing. And I'm like, I, they were paying me very well. And I was like, saving up money. In my head, I was saving up money to buy myself an airplane. And at some point, I'm like, it's not worth staying here longer for the airplane to be better. I'm just gonna fire myself and like, go do something else.

• 8:21Marina Mogilko?

  How old were you?

• 8:22Speaker 03

  I was, uh, 33.

• 8:23Marina Mogilko?

  33. Do you have a family back then, or?

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Uh, I had ju- yes. Uh, I think I had s- a 14-month-old daughter and like twins who had just been born.

• 8:35Marina Mogilko?

  And you decided to quit your corporate job and start something completely new.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  I guess.

• 8:42Marina Mogilko?

  Were you scared? Like for me, I have a three, a three year old and a five year old for us with my husband.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:48Marina Mogilko?

  To like change our lives completely, just unimaginable right now.

• 8:52Speaker 03

  It didn't feel so crazy to me at the time. Uh, my, my then wife was like, well, okay, honey, you've got a year to screw around with this jet thing.

• 9:00Marina Mogilko?

  And she gave you.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  And then, and then, you know, and then I expect you to get a job.

• 9:03Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  But I, I'd saved up enough money that I, I, I think this is actually important. I had, I'd saved up enough money in my head. I'd budgeted for two failed startups. It was like I could, I could like start one, seed it with a little bit of money, fail, start another one, see it with a little money and fail before I'd actually have to get a job.

• 9:18Marina Mogilko?

  But it's also about time, right? It's not just about money. Cause at a startup, you work like, what 20 hours a day?

• 9:25Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, maybe 28 some days.

• 9:27Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah. But like, how, how do you manage that with kids? Do you, do you regret like missing that time when they were so young or you were able to?

• 9:34Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I struggled with it, uh, for sure. And in some ways, in some ways I was a very reluctant father back then. Um, and then, uh, you know, a, a, along the way, you know, I got divorced and it actually made me a better father. Um, it was like, I realized like when I, you know, I, I only have the kids half the time. And when I have them, I want to be really present.

• 9:52Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  And, and so I think it, you know, it's not like this is the situation I ever would have designed, but it probably actually made me a better father and a better CEO. And it sort of forced just getting efficient. Uh, like, okay, I'm not going to be the dad that spends the most time, but the time I spend better, better be good.

• 10:07Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. So you decided to start an airline company with no formal education in aerospace engineering whatsoever. Can you walk me through this mindset where you're like, yeah, I can just learn it by myself?

• 10:20Speaker 03

  Again, I think it mattered that I'd sort of given myself a year to wander around. And, um, you know, I sort of thought, okay, supersonic jets would obviously be great. No one's doing it. Conventional wisdom says that means there's something wrong with the idea. Like you get told that in Silicon Valley all the time. If your idea is any good, there are three or four teams already working on it. And by the way, it's total bullshit. It's terrible advice.

• 10:45Marina Mogilko?

  Thank you.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  Terrible advice.

• 10:46Marina Mogilko?

  It's great to hear that.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  What happened? What that does is it creates a herd mentality. On one hand, it's like, oh, like, you know, there's a zillion people building chat GPT wrappers. Back in the day, there was a zillion people building photo sharing apps. And then there are entire things that have nobody working on them. And nobody will work on them because they don't want to be alone. Or they they figure if this were good, there'd be another team. And it's just it's just terrible advice. And so I thought, OK, well, it probably it will be a bad idea, but I want to know for myself why. And the Internet was full of conventional wisdom about why supersonic jets couldn't exist. You're like, oh, people won't pay more for speed. And it's inherently more expensive. And you can't have a big enough market unless you can solve supersonic flight over land, which is technical and regulatory.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  And so decades of R and D is going to be required to solve all these things. And observe, those are all qualitative claims about quantitative questions. Like supersonic flight costs more. OK, why and how much more? People won't pay more for speed? Well, that doesn't seem right. People pay more for direct flights than connecting flights all the time.

