Bringing Back Supersonic Planes | Ian Brooke, Astro Mechanica

Summary

Ian Brooke, founder and CEO of Astro Mechanica, discusses his vision for enabling low-cost long-range supersonic flight. Unlike the Concorde which failed due to high operating costs, Astro Mechanica is taking a fundamentally different approach - starting with the private jet market where pricing is already astronomical, and building every component from engines to airframes to operations in-house.

The conversation explores why private jet travel is “insanely expensive” (a Gulfstream flight from San Francisco to Paris costs at least $200,000 one way), and how Astro Mechanica aims to bring that cost down to under $10,000 for the whole jet - roughly $2 per nautical mile. Ian shares his philosophy of “front-loading work” to design things well, the importance of staying in contact with reality by shipping products, and his approach to thinking in shapes rather than math formulas when designing engines. The interview covers his journey from building and flying planes as a hobbyist to founding Astro Mechanica, his views on piston vs turbine engines, and the company’s roadmap starting with niche government applications before expanding to civil aviation.

Highlights

”Private jet travel costs $200,000 one way - most people have no idea”

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“I don’t think people get just how insanely expensive private jet travel is. The cheapest whole aircraft that you can get for one of those trips is on the order of at least $200,000. Almost a quarter million - one way. The aircraft I’m making is less than $10,000 for the whole jet.” — Ian Brooke, 0:11

”It’s easier to make flight cheaper if you control every part of the equation”

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“It is easier to solve the problem of making flight cheaper if you have control over every part of that equation. It’s more expensive to be integrated, but if your whole value proposition is that it’s going to be cheaper to fly, you need to control every element. So we’re building the engines, designing the airframes, and we’ll eventually operate.” — Ian Brooke, 1:21

”You can’t go straight for the airliner - margins are too thin”

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“My strategy on this is you just can’t go straight for the airliner. The airliner market has extremely thin margins. Airlines are barely profitable on a good day. So if you’re trying to introduce new technology with all the development costs, you can’t compete on price with existing airliners. But the private jet market is completely different.” — Ian Brooke, 3:07

”The physics of supersonic flight actually favor smaller aircraft”

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“The key insight is that the physics of supersonic flight actually favor smaller aircraft in some ways. The wave drag that makes supersonic flight inefficient scales with the cross-sectional area. So a smaller, more slender aircraft can be relatively more efficient.” — Ian Brooke, 7:10

”We’re trying to fundamentally change the economics of fast travel”

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“We’re not just trying to make a slightly better version of what exists. We’re trying to fundamentally change the economics of fast travel. Getting to that cost point requires building everything in-house, optimizing every part of the system, and operating at scale.” — Ian Brooke, 10:58

”Mistakes in aviation can be fatal - so you have to think through failure modes first”

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“The thing about aviation is that mistakes can be fatal. So there’s a strong incentive to do things right the first time. You can’t just ship a minimum viable product when crashes are the feedback mechanism. That forces a certain discipline.” — Ian Brooke, 13:18

Key Points

• Creating Long-Range Supersonic Planes (0:31) - Astro Mechanica is enabling low-cost long-range supersonic flight. The one-liner: we’re making supersonic flight affordable.

• Private Jets vs Airliners (3:07) - Strategy is to not go straight for airliners. Starting with private jet market where pricing is already extremely high.

• Why Private Jets Are Insanely Expensive (8:26) - The cheapest whole aircraft charter for SF to Paris is at least $200,000, almost a quarter million one way. Most people have no idea how expensive it is.

• The $10,000 Jet (0:22) - “The aircraft I’m making is less than $10,000 for the whole jet” - roughly $2 per nautical mile, making SF to Paris about $2,000 per person.

• Building Great Products That Last Forever (11:30) - Philosophy of designing things to be genuinely good and durable, not planned obsolescence.

• Front Loading Work To Design Things Well (20:39) - Spending more time upfront thinking through design to avoid problems later. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

• Making Contact With Reality (30:42) - The importance of shipping products to stay grounded. Simulation and theory only take you so far - you need to build and test real hardware.

• Following Your Intuition (43:32) - Trusting gut instincts when making technical and business decisions, especially when data is limited.

• Thinking In Shapes (48:38) - Ian’s approach to engineering: visualizing flow fields and shapes rather than relying on equations. Intuitive understanding of physics.

• Expressing Yourself Through Building Things (53:54) - Building planes and engines as a form of creative expression and self-actualization.

• Starting With A Vague Idea (58:56) - Beginning with a rough vision and sharpening it over time through iteration and feedback.

• Trying To Tell A Story vs Just Building (1:03:16) - The tension between narrative/fundraising and actually building. Preference for building over storytelling.

• Seed & Soil - Emmett Shear (1:17:44) - Referencing Emmett Shear’s framework about finding the right environment for your ideas to grow.

• Doing Things That Bring You Joy & Energy (1:27:57) - Following what energizes you rather than what seems strategically optimal.

• Keeping Product Vision In Your Head (1:32:35) - The importance of maintaining a clear mental model of the product you’re building.

