The Space Boom Is Just Beginning

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To put AI to work for people, visit service now.com. Welcome to the Proftry Market's Founder series. I'm Ed Elsa. The global space economy is projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035, what was once an industry

dominated by government is rapidly becoming one of the most important commercial markets

in the world, shaping everything from national security and communications to scientific discovery and defense. My next guest is Bill, one of the leading companies at the center of that transformation. What began as a company focused on lowering the cost and increasing the frequency of small satellite launches has evolved into a full-scale space system's business.

Today, the company designed satellites, builds spacecraft components, and provides launch services that are helping shape the future of the commercial space industry. With more than $200 million in revenue last quarter, and a backlog that has grown to roughly $2.2 billion, the company has emerged as one of the biggest players in the future of space.

This is my conversation with Sir Peter Beck, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab. So thank you so much for joining us on the show.

“I think what will be helpful to get started here is an explanation of what Rocket Lab actually”

does. Clearly, you're in the business of space, but there are lots of different things that are involved in the space industry. So, what is Rocket Lab doing, what services are you providing? Well, thanks very much, Ed.

I think you did a fantastic introduction, by the way. It's not much more to be seen, but... Cut it there. Done. Yeah, done.

Yeah, well, good to go. No, I mean, so what we're really trying to build here is an into-in space company. So what that means is that providing services directly from space, and everything below that. You mentioned launch, obviously, launch is the keys to space and the ride to space, and

then satellites are obviously, the systems that provide the services, and then ultimately

if you go up one level higher, it's actually the services from space. And this is here is that if you can build the satellites and, you know, vertically integrated all your own components, and then vertically integrate your own launch, then your ability to provide services from spaces is obviously an advantage to somebody who has to go and buy all that stuff either from your others.

So, you know, that's kind of the end goal for the company, and we're sort of methodically, you know, step after step, pushing towards that. And, you know, as you mentioned, you know, in now, we're one of the largest components supplies in the space industry.

“I think something like 30% of everything that went to space last year had a rocket label”

ago on it somewhere, and, you know, we build the satellites and the spacecraft and the rockets and everything, everything in between. Just some more context for the space virgins listening to his podcast. What kinds of companies are buying your products? Like what kind of company would buy a rocket, component, or a satellite who are those clients?

They range from the fully into the spectrum. So, on the launch side, we have launched a little cube set for a bunch of Californian

national security missions where lives are dependent on it.

So, you know, that's kind of the beauty of the businesses that, you know, end of the space industry is that it really does cover a tremendous swath of different applications. But I would say that, you know, more generally 50% of our businesses commercial and 50% of our businesses government, and, you know, on the commercial side, it's earth observation and communications, and then on the government side, it's national security missions, and

also civil stuff. So, you know, we built a couple of spacecraft and just recently, and they're on their way to Mars for NASA. So, all sorts of interesting things. It's helpful, I think, to sort of separate the cat-different categories in this business. We usually just think of space as space, but it seems that there are so many different applications and so many different businesses that are accomplished in very different

things. If it would be, I'd love if you could just sort of lay out what some of those businesses are. I mean, on the one hand, we've discussed satellites, and, of course,

satellites are essential for telecommunications, and also government work. We want to go explore

planets, and you need someone to go lift that stuff into space and get that stuff out there.

“What are some of the most important businesses in the space industry right now?”

Maybe we start a little bit higher up in the fact that space is just infrastructure really. And it's slightly unusual infrastructure in the fact that it's completely hidden. And you know, you often talk to folks and, you know, they're so well, this space stuff, you know, it's all sci-fi, it doesn't affect me. And then, you know, they'll go home and order a pizza, and the pizza turns up at their house magically. And, you know, they

don't realize that in order in that pizza, they may have interface with, you know, a space to make their communication. But certainly they've kind of interface with space, because the guy delivering their pizza is used GPS to get there. And so there's a whole bunch of infrastructure in orbit, or, but whether it be, you know, GPS or communications or observations that everybody uses in their everyday lives, but just sort of doesn't realise it.