• 11:51Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  It's a question of how much. The market's not big enough without supersonic flight over land. Is it? How big is big enough? It's a measurable thing. And so and so I just started building spreadsheets.

• 12:02Marina Mogilko?

  I like this approach. Quantify everything.

• 12:04Speaker 03

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

• 12:34Marina Mogilko?

  And then, once you had those calculations, you're like, I need to hire the best people?

• 12:37Speaker 03

  Well, there was a little bit more. Like, that was a three-line spreadsheet. And I was like, okay, it doesn't, on the face of it, it seems plausible. At that point, I bought every textbook I could find. I started reading it. I did remedial calculus and physics because I hadn't had any since high school. And I started building a more detailed spreadsheet model of the airplane and a more detailed spreadsheet model of the market. And in the middle of 14, I kind of had it developed a bit, and I took it to a professor at Stanford, because these things are sometimes like, assumptions in, you know, conclusions out. But the quality of the answer is only as good as the quality of the assumption. And, you know, there were assumptions in there about like lift to drag ratios, which is aerodynamic efficiency, specific fuel consumption, which is how efficient an engine is. And like, where could we get on a couple of those key parameters would impact whether the end product was practical or not. So I took it to a professor at Stanford,

• 13:22Speaker 03

  who had done a bunch of supersonics research. And I'm like, dude, I have not, you know, I've been at this for like, two seconds. I don't know what I'm doing. Like, you know where R and D is at on these things now. Are any of these assumptions reasonable? And he said, Blake, if you're going to do this, you need to push your team way harder, because all of these are conservative. And I remember, like, leaving his office in this, like, like, stupor, in a way of like, wow, I don't know how it could be that I'm the human that like stumbled across the practicality of supersonic passenger flight, when nobody else did. But either I have no courage, or I'm going to go find some people and like, see how far we can get this. And that decision really did come down to just, it felt like a choice of courage.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 14:35Speaker 01

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• 15:05Marina Mogilko?

  How was it hiring people from major airline companies?

• 15:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:11Marina Mogilko?

  Without having the experience, right?

• 15:12Speaker 03

  So people, people think that like the engineering of building a supersonic jet must be really hard. And, you know, it, it is in a way, but it's like the third hardest thing at boom. Like the third hardest thing at boom is engineering. The next hardest thing is financing and the actual hardest thing is team. And, and the reason team is so hard is that there has not been a startup in aviation for a century. Like literally the last new commercial airplane company was Douglas Aircraft founded in 1921. So all the founders retired in the 1960s, which is a big part of why we don't have supersonic already. And then, you know, and so these, and so then you've got the founders and then the founders retire and then you've got the people who work with the founders and then those people retire and then God help us, the accountants take over.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  And, and that's, that's very much the story of Boeing, but like the, you know, there's PayPal mafia, right? There's like Amazon mafia. There is no Boeing mafia. Like there are no entrepreneurial minded people who come out of these big companies. And so we had to like find people from bizarre other corners of the universe. Or find people who had like gone to Boeing and were still early in their career and they could like rescue them before they were destroyed.

• 16:24Marina Mogilko?

  Was it hard to persuade them?

• 16:26Speaker 03

  Well, yes and no. Like the, when I would tell people I'm building a supersonic passenger jet, the first question was always, are you crazy? And, and they, they didn't always say it out loud, but I could always tell, I could tell it was the real first question. And I could persuade them that the answer was maybe no. Then the second question is how do I get involved and help? And I can, I'm thinking of like the person we hired as our first like chief engineer. And we met. Like we like we sort of networked my way to him like, you know, the whole like six degrees to Kevin Bacon kind of a thing. And, uh, and, and he, he and I like met in like the subway outside SFO. And, and I'm like, Hey dude, I want to show you my spreadsheet and like, like what I've figured out so far.

• 17:08Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, wow.

• 17:09Speaker 03

  And he's, he's like, man, I'm used to seeing all these internet people who have crackpot airplane ideas. Um, and he's like, this is not a crackpot airplane idea. And I had no idea you'd be this far.

• 17:18Marina Mogilko?