Mentions

Companies

• Astro Mechanica (0:27) - Ian’s company enabling low-cost supersonic flight
• Concorde (0:00) - The supersonic airliner that failed due to economics
• NetJets (1:03) - Private jet company mentioned as a model
• SpaceX (tag reference) - Reference point for hardware iteration
• Tesla (tag reference) - Reference point for vertically integrated hardware company
• Gulfstream (8:26) - Private jet manufacturer, example of expensive aircraft

Products & Technologies

• Supersonic Aircraft (0:31) - Planes that fly faster than the speed of sound
• Turbine Engines (30:42) - Jet engines discussed in comparison to piston engines
• Piston Engines (30:42) - Traditional aircraft engines, discussed as alternative approach

People

• Ian Brooke (0:27) - Founder and CEO of Astro Mechanica
• Emmett Shear (1:17:44) - Referenced for “Seed & Soil” framework (former Twitch CEO)

Surprising Quotes

“Do you want to talk about the economics of Concord and why it just didn’t make sense at all? You need to drive down operating costs. That’s really difficult when you’re not flying that much and there’s not that many of the airplanes.” — 0:00

“I don’t think people get just how insanely expensive private jet travel is. The cheapest whole aircraft that you can get for one of those trips is on the order of at least $200,000. Almost a quarter million - one way.” — 0:13

“The aircraft I’m making is less than $10,000 for the whole jet.” — 0:22

“It is easier to solve the problem of making flight cheaper if you have control over every part of that equation.” — 1:28

“Far too often for people to know us, they think we’re an engine company. That is a part of what we’re doing. But the main thing is my background - I build and fly planes. The point of the company is travel ultimately.” — 0:40

Transcript

0:00 Do you want to talk about the economics of Concord and why it just didn’t make sense at all? You need to drive down operating costs. That’s really difficult when you’re not flying that much and there’s not that many of the airplanes. My strategy on this is like you just can’t go straight for the airliner.

0:11 I don’t think people get just how insanely expensive private jet travel is. The cheapest whole aircraft that you can get for one of those trips is on the order of at least $200,000. Almost a quarter million - one way.

0:22 The aircraft I’m making is less than $10,000 for the whole jet.

0:27 Today I have the pleasure of sitting down with Ian Brooke, the founder and CEO of Astro Mechanica. Ian, do you want to just start off by explaining what you guys are actually doing and what the difference is between this and Concord?

0:40 Yes, thank you. Far too often for people to know us, they think we’re an engine company. That is a part of what we’re doing. But the main thing is my background - I build and fly planes. The point of the company is travel ultimately. To do that, we have to do everything up to that. So that’s the engines, that’s the airframes, that’s operations.

1:03 So the one-liner on this I could say is we’re enabling low-cost long-range supersonic flight. This is the very simple one.

1:08 I know that for the engines themselves that might be one very difficult challenge, but then there’s the entire like building a new aircraft company and basically creating the next NetJets sort of situation. What is that going to be like?

1:21 The whole problem is extremely - like obviously it’s all very complicated. It’s very difficult, but it actually gets even more so if you can only adjust one piece of it. So I would actually argue it is easier to solve the problem of making flight cheaper if you have control over every part of that equation.

1:45 Now it’s certainly more expensive to be more integrated in that way and I think that’s why you see a lot of companies that will just do the engine or just do the airframe or will just operate. But that means someone else determines the cost of operating the plane. Someone else determines what the fuel efficiency is.

2:10 And if your whole value proposition is that it’s going to be cheaper to fly this thing, you need to be able to control every element of that equation. And so that’s what we’re doing. We’re building the engines, we’re designing the airframes, and we’ll eventually operate.

2:28 The Concorde was an amazing technological achievement, but it failed economically. It was just too expensive to operate. And a big part of that was the engines were incredibly thirsty. They used an afterburner just to get to supersonic cruise, which is incredibly inefficient.

2:48 And there weren’t that many of the airplanes, so the fixed costs per flight were very high. If you only have 20 planes and you have all this infrastructure to support them, each flight has to bear a huge share of that cost.

3:07 My strategy on this is you just can’t go straight for the airliner. The airliner market has extremely thin margins. Airlines are barely profitable on a good day. So if you’re trying to introduce new technology with all the development costs that entails, you can’t compete on price with existing airliners.

3:30 But the private jet market is completely different. The margins there are enormous because people are paying for convenience and time savings, not just transportation. So that’s where we’re starting.

3:48 If you can offer supersonic travel at a price that’s competitive with or even lower than current private jet prices, you have a real business. And then once you’ve proven the technology and built up the manufacturing base, you can start moving down market toward commercial aviation.

4:10 It’s the classic disruption playbook - start at the top of the market where margins are high and customers are less price sensitive, then work your way down as you drive costs down through scale and learning.

4:28 The other thing about starting with private jets is that the regulatory path is actually much simpler. Getting a new airliner certified is an incredibly expensive and time-consuming process. But for smaller aircraft, especially in certain categories, the certification requirements are much more manageable.

4:52 So we can get to market faster, start generating revenue faster, and learn from real-world operations faster. All of which feeds back into making the technology better and cheaper.