“And, you know, I think if you want to break it down into the most, you know, simplest forms,”

you have your earth observation, and that can cover all different spectrums, whether it's visible light or non-visible light or RF. And those are the, you know, from a moment down at home, that's like weather. So how do I get, you know, satellite weather? It's, you know, it's an obvious one. And then communications, you know, GPS falls under that, and then, you know, probably, you know, I'm sitting down here in New Zealand now, you know, somewhere else around the world. And there's

probably probably some of that link has done through space. So, you know, communications is obviously a huge element. But what I would say is that, you know, the biggest thing to be thought of and done in space, I believe, is, is, has not even been thought of yet. And if you just roll the clock back a couple of years, and someone said that you're going to put data scene as an orbit, I think most people would say, well, that doesn't sound, that doesn't sound feasible.

But, you know, there's a huge push there. And then go back a few more years and you would say, well, you know, internet from space in the form of like a starlink or an Amazon layer, would, would be, you know, fictitious. And then now it's like, everybody's using that, same with direct to mobile devices from space. So, you know, it's, it's constantly redefining itself. And as more, more use cases arrived, then, you know, that that's one of the reasons why

the space industry is just growing so rapidly. Yeah, the pace of the growth in the recent years, especially is really striking. And when we just look at the stock price of your company rocket lab,

it's up 400 percent in the past year. Other space stocks are going crazy. AST space mobile,

a lot more than 200 percent via set up 600 percent. I mean, this is like space is moment. It's a little confusing though, because, you know, you point out when you order a pizza, you're interacting with space equipment and companies such as yours or the companies that were responsible for getting that kind of equipment out there. But people have been ordering pizzas from a mobile phone for a very long time, which leads me to my question, which is like, why is it now? Why, why now,

are these companies so exciting? What has happened in the past one or two years where suddenly everyone

“is realizing and waking up, there is this massive commercial opportunity in the space industry?”

Well, I think the answer to that is that space has been dominated by governments and government sectors. And what you've witnessed in the last sort of decade, I would say, is the

satellites currently up and all, but our government assets, right? I mean, they were originally

“designed as defense assets. Now, I think if you, if you were to take all of those assets out of the”

sky and start a fresh, it wouldn't be governments putting them back up. It would 100 percent be

commercial entities, putting them back up. And I'll just give you another example, you know, of our escapade mission to Mars for NASA. So, you know, those are spacecraft. NASA gave us a speak and said, look, we want to do this in Mars. We went away and designed and built, you know, not one, but two spacecraft that are currently on the way to Mars for, you know, to complete NASA's mission. Prior to that, that would have been a NASA internal project and, you know,

wouldn't have been a commercial thing. So, even stuff like, you know, deep space into planetary missions are now, you know, now being outsourced out commercially. And, you know, some of that is that, you know, the commercial market is established itself, but also, you know, the skills

and expertise have been distributed and capital has been allocated so that commercial companies

“can actually go and do those sorts of things. Well, I think this kind of gets to the heart of why”

we want to talk to you. And it's a lot about your story. When you started this company in 2006, for those who haven't recognized it yet, you are from New Zealand. And, I mean, you essentially decided to build a company where there didn't seem to be much commercial opportunity at all. And yet, here we are, and you're generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and you're publicly traded company. So, why did you start this company? And, why did you believe that this

would actually be a real commercially viable business? Well, I mean, firstly, NASA wouldn't employ me, so I didn't really have too many options. So, the only viable option open to me was to start my own company, and I just happened to live in New Zealand. Now, Rocket Lab these days is a global company. In fact, the vast majority of the company is not in New Zealand. There's still, you know, the element here for sure, but, you know, the vast majority is everywhere else.

“But, I mean, in simple forms, you know, I started building rockets, but I was a kid, right?”

So, as always, always something I wanted to go and do. And, you know, I went on a bit of a

rocket pilgrimage one year to the United States, and I learned a couple of really important things. One, NASA wouldn't employ me. Why is that? Sorry, if I could just ask, why wouldn't they employ you? Because you want to citizen or do you apply to them, they didn't accept the other occasion, what happened? I'm a foreign national with no university degrees, like it's hardly the top of the list, is it? So, you know, but one, the other thing I learned is, is I went around and looked at

it, you know, visited a bunch of little startup companies in the Mahabhi Desert and whatnot, and looked at what they were doing, and what they were doing was absolutely no different to what I was doing here at home. So, I'm like, no, hang on a minute. So, there's not a mess of golf between what I'm doing and what everybody else is doing. So, maybe I should just do it. I think the question we're all asking is, how did a young man end up deciding to build rockets

and how do you even do that if we could have more about how that ended up happening? Some of my youngest memories are standing outside with my father, and, you know, he was an ever kind of, you know, enthusiastic and astronomy as well, and I remember him pointing out to me that, you know, all those stars in the sky that you can see, most of them have planets around them, and on one of those planets that could be somebody standing there looking back at you. And that

moment for me was like, right, this space thing is bigger than, bigger than anything. So, this is what I want to do, and, you know, I had a natural propensity to engineering. So, you mix those two things together, and, you know, what else are you going to build, but rockets, I mean, that's the obvious outcome? And what age did you start actually building rockets?