  Hmm.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  And he's like, this actually makes sense. And he's like, I want you to hire me as a consultant and I'll like consult with you. And I'm like, nope, that's not an option. It's full time or nothing.

• 17:26Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 17:27Speaker 03

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

• 17:44Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  Uh, and like, it looks like this works.

• 17:46Marina Mogilko?

  So you had the first like actual industry confirmation.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:50Marina Mogilko?

  And then it just started from there, right?

• 17:51Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 17:52Marina Mogilko?

  I remember I read something that the industry was still like criticizing you and saying it's not viable.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  Oh, they still are.

• 17:58Marina Mogilko?

  They, and they still are.

• 17:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 18:00Marina Mogilko?

  How do you navigate this? This is one thing, you know, if general public says, oh, this is not possible. But when the industry experts are like, you know, we've been there, we've done that.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, industry experts don't know what they're talking about. Like the, uh, like the quote unquote, experts are, are often just repeating the same conventional wisdom and haven't done any first principles analysis. And, uh, and sometimes it gets fed by like the lore, like, like the big jet engine companies tell everybody that only the big jet engine companies can build jet engines. Because of course they do, right? But then that gets repeated and like people accept it as if it's like physics, but it's not physics. Like, like SpaceX started from nothing and they put stuff in orbit. And by the way, they built their own rocket engines. And, you know, and I was very inspired by that. I was like, wow, you know, Elon was an internet guy and he put stuff in orbit. And like, that seems way harder than a supersonic jet. Actually, it's not. I think the supersonic jet's actually harder, but I didn't know that back then.

• 18:54Marina Mogilko?

  Would you agree with the phrase that's kind of related to this, ignorance is my superpower? Is it true or not then?

• 19:00Speaker 03

  I don't think it's, I don't think that's actually true. Ignorance is definitely not good. I think the superpower is coming into a New domain and seeking out first principles. It's about actually getting rid of ignorance quickly and not by hoovering up opinions. Like, oh, the wrong way to come into a new domain is to go around and ask a bunch of people what they think.

• 19:21Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  A much better way to do it is to go into a new domain and like, ask a bunch of people to teach you what they know. And so my favorite interview question at Boom was, teach me something. It still is. By the way, I don't mind if everybody knows that because you can't fake your way through that interview question, even if you know it's coming.

• 19:36Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  Uh, like, you can't teach something unless you actually understand it.

• 19:39Marina Mogilko?

  Absolutely.

• 19:40Speaker 03

  And so on one hand, this is a great filter for people who really understand. On the other hand, I learned a lot just interviewing people. And so my, my approach was not find out people's conclusions and like, fit them all together into a picture, but rather like hoover up all that knowledge myself. So it was very much the opposite of ignorance is a superpower. I, I think like getting rid of ignorance quickly is a superpower.

• 19:59Marina Mogilko?

  But also believing that you can crack a problem that a lot of people tried to crack and then gave up on it.

• 20:04Speaker 03

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

• 20:22Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  Your grades in college don't tell you. Um, your friends don't tell you. The only way to find out is pick something you'll never give up on and see how far you can go.

• 20:31Marina Mogilko?

  I love that. What if you're later in your life? Like, because some people will tell like, oh, if you're talented, you should have had some wins already, right?

• 20:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, I think it's irrelevant. My experience has been it's irrelevant. Like, I had some really big early wins, you know, like, wow, I'm 24. I've got a P and L at Amazon. I got to work with Jeff. You know, and then, then bam, two failed startups. Um, and, uh, you know, so I could have been like, oh, I guess I'm not so good. Like, I guess I shouldn't try anything. And I don't know, like, it's, it could have been true. Uh, hell, it could still, still be true. We could, we could screw this Boom thing up, but we've gotten, you know, we've gotten pretty far so far.

• 21:07Marina Mogilko?

  What was your hardest day building Boom?