5:12 The supersonic ban over land is another consideration. Right now you can’t fly supersonic over the continental US because of noise regulations. But over water there’s no restriction. So for transoceanic routes - which is where most long-haul private jet travel happens anyway - supersonic is already allowed.

5:38 And there’s a lot of work being done on low-boom supersonic technology that could eventually allow overland supersonic flight. But we don’t need to wait for that. There’s a huge market just in transoceanic routes.

6:00 Think about it - if you’re a CEO flying from New York to London or from San Francisco to Tokyo, you’re looking at 7 to 12 hours in a plane. Cut that in half and you’ve created enormous value. Not just in time saved, but in reduced jet lag, ability to do same-day round trips, all kinds of things.

6:28 That’s why the original Concorde was popular despite being expensive. The value proposition of time savings was real. The problem was just the economics at the scale they were operating.

6:48 We’re approaching this differently. We’re not trying to build a 100-seat airliner. We’re building a much smaller aircraft, more like a private jet size. That means lower development costs, faster iteration, and a market that can support the economics.

7:10 The key insight is that the physics of supersonic flight actually favor smaller aircraft in some ways. The wave drag that makes supersonic flight inefficient scales with the cross-sectional area of the aircraft. So a smaller, more slender aircraft can be relatively more efficient.

7:35 And with modern materials and engine technology, we can do things that weren’t possible when Concorde was designed. We have access to better composites, better computational tools for design, and better understanding of aerodynamics.

8:00 So while we’re not doing anything that violates physics, we are doing things that weren’t practical 50 years ago. And that opens up a design space that wasn’t available before.

8:26 I don’t think people get just how insanely expensive private jet travel is. Like, most people have no concept of what it actually costs. Let me give you a concrete example.

8:42 If you want to charter a Gulfstream to fly from San Francisco to Paris, the cheapest you’re going to find is on the order of $200,000. That’s one way. Almost a quarter million dollars for a single flight.

9:05 And that’s for the whole aircraft. If you’re sharing it with other passengers, it’s still insanely expensive per person. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars for what would be maybe a thousand dollar first class ticket on a commercial airline.

9:28 Now, the value proposition for private jets isn’t about the cost per mile. It’s about flexibility, privacy, convenience, time savings from not going through commercial airports. All of that has real value to certain customers.

9:50 But it means there’s enormous room to compete on price while still capturing that value. If I can offer the same convenience at a fraction of the price, that’s a compelling proposition.

10:12 The aircraft I’m making is less than $10,000 for the whole jet on that same route. That’s roughly $2 per nautical mile. Compare that to $50 or $100 per nautical mile for current private jets.

10:35 Even if you split the cost among passengers, you’re looking at maybe $2,000 per person for San Francisco to Paris. That’s competitive with first class commercial, but supersonic and with all the private jet benefits.

10:58 Now, getting to that cost point requires building everything in-house, optimizing every part of the system, and operating at scale. It’s not easy. But it’s achievable with the right approach.

11:20 And that’s what excites me about this. We’re not just trying to make a slightly better version of what exists. We’re trying to fundamentally change the economics of fast travel.

11:30 I believe in building great products that last forever. Not in the planned obsolescence sense, but in the sense of designing something that’s genuinely well made and durable.

11:48 Too much of modern engineering is about hitting a spec just barely and moving on. But the best products come from people who actually care about the craft, who aren’t satisfied with “good enough.”

12:10 When I look at old aircraft engines, some of them from the 1930s or 40s, there’s a beauty to them. They were designed by people who understood the physics deeply and who cared about doing it right.

12:32 Modern engineering sometimes loses that. We rely so much on simulation and calculation that we forget to think about what we’re actually building. We optimize for metrics without understanding what those metrics represent.

12:55 I try to bring both perspectives - the quantitative rigor of modern engineering and the intuitive understanding of traditional craftsmanship. You need both to build something truly great.

13:18 The thing about aviation is that mistakes can be fatal. So there’s a strong incentive to do things right the first time. You can’t just ship a minimum viable product and iterate based on customer feedback when crashes are the feedback mechanism.

13:42 That forces a certain discipline. You have to think through the failure modes before you build. You have to understand the physics deeply before you fly. And that discipline, while sometimes frustrating, ultimately leads to better products.

14:05 I think there’s a lesson there for all of engineering, even in fields where failure isn’t fatal. Taking the time to understand deeply and design carefully usually pays off, even if it seems slower in the short term.

14:28 The companies that build things that last are the ones that invest in understanding. They’re not just checking boxes on a requirements document. They’re actually thinking about what they’re building and why.

14:50 And when you do that, you often find better solutions. The requirements document might say “achieve X efficiency” but if you understand what you’re actually trying to accomplish, you might find a different approach that’s better overall.

15:12 That’s what I mean by building great products. It’s not just about meeting specs. It’s about understanding the problem deeply enough to find solutions that wouldn’t be obvious from the spec alone.

15:35 My background is actually in building and flying planes as a hobbyist. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. There’s something incredibly satisfying about taking raw materials and turning them into a machine that can actually fly.

