00:03:05 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:03:05] S1: What do you think is the big reason that governments have been, like, less effective at building, like, space programs and making it so you can basically build a lot of rockets? [00:03:15] S0: Yeah. I think I think it's a couple of things. It's like anything where it's incredibly difficult requires a nation worth of, you know, talent and energy, and you can't make any money at it, those are the things that governments are really good at. The moment that a few of those things aren't true, like, you can make some money at it, and it doesn't require a nation of energy to achieve it, then that naturally democratizes into commercial entities. And, you know, that's exactly what's happened with space. Like, it no longer takes a nation to build a satellite. You know, a few college kids in a dorm can go and build a little satellite. [00:03:53] S1: I think on another podcast that I was listening to, you basically said New Zealand has, like, this culture of not really wanting successful people or something something to that effect. Is there like a big tall poppy syndrome situation happening?
00:03:53 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:03:53] S1: I think on another podcast that I was listening to, you basically said New Zealand has, like, this culture of not really wanting successful people or something something to that effect. Is there like a big tall poppy syndrome situation happening? [00:04:05] S0: Yeah, I mean, is a, you know, kind of that tall poppy syndrome in New Zealand, but I would say, you know, over time I've realized that it's really just a construct of the New Zealand media. Actual mum and dad at home wants everybody to succeed. And I think that's true in most countries where, you know, if successful entities or people, you know, they get sort of beaten down, it's generally, you know, mums and dads at home are just super stoked to see someone win. I think it's like I said, it feels like, you know, to me, largely a construct of the media. [00:04:38] S1: Elon started SpaceX with, it must have been like $100,000,000 You did not have that same amount of cash sitting in your in your bank account. [00:04:46] S0: $100? [00:04:47] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even on the wall back there, it says that you were like a billion dollar company in 2017. Yeah. You almost got to, I think, orbit before reaching a billion dollar valuation, which is fucking nuts. How did you build the company differently because you didn't have that massive pile of cash?
00:04:47 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:04:47] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even on the wall back there, it says that you were like a billion dollar company in 2017. Yeah. You almost got to, I think, orbit before reaching a billion dollar valuation, which is fucking nuts. How did you build the company differently because you didn't have that massive pile of cash? [00:05:01] S0: Yeah. Well, I mean, and that is what has created some of the magic in the company even today is we knew that we could never outspend our competitors. That was just never ever going to be a thing. And, you know, the reason why the Rutherford engine is named Rutherford in the Electron Rocket, it's not after... It's after Ernest Rutherford, but not for the many reasons people think. It's named after Ernest Rutherford because he had a very famous saying, and that was, We have no money, so we have to think. [00:05:32] S1: I definitely align with that philosophy.
00:05:34 · Peter Beck
[00:05:34] S0: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. So, you know, I can remember at the start of Rocket Lab, I would go to wrecking or junkyards to machine and crawl over old machines and unscrew all of the Swagelok fittings and you know because we couldn't afford to buy the Swagelok fittings we could buy the ferrules which were $3 I think $3.20 each but a fitting was like $50. So, you know, the first few, you know, vehicles and bits of infrastructure all use secondhand fittings because we just couldn't afford new fittings. And that kind of, I guess, hardship, you know, really cements, you know, part of the key cultures in this company. Like, and if you look across the space industry, especially amongst, you know, companies that went public, most of them are toast. And, you know, that core kind of, you know, responsibility for, you know, good steward of capital and value is, you know, exists here today. Every dollar, every second of the hour is valuable here. Whereas other companies, you know, if they've got heaps of resources, then, you know, it's less valuable. If you look at it, it's like, if money could solve the space problems, then there would be a lot of success. Like, money does not solve this problem. When I was trying to raise money for Rocket Lab, you know, to do the Electron project, there was, you know, Richard Branson out there with his Virgin Orbit, and, you know, Richard had 1,200,000,000 to do what we did with 80,000,000. And, you know, it doesn't matter at this, you know, how much how much money that was ultimately spent then. You know, that was a commercial and technical failure, whereas, you know, Electron with far less resources was the opposite.
00:07:24 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:07:24] S1: How do you think about deciding where to take and spend your energy and time and resources, like, on scaling Electron versus building Neutron and kind of trying to build a full reusable vehicle? [00:07:35] S0: Yeah. Well, I mean, so so firstly, the launch part of the house only represents one third of the company. Two thirds is actually the space systems side of the house. So, with regard to being spread everywhere, it's like, you know, launch by default only, you know, gets a, you know, a section of my time. But, you know, we've got an amazing team, and, you know, the Electron team are just, you know, they're just animals. So, they're just banging those vehicles out and launching them, and like, they're just... So, quite frankly, there's very little involvement I have with the Electron team. Really? Oh, yeah, they're just, like [00:08:12] S1: I say, they're animals, they're just banging them away. Were you, like, highly involved right at the start of the production of the Electron, or?
00:08:12 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:08:12] S1: I say, they're animals, they're just banging them away. Were you, like, highly involved right at the start of the production of the Electron, or? [00:08:17] S0: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and I came from a production background as well, so, you know, knew what good production looks like, but no, I'd say the team down there now is just, you know, they're just amazing. So, that's a very, very light touch product for me personally, because the team's just so good. Whereas Electron, you know, we're deep in development, so, you know, that's a very high touch area from an engineering perspective I'm involved with. And then, you know, across the whole rest of the space systems and organisations, I mean, you know, we've got a bunch of kind of business units that supply the vast majority of components that are in satellites. And, you know, those guys are killing it as well. I mean, we've developed, I would say, know, Rocket Lab operating system where, you know, the production team is really good at, you know, getting into these, like, hideously complex components and figuring ways figuring out ways to make them highly producible and highly reliable. [00:09:17] S1: What about your culture enables you to be able to tackle these massively difficult problems and do it in an efficient way?