• 21:10Speaker 03

  It seems like we have like a near death experience about once, once a year. Um, you know, like I'm thinking of last year. So, uh, la- last year we had, we got down to seven days of cash. And like the HR team and the legal team had like a plan to like file for bankruptcy and like, you know, like, you know, that we'd been like on the verge of for like a long time. And like, everyone was nervous, like a bunch of people had quit over it, like I had board members quit over it.

• 21:36Marina Mogilko?

  Oh wow.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  It was really obnoxious, actually. Um, and it was like a filter for people who are really committed is what it turned out to be. Uh, but like, that was incredibly tough. And then we had to do like a down round and a recap to like, get the company back together. And that was like, one of the most painful things I've ever gone through.

• 21:52Marina Mogilko?

  Have you ever thought of giving up? Like, it's not working?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  I mean, there are all kinds of days where I'm like, I'm looking at a problem and I feel like I'm staring down the barrel of a gun. And it's like, that could be the thing that kills us. And then the answer has always been like, don't give up. Like, I remember when we got down to like, three weeks of cash. And I called, uh, I called Paul Graham and I was like, dude, I need your advice. We've got three weeks of cash. I'm trying to figure out a bridge your way to the next milestone. Uh, and he's like, aren't you shutting the company down? Usually when people call me and they say they've got three weeks of cash, they're telling me they're shutting the company down. And I said, no, I'm not giving up. We're finding our way through this. I don't know the way right now, but I'm absolutely not shutting the company down. I don't care if I have to take it through bankruptcy and restart it. I'm not giving up.

• 22:33Marina Mogilko?

  That's amazing. I think this is what really defines success for, for entrepreneurs.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  You know, some people say like, companies fail when they're out of money. And in a certain sense, it's true, but I think they actually fail when the founder gives up. And, and so, uh, the whole like, I'm just, you know, I will put myself through whatever quantity of hell it takes to succeed. It's really powerful.

• 22:53Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  I guess I could spend the rest of my life like foolishly failing, but, um, uh, I don't think that's what's gonna happen.

• 23:00Marina Mogilko?

  That's awesome. And let's talk about what's going on right now. You just had your supersonic flight. Congratulations. Uh, the test flight, right?

• 23:09Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:10Marina Mogilko?

  Just, uh, so what's going on? How far are you from actually launching?

• 23:14Speaker 03

  About four years from carrying passengers. Our goal is first passenger on board by the end of 29. So it's, uh, it's not that far away. And to, and to just concretize what, where we are right now, we, we've built and flown the first ever supersonic jet outside of a government or military. Like I, I think I asked ChatGPT a few weeks ago, which governments have made supersonic jets? And ChatGPT is like, here are the seven governments have done it, but there's an eighth that's not a government. It's called Boom. I love you, ChatGPT. But yeah, so we it's the first supersonic jet outside of a government or military. It is the first civil supersonic jet made in America. It's the first one since Concorde, and it's the first one made out of airliner technology.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  So we basically took 20-year-old, proven 787 Boeing 787 level technology. And we said, let's go build a supersonic jet that is safe enough to put a person on that it can break the sound barrier and learn 100% of what it takes to actually do that. Technically, team, management-wise. And then we can take it and scale up. And so that's where we are now. We've broken the sound barrier. We've done it on two flights. We've broken the sound barrier six times. We did it all six times without any audible sonic boom. And now it's time to take all those lessons, scale it up, and build the airplane that you and I can fly on.

• 24:35Marina Mogilko?

  And also the legal ban, right?

• 24:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, we have. So we actually started the company with the assumption, no new technology and no change in regulations, because otherwise it would just be like way too much for a startup to take on. And so our assumption was that we would not solve the sonic boom problem. We wouldn't solve it technically, and we wouldn't solve it politically, at least not for version one. But it turned out as we got down path, there was a technical solution, and it wasn't even that hard. Like, the problem was described as way more difficult than it actually is. And now, when I look at the administration we have today and how the political climate has shifted in the last 12 months, I'm very confident that the supersonic ban over the continental US is going to be lifted.

• 25:23Marina Mogilko?

  But then you will have to work with other governments as well.