15:58 And when you build your own aircraft, you learn things you’d never learn from a textbook. You understand why certain design choices are made. You feel the tradeoffs in your hands as you’re building.

16:20 That hands-on experience is invaluable. It gives you intuition that no amount of simulation can provide. When I’m designing something now, I can feel what the right answer is because I’ve built so many things before.

16:42 I’m not saying you shouldn’t use simulation and analysis. Of course you should. But those tools are most powerful when combined with physical intuition built from experience.

17:05 The best engineers I know have that combination. They can do the math, but they also know when the math is giving them a wrong answer because their intuition says something’s off.

17:28 And that intuition only comes from building things. From making mistakes and understanding why they were mistakes. From seeing designs succeed and fail in the real world.

17:50 I think this is something the aerospace industry has partly lost. Too many aerospace engineers have never actually built anything with their hands. They go from school to simulation to management without ever getting the physical intuition.

18:12 At Astro Mechanica, we try to maintain that connection to the physical world. We build things, we test things, we break things. That feedback loop is essential to making progress.

18:35 And it’s not just about engineering. It’s about the culture of the company. When everyone has experience building, there’s a shared understanding that makes communication easier and decisions better.

18:58 You don’t have arguments about whether something is feasible because everyone has enough hands-on experience to know what’s realistic. The debates are about what’s optimal, not what’s possible.

19:20 That’s the kind of team you need to build something ambitious. People who understand the physical reality of what you’re trying to do, not just the abstract specifications.

19:42 Engines are fascinating because they’re where so much of the performance comes from. In aviation, the engine is often 50% or more of the total system performance. Get the engine right and everything else becomes easier.

20:05 Get the engine wrong and no amount of clever airframe design can save you. That’s why I spend so much time on engines. They’re the heart of the aircraft.

20:28 And the exciting thing about engines is that there’s still so much room for improvement. The basic principles haven’t changed, but our ability to execute on those principles keeps getting better.

20:39 I’m a big believer in front-loading work. Spending more time upfront thinking through the design to avoid problems later. It’s the “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” philosophy.

21:00 In engineering, this means really thinking through the failure modes before you build. Understanding not just the nominal design point, but all the off-design conditions where things might go wrong.

21:22 It’s tempting to just start building and figure it out as you go. And sometimes that’s the right approach, especially for simple things or when you’re exploring. But for complex systems, front-loading pays off.

21:45 The cost of fixing a problem in design is 10x less than fixing it in prototype, which is 10x less than fixing it in production. So every problem you can catch in design saves enormous effort later.

22:08 This doesn’t mean analysis paralysis. You still have to make decisions with incomplete information. But it means being thoughtful about where to invest analysis effort, focusing on the things that matter most.

22:30 The key is knowing what you don’t know. Being explicit about the uncertainties and designing in enough margin to handle them. That’s different from just winging it and hoping for the best.

22:52 I’ve seen projects fail because they moved too fast without understanding. And I’ve seen projects fail because they analyzed forever and never built anything. The skill is finding the right balance.

23:15 For us at Astro Mechanica, that balance involves a lot of rapid prototyping but with careful analysis of the things that really matter. We build fast, but we think even faster.

23:38 And we document our thinking. Not bureaucratic documentation, but real capture of the design rationale. Why did we make this choice? What were the alternatives? What assumptions are we making?

24:00 That documentation becomes invaluable later when you’re debugging a problem or trying to understand why something works the way it does. It’s an investment in your future self’s understanding.

24:22 I think about maintenance from the beginning of design. Not as an afterthought, but as a primary design consideration. If something is hard to maintain, it will be expensive to operate and will eventually cause problems.

24:45 This is something a lot of aerospace companies get wrong. They optimize for performance and cost at manufacture, but ignore the operational reality. And then they wonder why customers complain about maintenance costs.

25:08 Good design makes the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. If you design for maintenance, the mechanics who have to work on your aircraft will do a better job because the design supports them.

25:30 Bad design fights against maintenance. Parts that should be accessible are buried. Fasteners that need regular inspection are in impossible locations. And over time, those small problems accumulate into big ones.

25:52 Since we’re going to operate these aircraft ourselves, we have a strong incentive to design for maintainability. We’ll be living with our own design choices every day.

26:15 That’s one advantage of vertical integration. When you design, build, and operate the same system, you can’t hide from your own mistakes. The feedback loop is direct and unavoidable.

26:38 And that drives better design. You think about all the phases of the lifecycle, not just the initial sale. You design for the whole system, not just the part you’re responsible for.

27:00 The debate between piston and turbine engines is interesting. Conventional wisdom says turbines are always better for aircraft because of their power-to-weight ratio. But that’s not the whole story.

27:22 Piston engines have some real advantages. They’re more efficient at lower speeds and altitudes. They can run on a wider variety of fuels. They’re mechanically simpler in some ways. And they can be very reliable.

27:45 The reason turbines dominate aviation is mostly about scale. For large aircraft at high speeds, turbines are clearly better. But as you scale down, the advantage becomes less clear.

