00:50:41 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:50:41] S1: What's been the biggest, like, evolution of your own kind of internal philosophy on how you operate the business and just operate day to day over the past couple of years? [00:50:51] S0: It would be interesting to ask somebody else that question, because in my mind it feels like exactly the same. I don't feel like I've changed my management style or people my expectations of people or the way we run the business has changed at all. You know, there's certain things that change because they have to, like you're a publicly traded company, so you have to do some things differently. But I would I would... You'd have to ask somebody else, because at least to me, it just feels like this is the way that it's always been done. [00:51:22] S1: SpaceX and Elon decided to go public, and for a very long time, for more than twenty years at the company, he was like, I don't even know if SpaceX will ever go public. Yeah. Because he didn't know that public market investors were the type of folks that would be interested in, you know, experiencing failure like that. How did you make the decision to go public in the first place?
00:51:22 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:51:22] S1: SpaceX and Elon decided to go public, and for a very long time, for more than twenty years at the company, he was like, I don't even know if SpaceX will ever go public. Yeah. Because he didn't know that public market investors were the type of folks that would be interested in, you know, experiencing failure like that. How did you make the decision to go public in the first place? [00:51:42] S0: Well, for us, it was always part of the plan, because it's for a selfish reason and a non selfish reason. So, you know, the selfish reason is, you know, the only thing my parents ever said to me is we don't care what you do as long as you have impact. So, choose something in your life that you can have impact and, you know, contribute to the human history, basically. So, you know, for me, that was space, and I think that you can have a meaningful impact. But I measure impact in not just like a blip in history. I measure impact in, you know, a long, consistent, you know, thing over a long period of time. [00:52:24] S1: Like an enduring thing?
00:52:25 · Peter Beck
[00:52:25] S0: Totally enduring. And one of the reasons why I was very adamant to take the company public was a public company, it's a like, if you do it right, that is a fact, like, many generations of Rocket Lab can go by, and this company can be successful for a very long time and by default have impact, and then I've done what I was supposed to do. So, that's super important. And also, being a public company, it really enforces the diligence and, you know, the rigor to be successful. If you're a private company, especially if you're a private company and you don't have problems raising capital, then, you know, you're just fat and happy for ages until you're not. And there's no, like, extreme For and function? Yeah, no fortune and function or extreme pressure to develop a product, to get it profitable, to make the company sustainable. Like, you know, there's a lot of checks and balances and a lot of pressure as a public company to make sure that those things become true. And those things ultimately, you know, create longevity. And then, you know, as a spin off, then they also, you know, create value. So, you know, I had a lot of investors invest in the company and, you know, want to return that value back to them. And, you know, any venture capitalist that invested in the company, we've made their whole fund back, which is great. And also, you know, the staff have done really well and all of our investors. So, you know, our obligation is to continue, you know, to grow the value of this company, which I think is important as well. So, like I say, there's... I kind of view it as slightly selfish that I'm trying to... I want to build this company that way, way outlives me and can go on and have, you know, a long, long impact.
00:54:13 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:54:13] S1: Is there any decisions that you make with that kind of understanding of this, like, multi decade, you're in this basically until the day that you die, understanding the back of your mind that you might not make if you weren't planning on trying to create this super enduring institution almost? [00:54:27] S0: Well, I mean, if you look at this, there's a lot of space companies out there where if their founders and leaders die, I think you'd have to question whether or not that company would continue. [00:54:37] S1: I think Elon's one of them. I think the keeper of the soul of those companies is Elon, and the second that he leaves.
00:54:37 · Ty Morse, Peter Beck
[00:54:37] S1: I think Elon's one of them. I think the keeper of the soul of those companies is Elon, and the second that he leaves. [00:54:45] S0: Yeah, well, I mean, there's more than that as well. Mean, there's others there as well, and I just didn't want to be one of those companies. Like, I mean, I want this thing to go on forever. So, you know, that's kind of, you know, a critical point. And I'm also a realist, like, you know, there'll be a point in time where, you know, there's other people that can run this company better than I can, or I just get too old and I'm, you know, I'm like that guy trying to log into his laptop and not being able to do it because it's So, you know, everybody that comes to this company knows that you have a fine up period of time at Rocket Lab, and that fine up period of time might be that you just get exhausted and you want to do something else, or there's other younger, better people that better than you and you'll be replaced, and the same goes for me. Like, there'll be a point in time where there's a better person to run this company, and, you know, I want to make sure that when that happens, this thing doesn't stop. [00:55:41] S1: If you have a whole bunch of cash in your bank account, it's pretty easy to graph, you know, how long do we have as far as runway goes. [00:55:46] S0: Yep.
00:55:46 · Peter Beck, Ty Morse
[00:55:46] S0: Yep. [00:55:47] S1: But when do you want to be, like, a profitable business so that you just are, like, operating off of... You know, you're able to make these big bets and you're completely, like, with the understanding that your other bets that you've made have succeeded, and they're able to fund them.