• 25:26Speaker 03

  What's actually worse in the US than it is elsewhere. US and Canada have an outright supersonic ban. It doesn't exist everywhere. The rules are a little bit different in the rest of the world. And I think the reason is that Concorde was a European project. And there was an American competitor which got canceled. And only after the American competitor was canceled, it was like, oh, we can't have this sonic stuff. So I think, I think the actual, you know, the many times regulations have like a moral cover story.

• 25:55Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Like, oh, we have to do this because sonic booms are bad, or this is to protect children or whatever. But then the real reality is to protect Boeing.

• 26:02Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 26:03Speaker 03

  And but no one wants to say that out loud.

• 26:05Marina Mogilko?

  Okay.

• 26:06Speaker 03

  So they like, they like invent that, like, you know, they just tell everybody booms are bad, and that's why we have to have the regulation. But it was a speed limit, like literally 14 CFR 91.817 says thou shalt not exceed Mach 1.

• 26:19Marina Mogilko?

  And that's, can you explain?

• 26:21Speaker 03

  The speed of sound. Mach 1 is the speed of sound.

• 26:23Marina Mogilko?

  Okay.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  It's a speed limit in the sky. And what it should say is thou shalt not make bad noises.

• 26:28Marina Mogilko?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:29Speaker 03

  It's real, I mean, there, it's a really, really stupid regulation. My suspicion is that the reason it's a speed limit, not a noise limit, because if it was a reasonable noise limit, a whole bunch of things would have passed.

• 26:40Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 03

  And so, so I think we'll get that changed.

• 26:45Marina Mogilko?

  How?

• 26:46Speaker 03

  And then we can, and then we can fly coast to coast.

• 26:48Marina Mogilko?

  What are you hoping, how soon?

• 26:49Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't know how to predict this, but the, the.

• 26:51Marina Mogilko?

  I mean, less than four years or more than four years? Cause you have.

• 26:54Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean, it could be four weeks.

• 26:55Marina Mogilko?

  Okay.

• 26:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. Like it's, it could, we'll see, but it could happen very quickly.

• 26:59Marina Mogilko?

  Fingers crossed.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  Fingers, toes and eyes are crossed.

• 27:02Marina Mogilko?

  Awesome. I had another question about carbon emissions, because when I posted a story of your talk from that party, people were like, but this is like 3X more carbon emissions than like a business class seat.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's, it's, supersonic is more energy intensive. And we, we're designing around next generation sustainable aviation fuel. So that when enough of that is available, actually the carbon, the carbon could potentially go all the way down to zero on synthetic fuel. But a, it is more, it is more energy intensive. And I think there's a big mindset question around this. Like, you know, the, and it's one of the reasons why we haven't had supersonic already is in the seventies, humanity shifted from an abundance mindset to a conservation mindset. And there's this amazing chart, like up until about 1970, there was an exponential increase, like a Moore's law of energy. Uh, like energy per human is going up rapidly.

• 27:55Speaker 03

  Standard of living is going up rapidly. All kinds of new technologies are possible because we have energy abundance, including, by the way, things that make climate livable, like air conditioners. And heaters.

• 28:06Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 03

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

• 28:36Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  And then like, oh, but fire has, you know, it has the obvious pro, we don't freeze. And it has these cons, like it's actually not super healthy to bring in this, breathe the smoke, right? Oh, okay. So now we invent the log cabin and the pot bellied stove. We put the fire in the stove and there's a smoke stack, you know? And like, okay, that's much, much better. It's much healthier. It's much better for our environment. My point is every generation of technology has pros and cons. And as you go from generation to generation, you can increase the pros and decrease the cons. And that's the story of why like, we're not in the cave anymore. And so I think that's where we have to go with energy and supersonic jets. And it's okay to use more energy. It's a good thing to use more energy. Let's figure out have more abundant, reliable, cheap energy and let's minimize the downsides. And let's, you know, if there's, if there's like too much carbon, great.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  Let's figure out how to synthesize jet fuel. Let's try to synthesize it more affordably than you can pump it out of the ground. And there is, there's good work happening on that. It's difficult to do, but it's progressing.