So, I was at school, we met sort of got a little bit more serious. So, because the middle work teacher would let me use the middle work room at lunchtime in the weekends. So, you know, that would have been probably 15, 14. And so, you're working at school, at lunch breaks, the guys letting you use the metal works, and then at what point do you start to really operationalise this, at what point does this go

from a kid using the DT workshop at lunchtime to actually building a company? There's a little bit of a, you know, a story in between there. So, you know, I left school and pursued a tool and dye making apprenticeship. And, you know, the plan was to go to university, but I, you know, New Zealand, there's no

by building things and having those handskills to build the things that I wanted to build

is really important. So, I did an apprenticeship and tool and dye making, and it was at a company called Fisher and Pike, which it's an appliance, a white-way manufacturer. And then, you know, no sooner I finished my apprenticeship, I went into the design office and into a production machinery design and design, you know, machines and robots, and then into product design and then into analysis. And then I went and worked at a supyock company where I was a project engineer,

responsible for a 123-foot supyock. And that was really, you know, a formative part of my career,

“because in the morning, you know, you have to, had to work and communicate effectively with, you know,”

some some guys on the shop floor who were, who were, in some cases, a literate. And then, in the afternoon, you know, the owner of the yacht would fly in and it's helicopter and, you know, you have to have to be able to communicate effectively with, with, with him as well. And so that, that was super informative. And then, you know, went to a New Zealand National Lab, so it's kind of, you know, a government research lab where I did advanced materials and superconductors.

And that's where I learned a lot about composites and we did a lot of composites work for America's Cup Boats and all those sorts of things. And it was during my time there at this research institute that, uh, uh, I went over the states and did my rocket pilgrimage and came back and quit, quit my job and put a sign up on the door and that was the beginning of rocket lab. We'll be right back.

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businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try Odo for free at Odo.com. That's Odo.com. We're back with Peter Beck. So what does it take to actually build a company at that point?

Look like, what is the fundraising process? Look like, how do you convince an investor

“that they're going to get their money back by giving you money to build rockets into space?”

It's less trivial. So we started with a small amount of investment and really bootstrap the company.

And we've launched our first rocket to space, not to all, but just a little rocket to space in

2009. And then following that, I went and visited a lot of folks in the United States who were very enamored with what we had done on such a short time frame. And we ended up bootstraping the company a little bit longer. And we work for Lockheed Martin and DARPA defence agencies. And lots of kind of really advanced technology kind of work. And it wasn't until 2013 where I really felt that I had the credibility and the capability to go and build an orbital class vehicle.

So, you know, I got on a plane and went to Silicon Valley and gave myself three weeks to come home with a check or we ran out of town. And at the end of those three weeks,

we had our first series A round in the bag from coastal ventures.

When you make that pitch to these Silicon Valley investors, I mean, obviously they're trying to figure out how this becomes profitable. What does that pitch look like? Are you kind of describing the need for space equipment today? Or is it more of a pitch about something, you know, hundreds

“of years in the future? Like, what does that pitch at that point actually look like?”

You know, nobody's interested in anything. A hundred years in the future, especially if you're a pinch of capitalist. But no, I mean, I think, where I was able to communicate effectively, the opportunity and the, you know, the scale of that. And also, you know, it was, it was at this time where, you know, small investments were being made into space companies. So, you know, the known at Coastal of Ventures had invested in a company called

Skybox, which, you know, later Google bought for half a billion dollars. So, you know, the Coastal Ventures guys knew the pain of launch because they had to buy an old ICB, ICBM out of Russia and, you know, it was very, very painful to launch. And, you know, it's funny, though, because I look at today and then I look back then and, you know, if our series A round was five million dollars. And that was considered, you know, a lot of money back then for a rocket company.