28:08 And there are applications where piston engines make sense even today. Most general aviation is still piston-powered. Some military drones use piston engines. It’s about matching the engine to the application.

28:30 For supersonic flight, turbines are the clear choice for now. But I keep an open mind. The best solution depends on the specific requirements, and those requirements might change.

28:52 What I care about is understanding the physics deeply enough to make good choices. Not just following conventional wisdom because that’s what everyone else does.

29:15 Sometimes the conventional wisdom is right. But sometimes it’s based on assumptions that no longer hold or that don’t apply to your specific situation. The skill is knowing the difference.

29:38 And that requires understanding from first principles. Not just knowing what works, but knowing why it works. When you understand why, you can reason about what will work in new situations.

30:00 That first principles thinking is what lets you innovate. If you only know the rules without understanding the physics behind them, you can only apply the rules. You can’t improve them.

30:22 But when you understand the physics, you can see where the rules are leaving performance on the table. You can find the opportunities that others miss because they’re not looking deeply enough.

30:42 Making contact with reality is essential. You have to ship products. Simulation and theory only take you so far. Eventually you have to build something and see if it actually works.

31:05 This is something that I think a lot of aerospace startups get wrong. They stay in the simulation phase too long because it feels safer. But simulation can only validate your assumptions. Testing validates reality.

31:28 And reality always has surprises. No matter how good your simulation is, there will be things you didn’t model correctly. The only way to find those is to build and test.

31:50 At Astro Mechanica, we bias toward testing. When in doubt, build it and see what happens. That’s how you learn fast and make real progress.

32:12 Of course, you can’t test everything. Some things are too expensive or too dangerous to test without more analysis first. That’s where the judgment comes in - knowing when to analyze more and when to just build.

32:35 But the bias should be toward action. It’s easy to convince yourself you need more analysis when really you’re just procrastinating. The hard thing is to build something imperfect and learn from it.

32:58 That’s especially true for startups. Time is your most limited resource. Every month you spend in analysis is a month you’re not learning from reality. And reality is the best teacher.

33:20 I’ve seen startups that had beautiful simulations and models, everything looked perfect on paper. But when they finally built something, it didn’t work, and they didn’t have time or money left to iterate.

33:42 Better to build something crude early, learn from it, and iterate. You’ll end up with a better product because you’ll have more cycles of learning from reality.

34:05 That’s the SpaceX approach, right? Build fast, test fast, fail fast, learn fast. It works because you’re getting feedback from reality instead of just from your models.

34:28 Now, that doesn’t mean being reckless. You still need to think about what you’re doing. But thinking should be in service of building, not a substitute for it.

34:50 And when you’re building hardware, there’s something about physically making things that clarifies your thinking. You notice problems that weren’t obvious in the design. You understand the system in a deeper way.

35:12 That’s why I insist on hands-on experience for everyone at Astro Mechanica. Even people who primarily do design need to spend time in the shop. It makes their designs better.

35:35 And it builds empathy. When you’ve struggled to assemble something with your own hands, you design it differently. You think about the poor person who has to build it.

35:58 That empathy shows up in the final product. It’s easier to build, easier to maintain, easier to repair. All because the designers understood what manufacturing and maintenance actually involve.

36:20 Our roadmap starts with niche applications before expanding to broader markets. That’s how you build capability while managing risk.

36:42 The first applications will probably be government contracts - things like reconnaissance or rapid response where speed really matters and cost sensitivity is lower.

37:05 Those applications let us prove the technology, build flight hours, and generate revenue while we’re developing the commercial product. It’s a way to de-risk the business.

37:28 Then we can move into the private jet market, which is where the real volume is. And eventually, maybe, commercial aviation. But that’s further out.

37:50 I’m not trying to build a company that stays in the government contract space forever. The goal is always commercial aviation. But you have to walk before you can run.

38:12 And the government work isn’t just about money. It’s about learning. When you’re building for demanding government customers, you learn a lot about reliability and performance.

38:35 Those lessons transfer to commercial applications. The technologies we develop for government use become the foundation for commercial products.

38:58 It’s a proven pattern. A lot of today’s commercial aviation technology started in military applications. That’s where the funding was to develop it initially.

39:20 The challenge is not getting stuck in that mode. Some companies get comfortable with government work and never make the transition to commercial. That’s not what I want.

39:42 I want to build things that lots of people use. Government work is a means to an end, not the end itself. The vision is always about making travel faster and cheaper for everyone.

40:05 That vision is what keeps us focused. Every decision we make should move us toward that goal. If government work helps, great. If it becomes a distraction, we need to be willing to walk away.

40:28 Staying in contact with reality also means being honest about where we are. Not overselling our progress to investors or customers. Building credibility through delivery, not just promises.

40:50 In aerospace, credibility is everything. The industry has seen too many companies that overpromised and underdelivered. The ones that succeed are the ones that consistently do what they say they’ll do.

41:12 That means being conservative in commitments and aggressive in execution. Promise less than you think you can do, then do more. That builds trust over time.

41:35 I’d rather be known as the company that always delivers than the company with the most impressive presentations. In the long run, delivery is what matters.

41:58 And when things go wrong - which they always do - honesty is the best policy. Customers and investors appreciate being told the truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable.

42:20 Trying to hide problems always makes them worse. Better to surface them early when they’re still small and solvable. That’s part of staying in contact with reality.

42:42 The same goes for internal communication. No one at Astro Mechanica should be afraid to raise problems. Bad news should travel fast. That’s how you avoid small problems becoming big ones.

43:05 Creating that culture is one of my most important jobs as CEO. The technical work is important, but the culture determines whether we can execute on the technical work.

43:32 Following your intuition is important, especially when data is limited. In early-stage work, you often don’t have enough data to make fully rational decisions. You have to go with your gut.

43:55 That doesn’t mean ignoring data when it exists. It means recognizing that intuition is itself a form of data - it’s the accumulated experience from everything you’ve learned.

44:18 The best decisions come from combining intuition and analysis. Use analysis where you can, but don’t be paralyzed when analysis isn’t possible. Trust your trained intuition.

44:40 The key word there is “trained.” Random intuition isn’t valuable. But intuition that comes from years of experience, from building things and seeing what works - that’s worth a lot.

45:02 I’ve been building aircraft and engines for decades. My intuition about what will work is pretty good because it’s backed by all that experience. I can look at a design and often tell if it will work.

45:25 That’s not magic. It’s pattern recognition. I’ve seen so many designs succeed and fail that my brain has learned the patterns, even if I can’t always articulate them explicitly.

45:48 But I also try to stay humble about my intuition. It’s right most of the time, but not always. When intuition and data conflict, you have to look hard at both.

46:10 Sometimes the data is wrong or incomplete. Sometimes my intuition is based on assumptions that don’t apply. The skill is figuring out which one to trust in each situation.

46:32 And when you’re really not sure, default to testing. Build it and see. Reality will tell you whether your intuition or your analysis was right.

46:55 That loop - intuition, analysis, test, learn - is how you develop better intuition over time. Each cycle makes your pattern recognition more accurate.

47:18 And that’s why hands-on experience is so important. You can’t develop good intuition from reading papers or running simulations. You need the feedback from building real things.

47:40 That’s something I look for when hiring. Has this person built things? Do they have intuition from experience, or just knowledge from books? Both are valuable, but experience is rarer.

48:02 The best team has a mix - some people with deep theoretical knowledge, some with lots of practical experience. They complement each other and cover each other’s blind spots.

48:25 Building that team is one of the most important things I do. Getting the right people together, with the right mix of skills and approaches, is what makes everything else possible.

48:38 I think in shapes rather than equations. When I’m designing an engine or an airframe, I visualize the flow fields, the forces, the thermal gradients. I see shapes, not numbers.

49:00 That’s a different way of thinking from most engineers, who think in equations first. But for me, the shapes come first and the equations are just a way to check the shapes.

49:22 The advantage of shape-based thinking is that it’s more intuitive. You can quickly explore design spaces, see relationships that aren’t obvious in the math, understand what’s physically happening.

49:45 The disadvantage is that it’s harder to communicate. You can show someone an equation and they can check your work. Showing someone a shape in your head is harder.

50:08 So I’ve learned to translate between the two. I do the creative exploration in shapes, then I translate to equations to verify and communicate. Both representations are useful.

50:30 I think this visual/spatial way of thinking is more common among people who build things. When you’ve physically made things with your hands, you develop an intuition for shape and form.

50:52 And it transfers to abstract engineering problems. Even when you’re thinking about fluid dynamics or heat transfer, you can visualize what’s happening in a way that makes the physics more intuitive.

51:15 That’s why I encourage people to sketch. Even rough sketches help clarify thinking. When you try to draw something, you discover what you don’t understand.

51:38 And it’s a communication tool. A quick sketch can convey an idea faster than a page of text or equations. It gets everyone on the same page, literally.

52:00 We do a lot of sketching at Astro Mechanica. Whiteboards are everywhere. It’s part of the culture - ideas get explored visually before they get analyzed formally.

52:22 And when you’re doing something novel, that visual exploration is especially important. You’re not just applying known formulas - you’re inventing new approaches. Visualization helps with that creativity.

52:45 Not everyone thinks this way, and that’s fine. Some people are more comfortable with equations and abstractions. The important thing is using whatever mode of thinking works best for you.

53:08 But I do think hands-on experience helps develop visual/spatial intuition. The more you’ve physically built, the more concrete your mental models become.

53:30 That’s why I always go back to building. It’s not just about the artifacts you create. It’s about the intuition you develop through the act of creation.

53:54 Building planes and engines is a form of creative expression for me. It’s how I express myself, how I make my ideas real in the world.

54:16 Some people paint or write music or create software. I build machines that fly. It’s the same creative impulse expressed in a different medium.

54:38 And there’s something deeply satisfying about it. When you’ve built something with your own hands and it actually works - it flies, it runs, it does what you designed it to do - that’s an incredible feeling.

55:00 I think everyone needs some form of creative outlet. For me, it happens to be engineering. But the underlying drive is the same - the need to make something, to leave your mark on the world.