• 29:31Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah. That gives me hope. What do you think would be the cost for the average person?

• 29:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. So our ultimate goal is to make supersonic flight attainable for anybody. But there's a question of where do we start? And Concord, marvelous technical accomplishment, but like we talk in the valley about product market fit. And this is a great example of something that never had product market fit. There are a hundred seats in the airplane. They're really uncomfortable. Like if you, we have some Concord seats in our office. You might think they came out of like the back of a Ryanair or Southwest jet. It was a really small and yet it's $20,000 a ticket. And so Concord was for like rock stars and royalty and especially with 70s, 80s.

• 30:13Marina Mogilko?

  And back in the day, $20,000 back in the day, that was.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  Well, that's adjusted for inflation, but it's still a lot, right? Like, who wants to pay $20,000 to go somewhere really fast? Well, it's not nobody, but it's rock stars and royalty.

• 30:23Marina Mogilko?

  Exactly.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  And it only kind of works on a couple of routes because you can't, you can't fill 100 seats.

• 30:27Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  And, and so with, uh, that was kind of no man's land. And then Overture one is like the Model S of supersonic jets. It's not for everybody, but it's for a whole lot of people. And, uh, and so the fares will be like business class. So I think like $5,000 round trip would be a typical fare.

• 30:45Marina Mogilko?

  It's gonna be a nice seat.

• 30:46Speaker 03

  Be a nice seat.

• 30:46Marina Mogilko?

  Lie flat.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Well, not lie flat. Because that was the whole.

• 30:49Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, because you don't need.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  You don't need a lie flat bed for a three or four hour flight.

• 30:53Marina Mogilko?

  So it's gonna be three to four hours from New York to London, right?

• 30:55Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah.

• 30:56Marina Mogilko?

  Fascinating.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  But also just not, not just New York, London, Miami, Madrid, and Seattle to Tokyo and DC to Paris.

• 31:03Marina Mogilko?

  That's in four years or this is like a?

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Like, it could, they will all be possible in about four years. Um, and now, now we won't have enough of the jets yet because we'll be like starting production.

• 31:12Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  You know, the, the whole boom skeptic thing is going to be like, oh, they can't build a supersonic jet. Oops, they did. Then it's gonna be, they can't build a jet engine, but then it's gonna be like, oops, they did. And maybe they can't certify an airliner, then like, oops, they did. And then maybe they can't make enough of them, like, oops, they did.

• 31:26Marina Mogilko?

  It gives me so much energy just hearing you say that and I see how excited you are. That's awesome because we fly so much and that would be a game changer for the travel industry. Awesome. So.

• 31:36Speaker 03

  But actually, I'd love to riff on that with you. Like, it's not just about making it faster. The thing a lot of people don't appreciate about speed, speed is not just like, oh, how efficient are we with our time? Speed is often the difference between doing something and not doing something. Between something happening and not happening. So for example, before the speed of the jet, basically nobody went to Hawaii. Took too darn long, like literally tourism to Hawaii pre-jet was like tens of thousands of people per year.

• 32:02Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, because it was like a 10 hour flight or something?

• 32:04Speaker 03

  It was like 16 from.

• 32:05Marina Mogilko?

  Oh, 16.

• 32:06Speaker 03

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

• 32:49Speaker 03

  And it's not just efficiency, it's a binary thing of do you do something or not?

• 32:52Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  And so I think speeding up travel, imagine a future in which our kids have friends that they actually know and have met from other continents.

• 33:01Marina Mogilko?

  And they can visit them for a weekend.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  They can visit them for a weekend, right? Like they know each other in person, not just like, you know, I watched a video about them.

• 33:08Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  Like that is a very different future for humanity and we can create that future if flights are faster and they're affordable and they're convenient and they're safe.

• 33:18Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, that's fascinating. Let's talk about your day to day. How many kids do you have?

• 33:23Speaker 03

  Four.

• 33:24Marina Mogilko?

  Four.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Four, yeah.

• 33:25Marina Mogilko?