And then, you know, I saw a rocket company just the other day, raise $200 million on a 2.2 billion dollar valuation and they built nothing. And it's like, wow, this is, this is how times are changed.

But anyway, so we raised that series A and, um, I've, I've always, you know, run a company and,

and, um, pretty straightforward and just do what you say you're going to do and everything's fine. And, um, we did that and we were able to quickly raise a B round and then C round and, and, you know, before you knew it, we had a rocket on the pad and, um, you know, we're an orbit and flying customers in a way we went. You mentioned some of these insane valuations and these series A rounds, 2.2 billion dollar valuation for a company that hasn't actually built anything.

Yeah, it's crazy. Just crazy. But then also you look at the, the, the valuations and the pricing on the companies that actually are building things and the valuations are pretty stunning. The

“multiples are pretty stunning, including on your company. Sure. And one thing that is, I think,”

notable about the space industry is we haven't really seen it be proven as a profitable business yet. So your, your company isn't profitable. It's expected to, I don't say it will be profitable in 2028. Um, but I, I'm interested to know what the price is from a business perspective for a lot of these investors. Because it's clearly that there's something out there. There's some price that's going to be so great. There will warrant these unbelievable valuations that we are seeing. What is

that price and what would this business look like say 10 or 20 years down the month? Yeah, well, I think I think it's a little bit mean to say that space businesses aren't really profitable. I mean, I think you can look back through history and and ensure that there's there's been plenty of bankruptcies as well. But there's also, you know, been plenty of profitability in a number of space businesses, you know, to address the valuation kind of element. And look, I completely agree. There's

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

their electronic class vehicle, at one point we were tracking 142 companies trying to do exactly

“the same thing, 142 companies. And we're the 142 companies. That kind of gives you a sense of just”

how ridiculously difficult it is. I wish it was way easier. That would make my life way easier. But it is, it is insanely difficult. And when we were raising capital for electron, there was, you know, the big, you know, show in town was virgin orbit. And, you know, Richard Branson had

funded that business to the tune of $1.2 billion to do exactly the same thing that, you know,

electron does today. And it wasn't successful. It's not even like if you just pay enough money, you'll be successful. It's, it is like there are so many elements that have to be absolutely perfect and lined up to make a successful launch business in particular, that it's just incredibly rare. And, you know, anything that's rare, you know, attracts a certain value. But, you know, as we think about going forward, yes, the, you know, that the space industry is seeing tremendous

excitement and tremendous growth right now. And, you know, as all of it justified, probably not. But, um, but nevertheless, there is, you know, a huge, huge commercial opportunity. And, my belief is that there's going to be a small handful of companies and these companies are going to be into in companies, meaning that they have their own rocket, they have their own spacecraft, and they're providing services from space. And they'll take out the majority of the price.

Just to, to go back to the profitability point, um, and just so we're clear, I mean, I am a huge fan of space. I, I'm like, I read about science, fictional the time. I'm so excited about it. I want these companies to build these rockets. And I want us to go to Mars and I want us to explore space. I'm like, pro. So I didn't mean to for it to sound mean on the profitability point. No, not at all. My understanding, which I'd like to understand more about is that so far,

it is a business that doesn't make money. So far, so I guess I'd love some clarity on that. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you can go back and look at a bunch of businesses like, you know, digital globe as, as an example, um, you know, that's a, that they're probably the dominating earth observation company in the industry right now. And, um, so I mean, you know, historically there's,

“yes, there's, there's, there's been a number of businesses that have felt, but I think, um, you know,”

there's tremendous number of them have been successful as well. Space is a geopolitical topic in a lot of ways. And I mean, this is how space really ramped up. It became a fight or a race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. I'd be interested to hear the, the, your thoughts on the extent to which that is still a dynamic in the space industry. I mean, now it seems to be kind of like a race against China, China is, of course, ramping up their space program. What do your thoughts

on the U.S. versus China versus any nation to what extent is this kind of a geopolitical race? Well, I mean, spaces the ultimate high ground. So, um, from a, from a national security and defense standpoint, that is the ultimate high ground. So, space superiority means land sea and, you know,

E.S. superiority. So, you know, that is, is always true. So, um, you know, I think what you're referring

to, there is, is like the Apollo program. We're, you know, um, you know, that, that is a, you know,

“an example of, um, of kind of, I think everybody thinks it was, uh, you know, a wonderful, you know,”

philanthropic mission, but it was, it was a Cold War mission to demonstrate, uh, to Russia that the U.S. head absolute supremacy and was very successful in doing that. Um, and, you know, I think, could, uh, could we be up for another moon race with, with China? I think that's, that's highly possible too. Um, but, uh, but I think, you know, make no mistake that, that spaces the ultimate, um, high ground for, for national security. Could you explain more how it is the high ground?

