Venture with Grace
00:01:27 · Austin Spiegel
[00:01:27] S1: Yes. Yeah. Correct. Correct. But... Yeah. No. Happy to happy to share. I think... Yeah. So, as you mentioned, I studied computer science for games at USC. Part of that was I enjoyed, you know, math and science, but also had this passion for filmmaking and quickly realized that I wasn't going to be a filmmaker, but I could kind of combine the two in games. And USC has this really unique program where you get to study computer science, and then you also get to build games with the interactive media department in the film school. So it kind of combined both of the things that I was really interested in. But I think what I learned, through that process, and then later when I was at Riot Games as well, is that, you know, games is really, an industry of passion. People that work in games really love games, and they play games all the time. And that just was something that didn't resonate with me. I mean, I certainly was a gamer growing up and and into high school, but once I got into the workforce, it's it's just something that I didn't that I didn't keep up with. So I think, you know, really, like, to me, the the clear kinda early career lesson that I had from joining SpaceX. So, I happened to, you know, meet Elon and his team at USC, applied for an internship, interviewed, took the internship, actually took my last semester of school off to go intern at SpaceX, ended up interning there for six months. And, this was in 2015, so you can imagine the options that were available and what, like, a young or someone coming out of a computer science program would want to go work on, like Snapchat, Google, Facebook, any of the kind of large Internet companies. But I I found something that I was really excited about at SpaceX, was, you know, building software to manufacture, test, and operate, spacecraft and rockets. That's not something that you're typically exposed to. And the thing that I really appreciate about SpaceX was just as a really early part of my career, was able to... I was given a ton of responsibility. And I think seeking out that responsibility even while taking, you know, maybe lower than industry pay or, you know, not the coolest company at that time, that was definitely a worthwhile experience and a great way to start my career.
00:03:45 · Grace Gong, Austin Spiegel
[00:03:45] S0: I have so many questions. One is like, when you guys were... First of all, when you guys were DM ing Elon Musk, what would you say in the email to be like, Hey, do you want to join our dinner or something as students? [00:03:59] S1: Yeah, yeah. So this specific extracurricular program was a collection of students from engineering, business and design that would come together every semester, and it was typically, like, 20 to 30 students. And then you would build a, you know, a a prototype of a of a business or an application. It was kind of modeled on on Y Combinator, but it was entirely student run. So it was a bit, and it's still around, and they've done a month... They've, you know, really grown and they've done a great job. I'm actually going to speak tomorrow at the program. But the... Basically, we're just saying, like, hey. Look. We're, you know, we're a hand selected group of 30 students at USC that takes a semester to go and build a product, and we're really interested in hosting you for and dinner with learning about your business journey. And I think, you know, we sent out a number of these. I did actually send an email to Evan Spiegel as well. And and the tax... You know, I was like a a college student, so I was like, I'm your long lost brother. That that didn't go anywhere. But, we were... We managed to get Elon to come join us.
00:05:08 · Grace Gong
[00:05:08] S0: Oh, I love that. So I'm glad that Elon thing worked out. So when you were like, maybe this is such a niche question to ask, I guess when you were interacting with him, did you get the internship immediately? Was it default or was it, like, you know, did you kind of develop the interest in, like, space because of the conversation with him is, like, so interesting? Or did you kind of, like, feel like it's a... I guess, like, because of you guys are, like, such a selective group, and then they're like, oh, default. Like, everybody get, like, internship or something. How did you kind of like basically like created like an opportunity for yourself basically from that?
00:05:47 · Austin Spiegel, Grace Gong
[00:05:47] S1: Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, basically we have this dinner. He actually showed up like an hour late. I think he spent forty five minutes to an hour with us. It was a fireside chat and then a q and a. So there really wasn't a lot of time to, you know, interact with him. And honestly, like, looking back on it now that I've seen him up, obviously, at SpaceX and, he's he's such a public figure, like, lot of the stories he shared are the stories that he kind of always shares. Right? Mhmm. But I didn't even think... Like, I've I've always been a fan of space. I didn't really think to even apply for an internship at SpaceX at that point in time. It was actually, like, a month after that when I had been looking for an internship candidly, and I had heard some other people had submitted their resume through US chief of staff who was at dinner with us, that it kind of occurred to me that, you know, maybe I should take this shot. And then I applied, happened to get an interview, had a couple of interviews, then got an offer. But it wasn't like this, oh, have this conversation and get the job. It was just, I think probably the best part about it is my resume got to the top of the step. [00:06:57] S0: I love that. I feel like that definitely sets it apart because of what you're constantly taking actions that it really puts out the signal in the universe. I know it sounds like we're right now, but okay. So I wanna talk about, like... So you got, like, 50 something SpaceX people to invest in your company when you guys first started. Right?
00:06:57 · Grace Gong, Austin Spiegel
[00:06:57] S0: I love that. I feel like that definitely sets it apart because of what you're constantly taking actions that it really puts out the signal in the universe. I know it sounds like we're right now, but okay. So I wanna talk about, like... So you got, like, 50 something SpaceX people to invest in your company when you guys first started. Right? [00:07:16] S1: Yeah. Well, so we actually have a... One of our first investor, a guy named, Scott Norman at Earthrise Ventures. He's a former SpaceX engineer. He left in 2012, went to go work in Silicon Valley. He worked for, one of Peter Thiel's Venture funds. He struck out on his own, I think, around 2020 or 2021, and he founded a venture fund with another ex SpaceX here. And I actually met him at a happy hour, for another software for hardware business. I pitched him this idea. He was really excited. He was immediately ready to write a check. Ultimately, I told him, like, why don't we go do some research and really prove that there's an opportunity here? But most of his LPs are actually x SpaceX folks. So, kind of by proxy, we've got a lot of ex SpaceX folks on the cap table there. And then of course, he's invested in subsequent rounds and then we've had some angels as well.
00:08:14 · Grace Gong
[00:08:14] S0: I guess, when you were thinking about pivot into a company, so obviously you guys have built the software or the cloud product within SpaceX before. What was the original idea look like? Did it do a huge pivot later on? Do you feel like you guys are still building the original vision? And how do you really test out the market? Because I feel in anything space, it sounds like it's going to be an industry that's like have a really long sales cycle. And then there's only five company that does nowadays, there's like a trillion people that does something in space. But I feel like it is a market that's more of like a... It's not like the SaaS market, which is everyone's buying every tool all the time, but nowadays it's like AI. What does a market opportunity look like and how do you validate the idea at the very beginning?