55:22 Building a company is another form of creation. You’re creating an organization, a culture, a system that can outlast you. That’s creative work too.

55:45 And the two are connected. The company exists to enable the engineering, and the engineering gives the company purpose. They reinforce each other.

56:08 That’s why I do both. I could focus entirely on the technical work and let someone else run the business. But I want to build both the technology and the organization.

56:30 The CEO role is about creating the conditions for the team to do their best work. Removing obstacles, providing resources, setting direction. That’s a creative act in itself.

56:52 And I try to stay connected to the technical work even as the company grows. I don’t want to become just a manager. I want to keep building things, keep learning.

57:15 That’s a balance that gets harder as the company scales. There’s only so much time, and CEO responsibilities grow. But I think it’s important to stay technical.

57:38 The best technical leaders I know, even at big companies, stay connected to the details. They can still look at a design and have an opinion. They haven’t lost the craft.

58:00 That’s what I aspire to. Growing the company while staying close to the technology. Building the organization and building the machines.

58:22 It’s a lot of work, but it’s the right kind of work. Work that matters, that builds something lasting, that expresses who you are.

58:56 I started with a vague idea and sharpened it over time. The vision wasn’t fully formed from the beginning - it emerged through exploration and iteration.

59:18 I knew I wanted to build fast aircraft. I knew I cared about making flight more accessible. But the specific approach - supersonic jets for the private market - that emerged over time.

59:40 And it continues to evolve. As we learn more, we adjust our plans. The core vision stays constant - fast, affordable travel - but the tactics adapt.

1:00:02 I think that’s healthy. Being too rigid about your plan means missing opportunities and persisting with things that aren’t working. Being too flexible means losing focus.

1:00:25 The skill is knowing what’s core to your vision and what’s just one possible approach. The core should be unchanging. The approach should adapt based on what you learn.

1:00:48 For me, the core is making travel dramatically faster and cheaper. Everything else - specific technology choices, market segments, business models - those are all means to that end.

1:01:10 And I try to keep that distinction clear for the team. Here’s what we’re committed to. Here’s what we’re still figuring out. That clarity helps people make decisions autonomously.

1:01:32 When everyone understands the core vision, they can make good decisions without checking with leadership every time. They know what would be consistent with the vision.

1:01:55 That’s empowering for the team and efficient for the company. You can move faster when decisions don’t all have to go through a central bottleneck.

1:02:18 But it requires investing in communication. Making sure everyone really understands the vision, not just knows the words. That takes time and repetition.

1:02:40 I probably talk about the vision more than people want to hear. But that repetition is important. It ensures alignment even as the team grows.

1:03:16 There’s a tension between trying to tell a story and just building something. Investors want a narrative. They want to understand where you’re going and why.

1:03:38 But the best products often don’t come from following a narrative. They come from exploration, from trying things and seeing what works. That’s messier than a clean story.

1:04:00 My preference is to build first and tell the story later. Let the work speak for itself. When you have working hardware, the story becomes obvious.

1:04:22 But you do need some story to raise money and attract talent. You can’t be completely silent about what you’re doing. So there’s a balance.

1:04:45 I try to keep the storytelling minimal and honest. Here’s what we’ve built. Here’s what we’re trying to do next. Here’s why we think we can succeed.

1:05:08 Not grand visions about changing the world - those often come across as empty. Just concrete progress and concrete plans. Let people draw their own conclusions.

1:05:30 The investors who are right for us appreciate that approach. They want to back builders, not storytellers. They evaluate based on technical progress, not narrative quality.

1:05:52 And the team we want is similar. People who care about building things, who want to work on hard technical problems. They’re not motivated by hype.

1:06:15 So the honest, building-focused approach also serves as a filter. It attracts the right people and investors while filtering out those who might not be a good fit.

1:06:38 That’s been intentional from the beginning. Build a culture where substance matters more than style. Where progress is measured in hardware, not PowerPoints.

1:07:00 It means we might raise less money or get less press than companies that are better at storytelling. But I think it leads to better outcomes in the long run.

1:07:22 The companies that succeed in aerospace are the ones that actually build things that work. All the storytelling in the world can’t substitute for that.

1:07:45 So I focus on the building. The story will follow from that. And when the story is backed by real accomplishments, it’s much more compelling anyway.

1:17:44 Emmett Shear’s framework of seed and soil is useful. The seed is your idea or technology. The soil is the environment - market conditions, regulations, available talent, funding climate.

1:18:08 The same seed can flourish or fail depending on the soil. Timing matters. Being in the right place matters. Having the right people around you matters.

1:18:30 For supersonic aviation, I think the soil is improving. Materials and computing are better. Interest in high-speed travel is growing. Regulatory environment is becoming more favorable.

1:18:52 Ten years ago, this would have been much harder. Twenty years ago, probably impossible. The soil wasn’t ready. But now I think it is.

1:19:15 That’s partly why I’m doing this now. Not because I couldn’t have tried earlier, but because the conditions are right now in a way they weren’t before.

1:19:38 Recognizing those conditions is part of the entrepreneurial skill. Reading the environment, understanding what’s possible now that wasn’t possible before.