I mean, one thing that I've been starting to hear more about is, you know, whoever gets to the moon and establishes a base on the moon or on Mars, they can sort of claim it and now we're hearing more about sort of space wars. I mean, it seems that this is like really the next frontier in terms of power, conflict. I mean, I'm not so sure about that. I think, okay, um, I think at the end of the

day, um, you know, everybody wants to be first and everybody wants to show supremacy. So, um, you know,

the U.S. has already been to the moon, so job done. Um, and the next logical step for the U.S. is to, is to put, you know, some sustaining prison to moon base on there and, uh, you know,

One of those two things has to be true. So, um, you know, however, whatever way that shapes out, but I, I don't, I'm not sure that there's, you know, there's, there's a whole bunch of, um, uh, you know, flag planting and, and, and property, you know, gaining there to be done. Why do you think that wouldn't happen? Why, why is that something that we shouldn't borrow too much about? It's kind of like nuclear war in the sense that if you miss it all up,

then it's no good for anybody. Um, so, you know, if you're, if you're in low with all, but then start blowing satellites up, then you just create, you know, larger debris fields, and then your own satellites get, get kind of, um, you know, uh, consumed by that debris field. And, and all of your own, uh, industries, it suffers. So, uh, so, you know, it's, I, I very much see it, see it in that sense, and, and, um, so I think, you know, everybody has, is likely to be pretty

responsible there. So, something you mentioned earlier, Peter, is the idea of data centers in space, and this is something that a lot of people have been talking about. Elon Musk has been talking about it a lot. Are you excited about this as an industry? Do you think this is something that'll work? Do you think that this is the next, the next step in terms of the space industry? Yeah, I like, I, I think absolutely space, uh, data centers will exist.

Um, probably not necessarily for the reasons that everybody else thinks, um, but for me, um, you know, from a, from a strategic and national security and defense, um, rationale that makes tremendous sense, um, to eager gaps, something like that, and, and have

“have that as a, you know, as an important asset. So, I think the absolutely will exist, um,”

and now we'll, we'll, we'll all compute leave the earth. I guess I'm, I'm slightly, uh,

less optimistic about that. Um, but, uh, never, never the least, I think, um, you know,

those, some of those strategic assets will absolutely go to orbit. Why are they better in orbit than on earth on the ground? Well, from a national security standpoint, it's an, you know, about the best air gap you can get. Uh, it's pretty hard to take a weather data center in orbit, but that's for sure, uh, rather than an accord, an accord, paddock. What are your most excited about, um, in the space industry right now? And we talked about data centers, but what's the

thing that makes you most excited when you're working every day at this point? Well, for us, it's, it's just, uh, you know, executing on, on our vision and, and kind of growing the company, uh, step by step and, you know, as we said, we were going to do. So, you know, I think, you know, set earlier that the, the most exciting thing to do, be done in spaces yet to have me thought of. And, uh, let's hope we think of it. Um, but, uh, you know, right now for us, it's, it's just

making sure that we have all of those pieces and those elements in place, um, to, you know, to ultimately scale and provide services, uh, from, you know, from, from all what ourselves. It's space exploration, one of those things that motivates you. I mean, this is the thing that motivates me as an observer and as a standard by, I just want us to get to Mars. I want us to,

“achieve interstellar travel. I want us to do all of these things. Is that a big motivator for you?”

Totally. I mean, and we, we generally always have an interplanetary mission or a deep space mission

in the clean room somewhere. Um, you know, we did the capstone mission to the moon and the escapade missions to Mars. Um, you know, we have a lot of our components on the surface of Mars right now. Uh, and, uh, and exploring the solar system. So it's, it's, it's super exciting. And, you know, for me personally, uh, you know, I really love, uh, the interplanetary stuff as well. And, you know, we have our own, you know, private mission to Venus that, uh, that I'm helping fund within the company.

