Today I walk with @bscholl, founder and CEO of @boomsupersonic. Blake was roughly @amazon's 200th engineer, spent more than a decade building XB-1 into the first supersonic jet made outside a government or military, got the US ban on supersonic flight repealed after breaking the sound barrier, and now he's scaling Boom toward carrying passengers in 2030. He gets into the six years Boom spent waiting on @RollsRoyce for an engine, and why that breakup turned out to be the best gift the company ever got. We get into: - Why he'd rather be a "dark matter entrepreneur" who tried and failed than spend his life asking "what if?" - The six years Boom spent trying to get Rolls-Royce to build a custom engine, and why losing that deal is what made the business financially viable. - Why "work on something you know about" is terrible advice, since what you know is far easier to change than what you love. - How a parenting lesson turned into the practice that built candour inside Boom's staff meetings. So much more! (00:00) Trailer (00:41) Intro (01:39) The day XB-1 broke the sound barrier (05:40) 2,000 pounds overweight and called the Theranos of aviation (09:15) How big a dent can we make in the universe (12:01) Bill Gates and the dark matter entrepreneur (14:55) Mom's advice: work on something you already know (17:12) The flying lesson at 19 that decided everything (23:17) Starting Boom with three kids under two (24:39) The mistake dinner that became a staff meeting (27:22) Why the Rolls-Royce breakup was the best gift Boom got (30:37) Brian Chesky and permission to make the big swing (34:29) Amazon at engineer 200 and automating ads at 22 (37:58) Congestion price the entire road network (40:12) "I'd be proud of you for trying" (43:58) The $750K prize to fly supersonic (44:33) Outro Full episode: