From NASA's Mars Lander to a $1B Startup: Why Engineers Will Run the Next Decade

Bryce Strauss (0:00)

When we took investment from Sequoia Capital, I met this wonderful partner there who taught me the phrase to be the most demanding leader, but be the most supportive leader they've ever worked for. It has been uncool to be a mechanical engineer for the last 20 years, but we rely on them every day, and I think the next 10 years is gonna be defined by how successful they are. And that's why we exist. The hiring manager found someone, and that person made it through the technical process that a bunch of others had failed, and they made it to the founder interview, and I went to dinner with them, and I was like, they suck. They did nothing but talk negatively about their circumstances, the people around them, everything was someone else's fault. I do a final interview with everyone joining Nominal. I have them stack rank the risks that they have with joining Nominal, and I speak as clearly as I possibly can to each, and I usually amplify them rather than mitigate them. Nominal will win if we create a talent arbitrage machine.

Jessica Neal (0:57)

What would happen if we just told the truth? Welcome to TruthWorks, where we dig into the nitty-gritty of leadership and work, and what needs to change. I'm Jessica Neal, and I'm Patty McCord. Our journey together started in HR, but trust us, it's evolved into something wild, honest, and well, a bit rebellious. So throw out the handbook. We're here to redefine rules to work for us, not against us. Let's dive into another episode.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of TruthWorks. I am your host, Jessica Neal, and I am going solo today. But that is okay with me because I was just chatting with our guest before we started recording, and I think you-all are going to love this episode. It is going to be fantastic.

First of all, we're both in Texas, which we should be in person right now. We totally should be. But we didn't know that, so next time, we'll do it in person. But my guest today is Bryce Strauss, and he is the co-founder and CEO of a company called Nominal. Bryce has a very interesting story which he is going to tell us all about. But he started his career in aerospace, and was working for the likes of Lockheed Martin, and worked on NASA's Project Juno, his mission to Jupiter, which is kind of cool, and most of us have not ever done anything like that, so that's amazing. But he got this itch while he was working, and I'm going to have him tell you all about the itch, which actually allowed him to go off and create this company Nominal.

They're going to tell us all about. But Bryce, welcome to the show, and always nice to meet a fellow Texan.

Bryce Strauss (2:54)

Amen.

Yeah. I have found a way to bear the summer, but it is undoubtedly wonderful to meet someone from, especially small town Texas, because a lot of my heart is in actual small town Texas. But I'm in the big city now, Austin, and I worked on ground and can drink matcha and stuff. But life's good.

Jessica Neal (3:19)

Yeah. No. In my small town in Kentucky, we did not have anything like a matcha. Totally.

Bryce Strauss (3:24)

Totally. My small town is just like a Starbucks.

Jessica Neal (3:27)

Wow. I don't even think my small town has that. Yeah. It might. I need to go look. It has grown, but that's not what we're here to talk about. We're going to talk about you.

I guess, take us a little bit back in time. I always like to go back with the guest because you were an engineer, and the way that I understand this story is you're working on some stuff, you're pretty important stuff obviously. Maybe.

Like getting something to Jupiter, and you get a little frustrated because the tools aren't good. So tell us the story. What happened?

Bryce Strauss (4:04)

Yeah. I'll take you even further back.

I grew up in rural Texas and was obsessed with math and science, and both my parents are teachers. I had a wonderful mom who helped me see what a career in something like engineering could be. Didn't know any engineers, but went to college to study aerospace engineering. What would be cooler to build than rockets, and satellites, and airplanes as a career?

Jessica Neal (4:28)

Yeah.

Bryce Strauss (4:29)

Got to go live that dream. I became really, really obsessed with space and satellites, and how do you build things to survive the environments of space and go accomplish goals and missions in space. I joined this group out of college. It's a group out of Lockheed Martin. They work in Denver. It's a four-story building in Denver. You would just never know how cool it is because the first two floors are where they build these robots to go to other planets and learn about them. The third floor is where they run mission operations, and the fourth floor is where we design them. I got to land in this group and just like, I'll just say follow my curiosity in a lot of fun ways. But I started in the mission operations group. How do you actually take these satellites in space and make sure they can accomplish their mission?