  And you're still able to take them on flights? I saw your pictures, you know, you're flying together.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I live a very full life.

• 33:33Marina Mogilko?

  How do you balance that? Like.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  With with great effort.

• 33:37Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 33:38Speaker 03

  You know, I try to really be present when I'm with the kids. And like whenever I can find a way to kind of check two boxes at the same time. And like as an example, I took my older three on a vacation a couple of years ago. That was like a like a road trip in the sky. And because I love flying little airplanes, it's like my one hobby.

• 33:54Marina Mogilko?

  You fly yourself.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so we like did four cities in seven days and I was like, guys, we can't do that on United, you know? And now they're like, Dad, when do we get to go and like air Dad?

• 34:04Marina Mogilko?

  Nice. How so how many hours a week do you work?

• 34:08Speaker 03

  I have no idea.

• 34:09Marina Mogilko?

  Do you have week days off or?

• 34:11Speaker 03

  I haven't I haven't had a day off since like, I don't know, four months or something.

• 34:16Marina Mogilko?

  How do you feel?

• 34:17Speaker 03

  A little tired.

• 34:17Marina Mogilko?

  Fashion keeps you going?

• 34:18Speaker 03

  Fashion keeps me going, yeah. I mean, like 2024 for me was like terrible busy because it was like survival mode for the company. And like 2025, we got out of that. We raised $150 million from like some of the most amazing investors, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Y Combinator, Bessemer, Michael Morris, Reid Hoffman, like all of those people put in at least $10 million. And on our like late 2024 financing. And so now we've got runway and then we broke the sound barrier and then we broke it again. And then we like did it boomless. And then it feels like we broke the internet and people got really excited.

• 34:49Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 34:50Speaker 03

  And it was 24 hours from breaking the sound barrier to being in the West Wing of the White House. And and now it's like, holy crap, the world feels like it just cracked open for us and that the there is opportunity and and we have to take advantage of it quickly enough.

• 35:03Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  And it goes back to the same point I was making about you speed is the difference when things happening or not happening. The world is very open to supersonic right now. And, you know, I think that like regulation change, it's either going to happen quickly or it's not going to happen. And so like I feel

• 35:16Marina Mogilko?

  So you gotta move fast.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  We gotta move fast.

• 35:17Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah. I have a question. Speaking of the White House.

• 35:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 35:22Marina Mogilko?

  Can you talk about this photo? How it happened?

• 35:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, uh, so I like to say, um, no, no, uh, no lobbyists were harmed in the creation of that photo. Uh, so it was Monday, geez, two weeks ago.

• 35:38Marina Mogilko?

  Two weeks ago.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  Two weeks ago Monday, um, we broke the sound barrier. Uh, we did it boomless. We announced boomless. Uh, and, uh, I was like in the Mojave Desert and I'm like tweeting about we've got to repeal this silly regulation. And like Elon responds like, yes, this administration will fix it. I was on a flight, a terrible, terrible flight, a pink eye flight to DC that night, uh, which we should totally speed up. Um, and, uh, we're planning to go like lobby the next day. And like, by the time I landed in DC, I had an invitation to visit the White House. Uh, and so we had, um, had that first meeting and, uh, uh, you know, was trying to build support in the White House for it. It wasn't with the president. And then the next time

• 36:23Speaker 03

  on the Hill and and we're sort of rapidly discovering there's bipartisan support for repealing the speed limit. Like, everybody agrees that we shouldn't have a speed limit, that we should have a noise limit instead.

• 36:34Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 03

  And, uh, and then, and then Thursday, um, I had coffee with, uh, the Secretary of, of Energy, uh, who I met because, uh, so our landlord at Boom is friends with him. And so it was like me to our landlord, to the Secretary of Energy.

• 36:51Marina Mogilko?

  Landlord meaning owns the

• 36:53Speaker 03

  Owns the building that Boom is in.

• 36:54Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Um, and, uh, and so like, you know, he and I had a great conversation. He's like, I love this. I think the president will love it. He's like, you should make a model of the airplane. And I was like, well, I actually have one in my hotel room.