Wow. And, you know, that mission is, you know, unashamedably, uh, going to try and search for life in the clouds of Venus. So, um, yeah, no, I mean, I'm with you. I mean, uh, I think if, if you have the capability to, you know, explore the universe and, and try and unlock some of the secrets of it, um, it's almost your duty to do so. We'll be right back.

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Though without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models. Different teams using AI in completely different ways. Service now turns that chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place. What it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do. So you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit service now.com. We're back with Peter Beck. Let's get your reactions to what Neil

Grass Tyson said in this clip. And what you think is a probability of me getting to another planet in my lifetime? Really? Yeah, you run away. Yes, please. It's just zero. I thought SpaceX gonna get to Mars. I have an unorthodox view on this so you don't have to believe me. But my read of history tells me that we only do big expensive things. If there's a geo-political reason for it, either an economic reason or a defense reason. Not just because it's the next thing

“to do. What do you think? Do you think that we'll eventually get to Mars and not eventually?”

Do you think we'll be able to get to Mars in our lifetime in your lifetime? Do you think that that is possible? Well, it's possible. I mean, technologically, there's no reason for it's not possible. Now, economically or commercially, is it feasible? That's a whole different question. And I think it's we're in just like a crazy, great time and human history. It's like the two richest people on the planet are plowing all of their resources into space exploration. And you know,

I think that's absolutely incredible. And we are incrementing forward within space exploration

at a rate that we haven't seen since the Apollo missions. And it's not by government. It's being funded by folks. So I think they're choosing to spend their winnings in a very noble way in in that sense. So I think it's super exciting time. But my view on kind of interstellar travel for humans is probably differs from from most in the fact that there's flishy watery

“bodies of ours are pretty useless for space travel. So, you know, my view is I think if you want to”

to actually explore the solar system, then, you know, a human on a piece of silicon is probably the best way to do it. So more about that. What does that mean? Are we sending AIs into space? Well, no, I mean, I think, you know, man, this is going to sit the internet off. But I mean, I think the ultimate kind of reduction of the human soul will down to, you know, solid state is what will allow us to travel through the solar system. Because unfortunately, everything in

the solar system is measured in millions of years. A human lifespan is measured, you know, in like years. So those two things just don't work. And even if you could accelerate to something like the speed of light, you know, your body has to sit there and absorb multiple Gs for many,

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

if we could basically download our brains onto a chip and then send those chips out there,

“that's going to be the future of industry travel. That's how we will potentially”

discover life on new planets. Am I understanding that correctly? It's one way to think about it, for sure. And, you know, I'm just being practical about it. I'm not, you know, it's, it's like if you need a few thousand years to get somewhere, then, you know, maybe it's best to do it in a different form. And as, as AI becomes, you know, more and more prolific, you know, I think it, you know, you can stand in front of a, you know, an AI generated, you know, computer person in a screen.

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

“That's what we're here to do. Because I actually agree with you that that is the way, that,”

I mean, that's the only way that it would make sense if we were to achieve any sort of travel. But I'm sure there are also a lot of people who are listening, I think this feels very dystopian, sci-fi, scary. I don't like this idea, why are we turning ourselves into robots? Do you ever think about that at the same time? I don't really think about that too much. No, you know, to be honest with you, you know, I, like I say, I'm just been very practical about it.

And, you know, I'm just an engineer solving engineering problems and, you know, the way to solve that that problem is just not have the ball of water. I got the sense that this is something that really drives you that we need to get out there and we need to understand what is actually happening in the universe. Like, it's just crazy how little we know about it. I could also imagine that from your position, it's probably kind of frustrating, I mean, something frustrating for me,

that we're moving, it feels as though we're moving, not slowly, but we're never going to

“know the answers to these questions. Oh my god, you need to cheer up, I bet it.”