1:20:00 And being patient when conditions aren’t right. Not forcing something before its time. Waiting for the soil to be ready, or finding soil that’s already fertile.

1:20:22 Geography matters too. Silicon Valley has certain kinds of soil - lots of tech talent, venture capital, entrepreneurial culture. Other places have different strengths.

1:20:45 For aerospace, you need different soil than for software. You need people who can build physical things, supply chains for hardware, facilities for testing.

1:21:08 Finding the right location is part of the challenge. Not just where you’re headquartered, but where you build, where you test, where you recruit.

1:21:30 And sometimes you have to create your own soil. Build the team that doesn’t exist yet. Develop the supplier relationships. Create the culture you need.

1:21:52 That’s slower and harder than planting in fertile soil. But sometimes it’s necessary, especially for novel technologies that don’t fit existing ecosystems.

1:22:15 We’ve had to do some of that at Astro Mechanica. Building capabilities that didn’t exist, training people in skills that aren’t common. Creating our own soil.

1:22:38 It’s an investment, but it pays off. When you’ve built your own soil, you have something competitors can’t easily replicate. It becomes a moat.

1:27:57 I try to do things that bring me joy and energy. Not just what seems strategically optimal, but what actually energizes me day to day.

1:28:20 Building aircraft engines brings me joy. Leading a team of talented engineers brings me joy. Working on hard problems that matter brings me joy.

1:28:42 When you’re energized by your work, you work better. You have more stamina, more creativity, more resilience. Energy is a force multiplier.

1:29:05 And startups are marathons, not sprints. If you’re not energized by what you’re doing, you’ll burn out before you succeed. Joy is a survival strategy.

1:29:28 That doesn’t mean every moment is fun. There’s plenty of hard, tedious, frustrating work. But the overall direction should be energizing.

1:29:50 I try to structure my time to maximize the energizing activities. Delegate or automate the things that drain me. Spend time on the things that feed me.

1:30:12 And I try to build a team that works the same way. People doing work that energizes them, in roles that fit their strengths. Happy teams perform better.

1:30:35 This isn’t about avoiding hard work. It’s about finding the hard work that you’re suited for, that you find meaningful. Hard work can be energizing if it’s the right hard work.

1:30:58 For me, the hard technical problems are energizing. The administrative stuff less so. So I try to minimize admin and maximize technical engagement.

1:31:20 As the company grows, that gets harder to maintain. But I keep trying. Because I know that my contribution is better when I’m energized.

1:31:42 And I try to model that for the team. Show that it’s okay to optimize for energy, not just for productivity. Trust that energy leads to better outcomes.

1:32:05 The conventional wisdom is that you should do whatever’s most important, regardless of how you feel about it. But I think that underweights the importance of energy and engagement.

1:32:28 The best work comes from people who are energized by what they’re doing. Creating conditions for that energy is leadership, not indulgence.

1:32:35 Keeping the product vision in your head is essential. You need to be able to see the whole system, understand how the pieces fit together.

1:32:58 That mental model guides all the decisions. When you’re making a tradeoff in one component, you need to understand how it affects the whole.

1:33:20 No document or diagram can capture the full richness of that mental model. It’s built from experience, from thinking about the system constantly.

1:33:42 That’s why I try to stay close to all parts of the technology. Not micromanaging, but understanding. Keeping the mental model current.

1:34:05 And I try to spread that understanding across the team. Help others build their own mental models. When everyone sees the whole, decisions get better.

1:34:28 That’s what design reviews are really about. Not just checking individual components, but making sure everyone’s mental model is aligned.

1:34:50 When the team shares a mental model, collaboration becomes fluid. You don’t need extensive documentation because everyone already understands.

1:35:12 Building that shared understanding takes time and intentional effort. But it’s worth the investment. It makes everything else easier.

1:35:35 And it’s one of those things that doesn’t scale automatically. As the team grows, you have to work harder to maintain the shared understanding.

1:35:58 That’s one of the challenges of growing an aerospace company. The systems are so complex that no one person can hold it all. You need distributed understanding.

1:36:20 But someone needs to hold the overall vision. To be the keeper of the product concept. That’s part of the CEO role in a hardware company.

1:36:42 You don’t need to know every detail, but you need to understand how the details fit together. How to make the tradeoffs. What matters most.

1:37:05 That’s what I try to bring. The systems-level perspective that keeps the whole project coherent. Making sure we’re building one integrated system, not a collection of components.

1:37:28 And it’s what makes the work interesting. Seeing how everything connects. Understanding the system at multiple levels of abstraction. That’s the intellectual joy of systems engineering.

1:37:50 When you can hold that vision clearly, you can make better decisions faster. You see the implications of choices that others might miss.

1:38:12 That’s the skill I’m always trying to develop. Clearer mental models. Better understanding of how the pieces fit. More accurate intuition about what will work.

1:38:35 It’s never perfect. The system is always more complex than my model of it. But getting closer to reality is the goal. Making the map match the territory.

1:38:58 And that’s what we’re all doing at Astro Mechanica. Building understanding. Building hardware. Building the future of fast travel.