• 37:06Marina Mogilko?

  Convenient.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  I'm like, do you have five minutes? I'll sprint and get it and bring it back. And the question is, how do we get it to the president? And he's like, well, I'm seeing him later today. I'll give it to him. I was like, okay, how did this happen so quickly? But, um, but no, I'm incredibly, that whole just getting people like the, the magic of boom is everybody wants supersonic flight to exist. And if we can show them that we're not crazy, um, then they want to help. And so like a lot of people, a lot of people have helped.

• 37:34Marina Mogilko?

  Can you give advice to someone who's stuck, uh, with their idea of building a boom sized company, but they just can't take the leap of faith? They have a family. They're like, I haven't had proven success yet.

• 37:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, my experience has been is failure is never as bad as I think it's going to be. And, and like, there's a little bit of like, when I could get comfortable with the idea of failing, it was much easier to try. So like my first company, we were building a barcode scanning game, which is like the least inspiring thing anybody could ever choose to do. And I was doing it because I thought I knew e-commerce from Amazon and mobile from this other startup. So I thought I should work on mobile e-commerce because it's something qualified to do. So I ended up building this mobile e-commerce thing that I like care, I don't care about at all. And I, you know, and yet it's hard because like every startup is hard and every startup could fail. And I would get up in the morning and think like, ugh, I'm going to screw this up. I'm going to lose all the investors' money. No one's ever going to want to hire me again.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  And, uh, and then effectively the company did fail. Like we acquired it to Groupon and they shut the product down and put us on other stuff. And, and yet like failure in that case was the best paying job I'd ever had. A lot less stress than I'd had as a startup founder, a couple of years where I could like reflect on what I'd learned and think about what I wanted to do next. And, you know, there were, um, and mostly people respected me for trying. And so this notion I'd had in my head of failure would be like the end of my career really wasn't true. And, and you know, and so, um,

• 39:07Speaker 03

  I think I learned to be a little bit less afraid of failure.

• 39:09Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, so basically visualize the failure, what it looks like.

• 39:11Speaker 03

  And just accept it.

• 39:12Marina Mogilko?

  And just go in.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  And then, and then, and then move on from it. And you know, I think I tell Boom, the Boom team is, look, there is no guarantee we're going to succeed. We could totally fail. If we fail, just make sure we fail honestly. Don't fail like Theranos. Don't, don't fail by like being a jerk.

• 39:28Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  Or being bad. Like, like fail by giving it everything we have and then somehow it didn't work. But also, don't give up. Don't fail.

• 39:34Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  Like, you know, when XB1 broke the sound barrier, I sat down with the team and I was like, look at the airplane. Why is this here? It's here because all of us didn't give up when it would have been very reasonable to give up. Like, in fact, some people gave up along the way, but those of us standing here today didn't give up, and that's why it's here. Don't give up.

• 39:53Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah. What would you say to this small guy right here? Any advice for him?

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Uh, you know.

• 40:00Marina Mogilko?

  Just words of encouragement?

• 40:02Speaker 03

  Like, talk to your grandpa more.

• 40:04Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Like, um, I, he didn't, uh, he didn't live to get to know his great grandkids, really. And, uh, and he'd, um, he'd fought in the Pacific Theater in World War II. He'd actually repaired propellers. And I, I think back about like all the conversations I could have had with him that I didn't have.

• 40:22Marina Mogilko?

  You inherited that, right? The love for, for aviation.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I didn't even realize I got it from him. I don't know if I did get it from him. Uh, I wish I'd talked to him way more.

• 40:30Marina Mogilko?

  That's, that's a great thing to say. Thank you. Thank you so much, Blake. You're amazing. A lot of inspiration. There's so many takeaways for everyone who's watching.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Well, thank you for the fun conversation and the chance to just like, I don't know, tell the real story.

• 40:44Marina Mogilko?

  Yeah, thank you. And hopefully in four years, we're all flying supersonic.

• 40:48Speaker 03

  Fingers crossed.

• 40:50Marina Mogilko?

  Fingers crossed.

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