Guest: Blake Scholl, Founder & CEO of Boom Supersonic

“Passion and drive trumps knowledge and experience,” says Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl. Long before he was running Boom — which earlier this year successfully tested the world’s first privately-developed supersonic jet — he was enabling “the world’s most obnoxious spam cannon” at Groupon, or designing a barcode-scanning game for retail shoppers.

But eventually, Blake found the courage to be more audacious and do something closer to his lifelong love of aviation. He began educating himself about things he had never thought to learn, and tapping his LinkedIn network to get intros to the smartest people in the industry.

“If you imagine yourself on like the day of IPO, 99 percent of what you needed to know to get to that day, you didn't know on day one,” he says. “So, why not take 99 percent to 99.5 percent, and work on the thing you really want to exist, even if you don't know anything about it yet?”

Chapters:

(01:07) - Blake on Boom’s beginnings
(01:52) - Breaking the sound barrier
(05:23) - Concorde’s legacy
(09:36) - Navigating regulations
(12:08) - Boomless supersonic flight
(16:48) - The test flight
(20:11) - Day-of nervousness
(24:26) - Carrying passengers
(26:55) - Cost & wi-fi
(30:19) - “No middle seats”
(32:35) - Hard tech
(36:48) - What if Apple made a plane?
(39:08) - Blake’s career journey
(43:29) - The risk of failure
(49:12) - Finding the courage
(52:49) - Balancing life with Boom
(56:42) - Learning how to build a jet
(01:00:20) - The power of LinkedIn
(01:02:38) - Y Combinator Demo Day
(01:08:24) - Richard Branson
(01:11:38) - Dividing yourself
(01:14:19) - Being a focused dad
(01:20:05) - Exuberance vs. fear
(01:24:15) - Hiring slowly
(01:27:17) - What “grit” means to Blake

Mentioned in this episode: Chuck Yeager, ChatGPT, the Apollo program, Elon Musk, SpaceX and Falcon 1, Boom Overture, Starlink, Boeing, Airbus, iPhone, Jony Ive, Uber, Airbnb, Anduril, United Airlines, American Airlines, Eclipse Aviation, Tesla, Scott Kirby, Mike Leskinen, Inktomi, Yahoo!, Amazon, Pelago, Google Ads, Kima Labs, Barcode Hero, Groupon, iPad, Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs, Khan Academy, Sam Altman, Loopt, Virgin Atlantic, Paul Graham, Michael Seibel, Ashlee Vance, Bloomberg, Hacker News, Jared Friedman, Sen. Mark Kelly, SV Angel, Ron Conway, Virgin Galactic, Lockheed Martin, Gulfstream, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Holden, and How It’s Made.

Links:

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This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#233: Boom's Blake Scholl on Supersonic Flight & Risking It All

Grit