This is a, this is, this is a bit grim. No, I'm super excited. I mean, so I have Venus mission, for example, you know, if, if we could, like, within the clouds of Venus, there's there's a, you know, predicted to the fosving gas and fosving gas, we only know currently we only know it's, you know, it's created by some, you know, symbiosis of life. So, our Venus mission is to go to the clouds of Venus and, and basically we've got a, and the, in the, in the, in the space craft and it, think of it as

a, a green light red light for life. Now, imagine if we could go there and get a green light for life in the clouds of Venus. Then I think, you know, that, that is, that is such a massive question to answer for, you know, for, for us and as a species in, in the universe, it's like, okay, we're not the only life in the universe. Because right now, I mean, we have no scientific evidence to prove that we are not the only life in the entire universe. And now, I think that's

unlikely, but nevertheless, that is the scientific fact. So, imagine, you know, in our lifetime, I think we will prove, whether it's rock-a-label, somebody else will prove that there is life outside Earth. And, uh, whether there has been in the past or there is now. And I think that's

and that is like one of the largest and most important questions we can ask and answer as, as,

as a human species is like, are we unique or are we not? And if we're unique, then I think we better, we better, you know, better pull our resources and think about it a little bit harder. And, you know, if we're not unique, then then then it's equally as fascinating. So, you know, I think, um, you know, I think, I think these, these are super exciting and super important questions to answer. And I, I honestly believe that will be answered in my lifetime for sure.

Really? You think that we'll, we'll know the answer to aliens that I like in our lifetime? Well, I mean, aliens, but, you know, life, are we the only, are we, is life unique? I mean, right now, sitting on the surface of Mars, are a whole bunch of drilled samples from the rovers that are highly likely to contain, you know, examples of ancient life. We just need to go and get them and bring them back. So, no, I think I think this is, um, this is, this is going to

if it's exponential, then it seems that there's higher higher probability that we'll know the answers these questions as someone who's sort of building on the frontier, like how fast is the pace of progress that we're seeing in the space industry right now? Crazy fast. Crazy fast. Yeah, no, it's, it is, you know, the flywheel is spinning. And is that because of the amount of money that is being invested into the industry, like what, what, what sort of changed for the industry? It's kind of a combination

of so many things, right? It's, it's, uh, yes, like capital, uh, allocation is super important to do anything. But also, um, you know, you can't, uh, capital allocation doesn't come if there isn't results as you pointed out before. And, uh, it doesn't, it doesn't come if, if there isn't execution. And, um, you know, there's, there's at least a few of us in the industry that are, that are,

“are driving those two metrics well. And, um, you know, I think, I think as long as those two things,”

you know, continue to, continue to occur, then everything will snowball. And let's not forget, like, you know, the access to, uh, access to compute. And, um, uh, all of those things that, what, you know, that were typically a nation's state, um, you know, had access to, uh, now commercial companies or even people at home have access to. Um, so, you know, I think there's been a democratization of the tools, um, as well, um, as the industry.

Something that was also seemed like a big moment for this space industry was the awesome, as to mission, which splash downs excessively, April 10th. Um, to what extent does like popular understanding of space drive progress? Like to what extent did that matter for a company like yours? The fact that everyone was seemingly watching this space related event at the same time. Does that matter for you guys? Of course. Of course. I mean, um, you know, if people are excited

and interested in space, um, then now they can own a piece of it. So, uh, of course it's important.

“And, um, I know, and I think, look, it's, it's, it's a natural human thing to want to explore.”

I mean, we, we, we are explorers as a species, right? Like we, the first thing we did is, you know,

get on design, develop and build boats and, and went, went off. And we're doing the same with spacecraft. So, um, and I, and I think people have a natural curiosity and, and it's just so cool as well. Like, I mean, going and orbiting the moon and, you know, the challenges and, uh, the, the, the, the resources that takes is just, it's just super impressive and super cool. And that's the one thing about, you know, the space industry is, um, you know, although it might be companies or countries doing

stuff like, as, as humans, we can all share in the success. I mean, you can go to anywhere in the world and, you know, ask everybody and, and they'll say, we went and we landed on the moon. It's not, you know, buzz and Neil went to the moon. It's, it's a collective human, we went to the moon.

“Art, we amazing. So, and I think, I think that's the thing that space can do is, is, you know,”

when you do these amazing feats, it's, it's, um, it, you know, it's a whole human, uh, engagement.

What would you say is the biggest misconception about the space industry right now, something everyone believes, but that you leave isn't quite right or quite accurate? Well, I mean, so the great thing, and the bad thing about the space industry, the great thing about the space industry is, uh, someone can, can stand up and make the most absurd claims, um, and, uh, because it's so difficult to understand and so difficult to, kind of, cross-reference and

check, um, everybody just applause and this is great. That has a great outcome and also, you know, a negative outcome. The great outcome is of course, as you have huge excitement and ambition and, and all the rest of it, and the downside is that, um, you know, you have seen a lot of capital allocated to projects that just made no sense, um, and, uh, you know, maybe, you know, they learn something along the way, but, um, you know, uh, that, that, that, that the one thing that frustrates

me sometimes is, is you'll see, uh, you know, companies, uh, you know, promote the most absurd thing, uh, raise a whole bunch of money and then, um, die. Uh, and, you know, maybe, maybe that's niche national revolution of something new, but, um, but that is, that is both the exciting and great thing about the space industry, but also, you know, the challenges that, that it's so difficult to understand and really, really, um, you know, diligence that, uh, you can, you know,

a lot of folks who have got away with saying some pretty dumb stuff and, um, and, um,

have not been able to execute against it. What would you say is the most important problem

that needs to be solved now for the space industry if we want to continue progressing, continue

type that we need to solve. They're kind of cop-out answer to that as launch, um, because, you know, launcher is, is the access to space if you don't have launch, everything else is irrelevant. Um,

“but, you know, honestly, you know, between us and others, uh, launchers is becoming well, well,”

well, kind of under control. But, um, I would say more generally, it's scale. So, um, you know,

when we, when we started and when we, you know, went to go and build our first satellite,

we thought, "Okay, we'll go and, uh, we'll go and buy some reaction wheels." And we went and bought some, tried to buy some reaction wheels, and it was, was like nine months weight. And I think I got nine months to wait for reaction wheels nuts. Um, and, um, and, you know, we, we look around and there's just nobody makes any reaction wheels at scale. So, you know, that, that started really after our vertical integration, um, strategy and, and we ended up buying

the best reaction wheel company and these to make a 150 reaction wheels a year. Um, we make thousands of a quarter now. So, um, so, you know, the space industry is really defined by, you know,

a bunch of man-pass shops who build the most exquisite and amazing hardware, but all at subscale.

And when you turn up and say, "I want a hundred of these," you just watch their heads explode in real time. So, um, you know, that's the, the one thing that we've really focused on is, is trying to bring scale to the industry. And, you know, with a larger space-grade solar cell manufacturers in the world now. And, and, you know, same with, with small launch and, and a bunch of components, where if the largest, if not one of the largest, you know,

“scale providers in the world. And, you know, that, that's what's required because, um,”

you know, if, if someone turns up and wants to build a constellation of a few thousand spacecraft,

then if, unless you have those, those scaled kind of industries behind it, then nobody can get it done.

I'm sure there are people who are listening to this podcast who are interested in space and certainly a lot of young people who might want to work in the space industry, start a career, maybe even start a company in the space industry. What would be your advice to those people who are interested in this industry, but probably don't really know how to start. Congratulations, because you're in the most exciting time in the space industry right now.

I mean, I, when I was growing up, I just used to think it totally sucked that I wasn't bought born in the Apollo era, because I believed that the Apollo era was like the heyday of all space. And, certainly, it's a great time, but I would argue that right now is, is way more exciting. I mean, look, you're talking to a guy who was born at the very bottom of the South Island of New Zealand and the middle of nowhere running a, you know, a giant space company. So, you know,

“if that's possible, anything's possible. And, you know, if, if, if you want to work in the space”

industry, rock and lab careers.com, please. But, but, you know, there's infinite opportunities for you. And, uh, likewise, to, to do a start-up. And if you're going to do a start-up, um, my advice there is, don't get wound up in building cool tech. Um, so many space companies, uh, get enamored with the technology and then try and find a market for it. It's like, no, go and find a big problem within the space industry that everybody's striking around and go and solve that problem.

Please look back, as the founder of President and Chief Executive Officer of Rocket Labs, since founding the company in 2006, he has transformed it into a global leader in developing and launching advanced rockets, satellites and spacecraft. He has served on rocket labs board of directors and as it's president and CEO since July 2013, he was appointed chairman of the board in May 2021. Peter really appreciated your time. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ed. Great.

This episode was produced by Alison Weiss and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our research associates are Dashlon and Christina Donahue, and our senior producer is Claire Miller. Thank you for listening to the Prof. Markets Founders series. We'll see you next month with another Founders story. AI is moving fast across the enterprise. Without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. Service now turns that

chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place, what it's doing, what it's done, and what it's about to do. So you stay in control. To put To put AI to work for people, visit servicenav.com.